- Date posted
- 2y
What is back door spike?
I see a lot of people talking about it- what is it in terms of OCD?
I see a lot of people talking about it- what is it in terms of OCD?
Here’s an article explaining it: https://ocdrecovery.com/the-backdoor-spike/
A back door spike is anxiety that you get when you don’t get anxiety! It sounds confusing but an example would be during ERP - if you do an exposure and don’t have as much distress as you thought you would, you may get a “back door spike” of anxiety because you “aren’t anxious enough” or you worry that you enjoyed your obsession. Hope that explains it!
Another way to describe it is a loss of ability to let uncomfortable thoughts flow through our minds. It's like a fire alarm going off in our heads and an urgency to work out what these thoughts mean and what we can do about them and it's the exact reason why going to talk therapy is the worst thing that someone with OCD can do.
My soocd sufferers and recoverers, I have a question! This is my second spiral and while I hade some manageable background noise before, the spiral literally “clicked” into place a few months again and it’s been awful every single day. I’m on meds and doing some light ERP/ACT because my anxiety was so bad I lost so much weight, but I wake up feeling ok and there’s no “click” back to normal. Is there supposed to be like a moment where it’s all over or is it gradual bc if anything I “feel gay” and more accepting of that. Anyone else?
I’m a teacher, and for the last two school breaks, my harm OCD spikes regarding my girlfriend. The first one was winter break (It came back after three years), and when I was recovering, it came back in the beginning of June. Just out of nowhere. Even though I know it’s OCD, it still scares the hell out of me and I spiral for weeks and weeks. Does anyone else have spikes and relapses when there are breaks in your routine?
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