I Used to Think My OCD Was the Worst (I Was Wrong)

Music. Hello and welcome to the OCD and Anxiety Podcast, where we explore how to have a more positive relationship with anxiety disorders, taking back control so that you can start living the life you choose and not the one chosen by your fears. Music.

Hello and welcome to episode 471 i hope that you're doing very well today wherever you are and if you are struggling with ocd and anxiety and you would like to get some support with that well you can by heading over to my website robertjamescoaching.com there you can book in for a free discovery call with me. So you can do that directly there or if you prefer you can send me a message and let me know about what you're struggling with.

In today's podcast I'm going to be talking about whether some types of OCD are worse than others and this is something that comes up a lot and I think at times it can hold people back in learning to overcome OCD. So I think it's an important topic to discuss. If you find a podcast helpful it would be great if you could follow along on YouTube. You can search for the OCD and Anxiety Podcast by Robert James Coaching.

And also you can follow along on Instagram. My Instagram handle is at robertjamescoachinguk. Many thanks. And if you have any questions at all, please do let me know. Off we go.

Something that i struggled with in the past was telling myself that my specific type of ocd was one of the worst ones that you could experience that you know maybe other types of ocd you could you could learn to deal with obviously they're all hard but this particular one that i'm struggling with is just a little bit harder than the rest of them and you know this is something that went through my head for many years when I was really struggling with OCD.

And the more that I work with people, the more that I realize that actually this is quite pervasive, that a lot of people have this idea that their particular OCD, their theme or the way in which they experience it is different in some way. Is more difficult to deal with.

And this is completely understandable actually because when you're in the moment and you're experiencing OCD it's such a horrendous awful thing to have to deal with if you're dealing with harm-based thoughts for example or if you're struggling with sensory motor OCD or if you're struggling with existential OCD all of these things can be incredibly hard to experience and you know if you're if you're dealing with that firsthand if it's your experience day in day out of course you're going to feel

like that that is the worst possible thing that you could be experiencing you're going to believe that that type of OCD is the worst type because OCD is one of the hardest things to deal with in your day-to-day life if you're having to to deal with intrusive thoughts and you know the obsessions day in day out you're finding yourself getting stuck in that cycle you know you're doing your best to not perform compulsions but you keep on finding yourself kind of stuck in that trap even though

you kind of know better or you know that you know you shouldn't do it you shouldn't look for that certainty it's incredibly frustrating when you when you're in the middle of OCD and you're really going round in circles with it and you know I think it's no surprise at all that that people feel this way that their particular OCD is the kind of the worst the worst one.

But unfortunately, when we think like this, I actually think it's a bit of a limiting belief. And we can persuade ourselves that because our OCD is so difficult or so stubborn. You know, that the practices, ERP or acceptance commitment therapy or working on self-compassion, you know, whatever it might be, these things aren't going to work for you because your OCD is too difficult. And, you know, certainly I felt like that myself for a long time.

I felt like I, you know, I had to practice acceptance commitment therapy in exactly the right way in order for it to work. And if I didn't, then, you know, it was never going to deal with the OCD. And that actually led to me creating a kind of obsession out of applying ACT in just the right kind of way where, you know, I would read up on a particular activity, you know, and I would try to make sure that I was following the steps absolutely right.

And I would create this pressure for myself that I had to do it exactly. Otherwise, it wasn't going to work because my OCD was so bad. You know, and that actually just kind of keeps this trap. It becomes part of the obsession in itself, you know, and it can actually stop us from making the progress that obviously we're looking for.

OCD is famous for creating catastrophic thinking. And this is kind of cycles of rumination and thinking where we believe the worst case scenario is true.

So you know when thoughts pop up about our particular OCD and you know it's telling us that this is too difficult to deal with or you know we can't deal with this because of this thing or that thing you know it's actually just catastrophizing it's us finding the worst possible interpretation of our situation and you know that actually serves to kind of keep us stuck because the more we catastrophize you know of course we're kind of getting ourselves stuck in a trap

and we feel more and more hopeless over time you know and we start to believe this negative story that we're telling ourselves and the reality is actually quite quite different all types of OCD are incredibly difficult and challenging whilst it may be true you know that some have a specific character to them that you know makes them a little bit more complex at times ultimately I don't think there is any kind of worse type of OCD I think there's just OCD there's lots of different forms of it,

lots of different ways for it to kind of appear. And the important thing is to try to not get caught up in whether your type of OCD is more difficult than another. And to just acknowledge to yourself that all types of OCD, no matter what they are, actually they survive through the same kind of mechanism. What's going on is we're looking for certainty all the time.

We're trying to, you know, we're trying to have 100% certainty about things that we can't have certainty about and you know so all OCD is really about that it's about us trying to reduce our anxiety by having more more certainty about things only the more that we try to have that certainty through performing compulsions through thinking about things through getting reassurance through going on to google or chat gpt or whatever it might be The more that we do that.

The more uncertain we feel because we're having to perform these compulsions to kind of artificially bring down our anxiety about the fact that there is, you know, inherently some uncertainty in life. And all types of OCD, no matter what they are, it always involves the same mechanism. It's always the same thing that's going on. People get stuck in this cycle, going round in circles, looking for that sense of certainty, looking to feel better, looking to reduce their anxiety.

And actually you know the important thing is to recognize that the way out of this trap is always the same as well it's about learning how to bring more tolerance and acceptance of the discomfort of anxiety and uncertainty in in our bodies to experience those difficult emotions to stop pushing them away all the time to stop performing compulsions all the time when we can learn actually how to feel those difficult emotions and to

come back into the present and get on and get on with our lives despite the fact that we're not feeling certain that's when we actually begin to make progress and we start to feel a bit better. So if you find yourself struggling with that question of whether your OCD is the worst type, see if you can try to hold on to that a little bit more lightly. See if you can try to let go of it because as we've been talking about today, all types of OCD can be incredibly difficult at times.

And even though your specific type might have some specific things about it that are incredibly difficult and can feel in the moment like it's the worst possible thing, try to remind yourself that many other people think in a very similar way and i think that can be helpful to kind of let let go of that so many thanks i really hope that you found that helpful please do remember you can get a free discovery call with me to get that you can head over to my website

robertjamescoaching.com do please feel free to do that and do please feel free to leave the podcast a review that would be really helpful if you wanted to do that many thanks and i will see you next time, and now just a quick reminder of my disclaimer any information that you view on my website instagram page facebook group or anywhere else online or any information that you listen to on the podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for

actual medical or mental health advice from a doctor psychologist or any other medical or mental health professional. Music.