Do you make your OCD an Enemy or a Friend?

You can make it a friend or just be indifferent to it. But making it an enemy means you’re going to fight against it as you naturally do with enemies—and that is NOT how you get better.

It’s very effective for me to think of it as a bully, but like the person above said, there’s a difference between arguing and engaging with it or pushing it away, and allowing it to be there while consciously deciding to make a choice that is values driven and not OCD driven. I just had this exact conversation with my therapist yesterday about my confusion around whether to think of it as a part in IFS vs a bully. I think the answer is somewhere in between. I had an old mentor describe her negative voice as a vulture that hangs over her head. Whenever it would try to talk to her, she’d acknowledge it and say to it “I see you, I love you (because you helped protect me at one time), but you’re not in charge today.” I hope this helps ❤️

This is a really interesting question! And one I’ve thought about in my own recovery, too. I’m happy to share the way I see OCD. A lot of times people use the metaphor of OCD being a “bully” that you can choose how to respond to. Responding with anger/picking fights with it makes it stronger because that’s what it’s looking for: to get your attention. On the other hand, if you give into the bully’s demands, you are also giving it more power. The best way, then, is to observe the bully and decide to keep doing what you were doing in spite of the bully. In ERP this looks like acknowledging a thought/feeling exists, and then choosing not to engage in the content of an obsession. Sometimes gratitude also works for me, saying “Thanks, but I’m not going to figure that out right now.” If it works for you to offer gratitude and compassion like in IFS parts work, I don’t see the harm in it! As long as behaviorally you are still doing what YOU want and not what OCD is telling you to do. This article on Non-Engagement Responses has more examples: https://iocdf.org/expert-opinions/how-do-i-stop-thinking-about-this-what-to-do-when-youre-stuck-playing-mental-ping-pong/ I hope this is helpful!

Thanks everyone. I feel like this year i really got myself into a pickle, when i realized I couldn't accept the OCD because it is by nature unacceptable, i was beating myself up with shame. Even when i would get close it seemed like the OCD would purposely find a way to be even more abhorrent and taunt me for not being able to feel whole. I ended up starting to identify with it, becoming a total smug rage monster who felt entitled and defensive of the negative thoughts and compulsions. If I tried to understand how it was protecting me it would insist that it was just pure evil and had no redeeming qualities. I had some breakthroughs today though, i decided to evaluate my value systems and i used the demartini institutes 13 questions to find my values. It helped me make a distinction between what my values actually are and what i wish they were because of society. I realized all my true values are things i think are "wrong" because of society expectations (valuing my relationship the most must mean I'm codependent, valuing freedom means I'm lazy etc) and i realized a big part of my OCD is pathologizing / attacking the things i care about and shame for not being what the world says is "correct". I also realized that it's not that i don't accept the OCD part but that it actually the one that doesn't accept itself and the other parts of me, it's afraid to be loved for fear of abandonment so it's trying to be something it's not. I'll definitely take your advices and try to stay the course on my true value based decisions without getting entangled with that part of me. Thanks again.