Who Am I Without OCD?

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is really good at making a person question everything about who they are. 

For example, Scrupulosity OCD may heavily impact a person’s religious identity by making them unsure of what they believe or what mistakes they may have made. Relationship OCD can blur the lines of what a person’s thoughts and actions mean and how others might perceive them – and that’s only scratching the surface.

These types of situations can make the person with OCD feel disoriented and separated from who they really are. In fact, it can even get to the point where, because OCD infiltrates so many parts of a person’s life, they feel as if they don’t even know who they are without the disorder. 

Self-discovery can give you an anchor to hold onto when OCD is trying to pull you away from your sense of self and your values. But how do you go about discovering what it really means to be you?

OCD's distortion of identity

Deciphering what your values are is often the first step to recovery after an OCD diagnosis. Not only is this a way to arm yourself with ways to respond to OCD’s intrusive thoughts, but it is also a great method for discovering more about who you really are.

Inference-based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (I-CBT) is a great tool for helping a person get started with this process. It prompts you to answer questions such as:

• What are your goals?

• What is most important to you in the present moment?

• What are your genuine intentions, desires, wishes, emotions, and opinions?

Recently, when I undertook this assignment from I-CBT myself, I found myself turning to the people who know me best for help because I realized how difficult it can be to answer questions like these as an individual with OCD.

Of course, It is important to utilize outside help with caution because you don’t want to rely on external input for your self-discovery. However, I found that asking people like my husband and my mom to help me answer these questions was helpful in me noticing where OCD was involved in how I thought about myself.

For example, as someone with Scrupulosity OCD, when I asked my loved ones what my actions said about me, every single person I asked said that I was somebody who loved God. This was incredibly validating as I’ve been going through intrusive thoughts and doubts surrounding my faith.

Finding yourself beyond OCD

When you have OCD, it is incredibly important to define your true self so that it can act as an anchor that can ground you and provide stability in helping you resist OCD’s pull and distortions.

As you decipher your values and what it really means to be you, be sure not to let OCD over-complicate the process for you. As you begin, you may find that OCD wants you to be completely certain that your values and who you decide you are are 100% correct.

My best advice here is to stick to what you decide. Set a boundary with yourself that just this once, you are going to trust your instincts and what you write down, rather than let OCD make you spend hours flip-flopping and chasing certainty that doesn’t exist.

You have the power. You can trust your true self as an anchor in the face of OCD.

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