OCD about having OCD

Yes and actually I’m sitting here reading these posts on NOCD as one of my exposures. I found myself doing the exact same thing you described, so my therapist and I came up with a couple of exposures focused exactly on things that I was “afraid would make my ocd worse.” So far that’s included reading posts on the community board and attending a support group, while refusing to ruminate and engage with any what if fears and thoughts that pop up. And you know what? It’s working! I’m finding myself less and less scared of OCD itself.

I also struggle with meta-ocd from time to time. So you’re definitely not alone. And it can be exhausting. I’d like to advise you to be wary of seeking reassurance on the matter, especially with this subject. Because a lot of people will try to validate you like “oh it will get better! Don’t worry!” And while a certain amount of hope is really important when it comes to treatment, it’s also important to remember that with our specific flavour of mental gymnastics, trying to find the certainty in treatment is only playing into OCD’s hand. Hope is “recovery is possible and treatment is worth doing.” While reassurance is “I need proof that I personally will be ok and won’t relapse.” It’s not so much about the intrusive thoughts themselves. “What if this becomes a new theme”but rather the appraisal of said thoughts and what having those thoughts predicts about your future. The compulsion is the attempt to monitor, classify, predict, and guarantee about your OCD. Recovery and ERP means giving up that forecasting project, not trying to gain better forecasts. “Right now I cannot obtain certainty about how much OCD I’ll experience in the future, and I’m going to live today without solving that.” Remember that monitoring itself can be the compulsion. Checking on how anxious an intrusive thought made you, if you think it’ll stick, whether you’re entering a “flare up”, whether you’re improving fast enough, etc. These are compulsions. They’re questions not worth answering. The important step forward is to measure recovery by behaviour, rather than how you feel. Instead of repeatedly asking yourself “do I feel like my OCD is better today?” Think more about “did I continue doing what mattered to me even though OCD was present?” That’s what matters more than constantly checking on your symptoms.

Completely understand this! I made a post about this on Reddit and they basically said “intrusive thoughts about intrusive thoughts”. I’m still trying to figure out what I can do to help it. I get nervous that I’m going to have distressing thoughts in my aero CD is going to flare up just like you.