Self Reassurance v Logic Thinking

For me, sometimes logical thinking and compulsions are one in the same. My whole life I thought my ocd was my fear and my compulsions were my logical self— but that isn’t the case. My therapist suggested to me that anytime I have the feeling of an ocd thought/fear, in that moment I should treat every thought like it is ocd. So if you are able to take time to do an erp and sit with the feeling of ‘maybe I will get fired, ocd’. If not, then you should tell ocd ‘I see you and I am not going to give in because nothing I will say can give you certainty’. Hope that helps!

For me, I know it’s a mental compulsion when I’m doing it as a way to negate or cancel out whatever thought OCD is throwing at me. For example, I fear death often. When my dad is working somewhere, my OCD tells me “he might fall off a ladder and die today.” I can’t offer myself a reassurance of “no, my dad is smart, he’ll be safe,” because that only causes my OCD to return. So instead, I tell myself “you know what OCD? Maybe he will, maybe he won’t.” Falling off a ladder is something that can happen to anyone. But when I try to find certainty in an imaginary scenario, I know it’s my mental compulsions kicking in. Another example is that I have a phone interview coming up. Logically, I know I may not get the job. It’s not guaranteed. So when my OCD kicked in over whether I’m going to fail horribly at this interview, I tell myself “I am going to prepare as best as I can. I am a smart person. But, I might fail, I might not.” Reminding myself I’m capable does give me a more compassionate reassurance, but I also focus on all the uncertainty. So for the line of self reassurance, ask yourself-are you offering the reassurance to be kind to yourself, to not beat yourself up? Or, are you looking for reassurance as a way to really cut back on the distress and uncertainty OCD causes? I hope that makes sense. This might take practice, but you can do this!

I also have mental compulsions, and it is so tricky to not slip into OCD spirals. What may help you is to not put too much emphasis on whether the thought is logical, because your OCD will likely latch on to that. An “illogical” thought would be “if I sneeze at work during a meeting, I’ll be fired.” That’s something anyone could agree is not likely. But if you’re worried about being fired for being late, you can recognize that it’s a possibility, but stop yourself from the rumination. Trying to separate logical from illogical, or reassurance from compulsions, is hard. If you are spiraling, or spending too much time thinking about the what-ifs, pull yourself back by stopping the rumination and sitting in uncertainty. I wouldn’t call habituating as reassurance, if you’re actively practicing sitting in the uncertainty. If you have a thought of “I’m afraid I’ll get fired,” and you compulsively look for reasons you won’t be fired, or compulsively tell yourself to negate the thought, that might be a more negative self reassurance