Managing OCD Thought Loops with Responsibility

Here's the thing (well, actually, two things):

1. Having Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) means I must accept that my mind is a bully–and, because OCD is not curable, unfortunately for me, my mind always will be. Wah-wah.

2. One doesn’t have to have OCD to know what it's like to have a bully for a mind.

   
   

So, what's the difference, then?

Well, people with OCD have OCD because their brains literally function differently from other people–but the technicalities of that are a post for another day.

For now, let it suffice to say that OCD sufferers experience a mind that is more of a relentless bully than others. But this principle is the same, whether you have OCD or not:

Eventually, if you are a person who wants to have positive mental health management in your life, you have to take responsibility for what goes on in your mind.

Taking responsibility for thoughts

When I went to the Philippines to meet my in-laws for the first time last April, I had only been diagnosed with OCD for about four months. Needles to say, before we left for the trip, my mental health was suffering. It wasn't that I wasn't trying–it's just that my mind was winning the battle for my attention. 

However, during my travels, I was forced out of mind and my OCD thought patterns. I was forced to be mindful. To be present.

The week after I returned from the trip, I was getting the same intrusive thoughts, but I felt renewed. Empowered. More vigilant.

Because I had experienced a week of slight freedom, I was more determined to experience that more of the time. So when I got a thought that normally would make me believe I was worthless, spike my anxiety, drive me to do my compulsions and get trapped in the OCD cycle, I instead acknowledged my thoughts and then dismissed them.

If you know anything about OCD, you know that this is where the tricky part is–because if you don’t pay attention to your thoughts and do your compulsion(s) to calm yourself down, you are in for a treat: a whole lot of heightened anxiety.

But feeling the anxiety, bearing with it, is the price you have to pay to get better in the long run. 

For those who don’t have OCD, resisting the temptation to give heed to the thoughts that aren’t taking you in the direction you want to go and experiencing the discomfort of change is the price you have to pay to retrain your brain.

Because that’s just it–your mind can do what you teach it to do.

The power of choice: techniques for dismissing intrusive thoughts

If your mind feeds you thoughts about you being too big and how you need to focus all of your energy on losing weight, and you constantly check how big your stomach is in the mirror and count your calories and feel bad about what you look like, your brain will learn that punishing thoughts about your body image are important and will continue to give them to you. 

On the flip side, if you decide that focusing on your size does not align with the values that represent what you really want your life to look like, you can work on selecting which thoughts get your attention. If you feel a drive to check what your stomach looks like in the mirror, you can choose not to. You can experience discomfort to live a better life in the long run. 

But it’s hard work. 

And I, of all people, understand that it is much easier said than done. But the key is to take it upon yourself to believe that you are the only person who chooses what to do with their thoughts.

And taking responsibility for that was the key lesson I learned during my trip to visit my in-laws. I pictured it like this: imagine you are in your mind, and thoughts are constantly coming your way. You have decided that maybe you want to start being more mindful of what thoughts you follow. 

A thought comes your way that you have made too many mistakes in your life and you are a bad person. You watch it move towards you, and decide that that is not a thought you wish to absorb. 

You acknowledge the thought, but hold up a shield so that when it comes to you, it gently bounces off the shield and away from you. 

Let me be clear: the thought doesn’t leave your mind. It stays with you, in your peripheral vision. Taking up space. But you don’t internalize it. You don’t believe it or act on it. You just notice it and sit with it and live your life anyway.

Taking responsibility for your thoughts gives you freedom

It’s a hard pill to swallow, but know this: you are the one that holds the shield. You are the one that chooses to hold up your shield, to sit with your thoughts without following them. You are also the one who can choose to put the shield down, follow each thought that comes. Absorb them. Be governed by them.

Don’t be fooled–you do have a choice. 

It’s unfortunate that some of us have minds that are a little more unkind, a little more relentless, than others. But we can’t do anything about that.

What we can do is choose to put our shield up. Choose what thoughts we want to govern our lives. Stand strong in who we believe we are, not in who our mind tells us we are. 

Let us never lose sight of that choice. Let us never forget that we do, in fact, have a shield. That we just have to choose to hold it up.