WHAT IS OCD?
OCD means that you spend a significant portion of your time and effort worrying. Obsessions are recurrent, haunting thoughts that cause you uneasiness, fear, or disgust. Compulsions are behaviors that you feel compelled to do to reduce the distress that your thoughts cause. Everyone does these things from time to time but people with OCD often feel that these thoughts and behaviors take over their lives. OCD can take many forms. Some common subtypes include:
Contamination - a fear of dirt, germs, or bodily fluids that often results in increased hygiene in an attempt to stay “clean” and avoid illness.
Harm - a persistent worry about losing control and harming yourself or someone else. This causes affected people to avoid dangerous objects and risky situations for fear of doing something unintended. This can also manifest as repeated checking of potentially dangerous objects like checking to make sure the stove is really off, checking to make sure the door is really locked, or checking to make sure the curling iron is really unplugged.
Sexual taboos - an overwhelming fear that you might be a pedophile, be sexually attracted to your family members, or be a different sexual orientation than how you identify. OCD about sexual taboos can lead to frequent scanning of your thoughts or body sensations and seeking reassurance.
Mental contamination/Existential - a preoccupation with losing control of your mental faculties and “going insane” or being somehow permanently changed by exposure to substances, people, or ideas that feel dangerous.
Religious - an overwhelming concern that you have done something morally unacceptable or blasphemous and can lead to frequent attempts to repent, reverse “bad” thoughts, or closely monitor yourself for perceived transgressions.
Just right - a preoccupation with actions needing to be completed in exactly the “right” way in order to avoid feared consequences or seemingly unbearable discomfort. This can lead to actions being repeated over and over until it feels “right.”
Symmetry - feeling an intense need for objects to line up perfectly, for sets of objects to match each other, or for extreme neatness.
Body hyper-vigilance - a preoccupation with a routine body event like blinking, swallowing, or breathing that leads to intense monitoring of this behavior so that you do it “right.” This can co-occur with a fear of catastrophe if the action is not closely watched or is performed incorrectly.
Perfectionism - an overwhelming need to do everything correctly that can often lead to a struggle to get your daily work or life tasks accomplished in a timely manner.
Most people with OCD will have two or more subtypes in their lifetimes. It is normal if you find that you used to focus on one subtype but it is no longer front and center and has been replaced by another subtype.
“I FEEL LIKE I’M CRAZY”
OCD can feel overpowering and confusing. However, you are not crazy. OCD is more common than you think. More than two percent of the world and 3 million people in the United States suffer from OCD.
OCD is a neurobiological illness that causes the threat-detection centers in your brain to be overactive, leading you to perceive danger and discomfort when there is none. These are the same mechanisms that allow you to respond effectively to real life danger like moving out of the way of an oncoming car. In OCD, these brain structures get over excited, making your brain think that it needs to keep you safe when you are exposed to your trigger thoughts.
OCD CAN GET BETTER
The most effective treatment for OCD is Cognitive Behavior Therapy focusing on Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP). ERP means that you bring yourself closer to a thought or situation that causes you distress and gently reduce your reliance on compulsions to feel better. With this approach, we can help you to identify obsessive thoughts, replace compulsions with healthy coping skills, and teach you to tolerate your distress so it stops taking over your life. Together, we can teach you to confront your obsessive thoughts while reducing your urge to do compulsions giving you greater power over your OCD.
As experts in the treatment of OCD, we at Thrive Psychotherapy know that recovery is possible. We can help you better understand your OCD and teach you to become an expert in your own treatment. You can learn to notice your inaccurate, triggering thoughts and replace them with more balanced thinking. We can teach you to be an observer of your own thoughts and emotions so that you are able to watch the patterns of your mind without being sucked down into them. It may seem impossible now, but the need to perform compulsions and the repetition of obsessive thoughts will reduce over time.
We will work at a pace that feels comfortable for you, teaching you to feel like you are in the driver’s seat of your mind. By gradually confronting obsessive thoughts and minimizing your need to do compulsions we can retrain your mind to tolerate OCD, giving you a more meaningful, enjoyable life.
“DOES GETTING HELP MEAN THAT OCD ‘WINS’?”
You may think that you can just “snap out” of your obsessive thinking and repetitive rituals, but for most people it is not that easy. You can’t snap out of it because you didn’t snap into it. OCD is a brain condition that usually requires the help of an expert to get better.
Asking for help from a professional is not admitting defeat; quite the opposite is true! If you are considering therapy you are probably fed up with how much OCD invades your life and you are ready to make a change. This is a positive step! By committing to recovery, you win – because you can foster a more meaningful, peaceful, successful life, free from the torment of OCD.
“I’M WORRIED THAT I CAN’T HANDLE EXPOSURE THERAPY”
OCD is a bully. It tells you that you can’t tolerate the distress of exposures but it’s lying to you. Exposures are challenging but you can definitely handle them. We will always perform exposures at the pace that is best for you. You may find it exciting to challenge yourself, to find that you are more capable than you thought. We will teach you healthy coping skills for when exposures get difficult and you will always have your therapist’s support as you challenge your OCD and reclaim your life.
THERAPY CAN HELP
You can overcome OCD and live a more fulfilling life; you just need the right tools. Feel free to contact Thrive Psychotherapy for a free 15-minute phone consultation. During that time we can answer any questions you may have, discuss initial goals, and determine which one of our therapists is the right fit for your work.
Read more about the myths and truths of OCD here.