How to Recover from OCD When You're Mentally and Emotionally Exhausted

Living with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is kind of like playing an extremely high-stakes game of whack-a-mole in your mind – 24/7. Many days, it feels like as soon as you diffuse one intrusive thought, another one pops up. 

Plus, not only are you dealing with the thoughts, you are also dealing with the anxiety and the drive to do compulsions. Because of this, it’s no wonder that many people with OCD face mental and emotional exhaustion, which is also known as burnout.

But here’s the problem: during flare-ups and relapses, staying out of, or getting out of, the OCD cycle takes immense amounts of energy, bravery and focus. You need energy to recover from the very mental illness that drains your energy. 

The problem isn’t that you don’t know how to get out of the OCD cycle – the problem is that you are so exhausted from dealing with the OCD that you feel as if you don’t have it in you to apply those skills and do what you need to do to get to a better place emotionally.

Overcoming mental and emotional exhaustion

When you’re struggling, it can be hard to get out of bed – let alone do brain work that is incredibly draining. 

That’s why, when you’re overwhelmed and facing mental and emotional exhaustion, it’s important to reframe recovery. Rather than looking at it as something that eats up hours of time and energy, try to bring your focus back to the present moment. On baby steps. 

For example, say you have not been physically active in a long time. One day, you decide you want to start going back to the gym because you used to do 60-minute workouts every day. You also used to be able to do a deadlift with 200 pounds. 

On your first day back at the gym, would you do a 60-minute workout? Would you try to deadlift 200 pounds?

Of course you wouldn’t, because you understand that physical fitness is a gradual progression. When you get exhausted after only a 15-minute workout, you might feel a bit discouraged, but you would understand that in time, you will build your physical fitness back up. 

Looking at your mental health in this way is a much more manageable approach to recovery. 

To recover from OCD, you don’t have to be doing exposures every second of the day. You just have to try to resist the compulsions. And if you only resisted one today, that’s okay! Resisting one can be incredibly difficult when you’re dealing with severe OCD. 

Remember – small steps still get you where you want to go.

Finding the energy to recover during mental health fatigue

Ultimately, living with mental illness is hard, mental and emotional exhaustion are hard, and recovery is hard. So, when you feel like you are too exhausted to try and get better, remember that taking really, really difficult baby steps could be just as hard as continuing to live with emotional exhaustion. You can do this!

You are worth the worth and energy it takes to reach recovery and greater well-being – but don’t have to be completely recovered tomorrow. You just need to do one thing, to take one small step towards recovery today.