The best tips for dealing with taboo OCD thoughts, from a therapist who lives with them

Decades ago, taboo intrusive thoughts felt so distressing to Tracie Ibrahim, MA, LMFT, that they completely derailed her life. After getting treatment, she can now have those same thoughts show up, and they barely register. Sometimes she even laughs at them. Here are 7 of Tracie's go-to tips for dealing with taboo intrusive thoughts that helped her get to where she is today. 🦁 1. Approach triggers instead of avoiding them: Avoiding feared objects, people, or situations (knives, children, media coverage of crimes, etc.) teaches the brain that those things really are dangerous, reinforcing OCD. Deliberately staying near or engaging with the trigger—without doing compulsions—is what actually reduces the fear over time. → Example: Tracie keeps a large kitchen knife on her desk, despite intrusive thoughts about harming herself or others with it, which regularly shows her that she can have unwanted thoughts without acting on them. ✋ 2. Aim for total non-engagement: Rather than trying to analyze, resolve, or "deal with" an intrusive thought, the goal is to let it sit in the background and go about your day without engaging. → Example: Tracie compares this to getting stung by a bee: You wouldn’t spend hours interrogating why it hurts. You’d move on with your life. 👀 3. Recognize and interrupt mental compulsions: Mental compulsions (rumination, checking your feelings, comparing yourself to others, etc.) reinforce OCD just as much as physical compulsions. Once you notice that you've fallen into one, the goal is to redirect your attention, rather than continuing the spiral. → Example: When Tracie realizes that she’s ruminating, she puts some ice on her neck as a quick sensory reset, and then returns to whatever task she was doing before. ⛓️‍💥 4. Don’t assign meaning or judgment to thoughts: How we label intrusive thoughts, images, feelings, and urges can play a role in how much suffering they cause us. Instead of viewing an intrusive thought as an emergency or a revealed truth about yourself (which it isn’t), a more accurate label is "this is an unwanted thought/image/urge occurring.” → Example: When Tracie has an intrusive thought about harming her neighbor, she thinks, "yep, that's happening," and continues interacting with him anyway. 🎭 5. Try using humor and cognitive diffusion: Deliberately injecting absurdity or lightness into a scary intrusive thought can help it feel less urgent by removing the "this is a crisis" label that OCD attaches to it. → Example: When Tracie has an intrusive image of herself jumping out of the NOCD office window, she jokes to herself, "well, at least I won't have to cook dinner tonight." 🧠 6. Understand groinal response and arousal non-concordance: A physical genital reaction to an intrusive thought (a groinal response) doesn't indicate attraction or desire. It's a phenomenon called arousal non-concordance where the body's response is mismatched with how you actually feel. Treating it as "evidence" of something or checking/monitoring for it only makes it more frequent and distressing. → Example: Tracie reacts to a groinal response with a statement like, "Wow, good to know my genitals are working," rather than trying to analyze what could’ve triggered it. 💙 7. Live according to your values instead of seeking certainty: We can't get 100% certainty about our intrusive thoughts. OCD will always find another what-if or way to create doubt. Instead, the recommendation is to act according to what you actually value, regardless of what the intrusive thought says. → Example: Even while having unwanted thoughts about stabbing her child, Tracie continues doing normal parenting activities, like cooking together, because being present with her kids is what she values. Every strategy above is taught in exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy, the treatment that helped Tracie learn to manage her OCD—allowing her to spend time with her children, feel present in her life, and help others struggling with intrusive thoughts as a specialized therapist. At NOCD, all of our therapists are trained in ERP and OCD, so they understand all kinds of intrusive thoughts and know how to help you get your life back, no matter what your OCD focuses on. Schedule a free call with our team to get matched with the right therapist for you and get started: https://learn.nocd.com/app-book-a-call