OCD flared - uncomfortable!

That sounds uncomfortable! Maybe your cat has fleas, maybe he doesn’t. Try and sit in that uncertainty without doing anything for a moment. I would try and figure out if those white specs are flea eggs or not first. If they are not fleas, move on to something else, and don’t allow yourself to do cleaning compulsions or recheck if they are fleas. If they are fleas, first of all, take a deep breath, and know that fleas are gross but people deal with fleas all the time. It’s not worth worrying about a ton. Second, figure out what a reasonable way to treat fleas is and do that. Don’t repeat any of the steps. If youre still not sure if they are flea eggs, move on. You will find out sooner or later if they are fleas. It’s ok if you don’t do everything perfectly, just do your best to take reasonable steps and don’t repeat/give in to the compulsions.

It can definitely feel like that, and it’s not easy to overcome! It’s an ongoing battle. But personally my OCD used to be so bad all the skin on my hands pealed off every week because I was washing my hands so much, and now it’s much much much much better!! I still have ocd and I still wash my hands probably a little too much but it’s very manageable. And sometimes i have flare ups. But it’s a lot better. There is hope! I think as my ocd has gotten a lot better I also have sort of realized everyone has to be a little bit psycho to live their life in a normal way. Cause I used to be like how is everyone not worried about this one thing and how is everybody alive despite not worrying about what I’m worried about and taking precautions etc. but then I realized that people just have to accept that they may hurt people/animals/themselves/the living world and we just have to live with that because it’s just not practical to worry about everything so much. We’ll never be 100% certain that the bad thing won’t happen and we just have to live with that.

I hope you get there too! My pleasure.

I know how you feel! OCD is so tough. Maybe you can figure out a flea exposure to do. Like maybe you can pet your cat, rate your anxiety level, and just keep sitting with your cat/petting him until your anxiety is at half. But you don’t get to check if he has fleas or clean when youre doing that. Or something like that.

I feel you! OCD is so weird cause you know how messed up it is but it’s really hard to stop. I think it’s really just about retraining your brain to not have the anxiety/and get stuck in the compulsion/thought spiral! Something that really helped me is just realizing that things are not perfect and never will be, and something could always go wrong. Also always making your choices based off your values, not based off your fears. Like even with the flea situation, am I going to do this compulsion because i am afraid of a possible outcome, or should I make a choice that aligns with my values of time, my cat, my cats health, etc.

Yeah it can be hard to figure out sometimes especially if you’re in the middle of doing compulsions. And yeah OCD doesn’t really make sense, so it’s not usually as easy as figuring out your values/fears. But maybe you can think of it like if I wasn’t afraid of my cat having fleas, what would I do? Like if your cat clearly had fleas you’d do something about it, but if you didn’t think your cat had fleas but you weren’t 100% sure you would move on and do something else. Of course OCD is a battle and it’s not usually that simple but sometimes thinking about it that way helps my brain.

Also youre taking good steps of being on NOCD and looking for a therapist!