OCD, Values, and Chocolate Cake
What is OCD, and what does it look like?
OCD is defined as a disorder in which people have recurring, unwanted thoughts, ideas or obsessions that lead to compulsive behaviors. In an attempt to get rid of the unwanted thoughts, individuals will feel driven to do, say, or think something in response that often becomes repetitive. If these attempts, these compulsions, to “fix” the thought are denied, it often results in significant anxiety. This may be a fear that if the compulsions are interrupted or avoided some dire consequence may take place. OCD is so much more than the stereotype of being “orderly” or “highly organized.” Common obsessions include fear of contamination/germ warfare, unwanted thoughts about sexual desires, unwanted spiritual thoughts (such as fearing you have blasphemed, prayed wrong, etc.), and relational obsessions where one might find themselves asking over and over “Is this the right person? What if I’m making a mistake?” Common compulsions may include excessive hand washing, avoiding certain foods or surfaces that could be “contaminated,” checking on things (safety compulsions such as checking locks multiple times or making sure stove eyes are off, etc.), mental acts like counting, or even spiritual compulsions such as praying a certain way, reading a verse a certain amount of times, excessive confessions, etc. To be considered a disorder, these things have a certain level of distress, interference, or impairment in a person’s daily life. Many people have distressing thoughts or repetitive behaviors. It is when these become obsessive (persistent and intrusive) or interfere in one’s life that they can become a problem. People with OCD have difficulty disengaging and stopping this experience.
Analogies that will help you gain insight and move forward
(analogies derived from The ACT workbook for OCD by M Mazza)
The Hand Analogy: Imagine that your OCD is your hand. On days that are difficult, it may be like your hand is right in front of your face, so close in fact that it’s all you can see. The more you focus on the hand, the less successful you are at seeing anything else around it. You are missing the world around you and are completely lost in your obsessions and compulsions. With skills like the “a thought is just a thought” strategy (which I’ll cover soon), redirecting strategies, and a focus on values, it won’t be long until the OCD appears more like your hand if you hold it at arm’s length in front of you – it’s still present and visible, but it’s not all you can focus on. You can see all sorts of things around it. Now you’re living life again, able to see more than just the obsession. Eventually the OCD can be like a hand that’s positioned behind your back. It is still a part of you, but you aren’t living with it as the focus. How do you accomplish this? Let me give you one more helpful analogy before I share those strategies.
The Fish Analogy: Imagine you’re in a beautiful body of water. Suddenly you’re surrounded by annoying little fish. At first, you are really disturbed. In fact, you are so bothered by them that you start kicking and flailing around, trying to fight them, trying to get rid of them… but they go nowhere. All at once, you aren’t enjoying the experience anymore. You have a choice. You can choose to stay caught up in the distraction, focused on trying to fight the fish off, wasting energy and panicking, or you can choose to let the fish swim around you. You can even choose to float and enjoy the beautiful body of water as they do so. This doesn’t mean you have to like the fish or enjoy that they are now a part of your experience, it just means you aren’t trying to pointlessly struggle against them anymore. By choosing to enjoy where you are and let the fish be there, they actually become less and less interested in you, eventually leaving you alone.
“A thought is just a thought”
When someone is struggling with OCD, their obsessions are considered “egodystonic.” This is really important because it means that the thoughts they have are opposite to their values, desires, and beliefs. This person does not like the thoughts they are having. No, they are so distressed by their thoughts that they are consumed with finding a way to fix them or be rid of them by acting on compulsions.
OCD tells us a few really believable lies. The first is the lie that the thought you have had means something about you or means that something will happen if you don’t act immediately to be rid of it. This panic reaction reinforces in your brain that the thought you have had really is a scary thing that can’t be tolerated. The truth is we all have thoughts that we don’t like, thoughts that we may not want to have. The goal for someone struggling with OCD is to get to a place where they can acknowledge that the thought they had is “just a thought.” It does not require action, it is not intolerable, it does not hold some deeper meaning about the person. It is simply a thought.
Values and Chocolate Cake
If I were to say to you, “Hey this is really important… for the next 24 hours I want you to think about anything other than chocolate cake.” That would be a challenge, I’m sure because after all, chocolate cake is quite good. If I were to then stick you in a room with a big piece of chocolate cake in the middle of it, the likelihood of you being able to keep chocolate cake entirely off your mind goes down to… well, zero. You would be far more likely to succeed if you instead made a list of other things to think about, got active and took a hike, went on vacation, hung out with friends, or meditated on something else (perhaps vanilla ice-cream) instead. The truth is, the more we focus on the thoughts we don’t want (like intrusive and unwanted thoughts), the more likely we are to think the thoughts that we don’t want. If you focus instead on the things you really want in life, then guess what? You are much more likely to achieve those things. So, now the question is, what do you want? What matters to you in life? If you were to pick your top five values, what would they be? Family? Friendship? Being loving? God’s will? You’ve just found the perfect things to focus on when you’re lost in an OCD spiral. Our values are the things we live by - the things that matter the most. When you stop and think, what is more important to you than your obsessions? What value do you need to be attending to?
If this blog succeeded at raising questions or making you look a little deeper at your OCD experience, consider exploring these things a little further in therapy.
Toward Wholeness,
Michelle Waldrop