How OCD Hijacks Your Sense of Reality: 4 Reasoning Tricks That Fuel Obsessional Doubt

Written by Allyson Inez Ford, MA, LPCC

OCD has a way of making us feel like it’s real, otherwise we wouldn’t pay attention to the intrusive thoughts and there would be no need for compulsions. We might even logically know it sounds ‘off’ but for a variety of reasons, we believe it might actually be true for us, even if we can see it is probably unlikely for others. This happens with OCD for a variety of reasons, one factor is that due to our ‘feared possible self’ we are vulnerable to certain OCD themes. Another factor is the “tricks” OCD plays on us to create a convincing narrative for why the intrusive thoughts should matter to us. Both the feared possible self and tricks of OCD are concepts from I-CBT treatment for OCD. Let’s take a look into what some of the common tricks are so that you can start building awareness of when and how OCD takes ahold of your thoughts and feelings. According to I-CBT (and what I have noticed in my work with clients), this awareness alone can help increase personal agency in whether or not we do a compulsion.

(Note: this is just ONE step and it takes time to learn how this applies to your specific OCD. Most people need the help of an OCD specialized therapist and a variety of other skills to cope with OCD.)

4 Reasoning Tricks of OCD

1) Out of context facts:

OCD often applies out of context facts to the here and now reality. This is one way OCD can feel so convincing, since there is often truth to the facts it presents- which becomes justification for doing compulsions and reinforces the intrusive thoughts. The issue is- the facts are often applied out-of-context and not relevant to your here and now reality. Or in other words, the facts aren’t false information, but they are misapplied information.

Let’s look at an example:

General fact:
Accidents happen. People sometimes get hurt unexpectedly.

What OCD does:
OCD pulls this general truth into a neutral or safe moment and says:

“Accidents happen… so the person who just changed my tires probably did forgot to put in the lug nut.”
“Accidents happen… so you can’t be sure you didn’t just harm someone.”
“Accidents happen… so it’s possible you could suddenly do something dangerous.”

In these examples you can see that the general fact itself is true, but what’s distorted is the leap from a general truth to a specific, present-moment threat without evidence. When we aren’t using OCD’s reasoning, we know we need facts that apply to the here and now for our argument to be relevant enough to pay attention and act accordingly. The fact that we can do this with non-OCD topics, means we can learn to do this with OCD too.

2) Distrust of the senses/self:

This one is self explanatory, OCD makes us doubt our 5 senses (vision, hearing, taste, smell, touch) and inner sense data (our desires, values, intentions).

It can sound like “I didn’t see anyone in the crosswalk when I drove through it, but my brain could have malfunctioned distorted my vision.”

In this example, the person has sense data (vision) that they are not trusting. This can also happen in the reverse, where the lack of sense data leads to doubt. The goal here is to be able to return to a place of trusting our senses the way we do in other areas of life. If you walk into a restaurant and smell pizza, you probably don’t think- “but what if it’s actually steak?” Going “off theme” is a good way to explore how you are trusting your senses in other life areas, just not the OCD theme you are vulnerable to.

3) Over-reliance on possibility

Over-reliance on possibility happens when we have here and now evidence that we begin to question simply because “anything is possible.” And while it’s true we can’t ever have complete certainty, we can have functional certainty: which is the level of certainty we build by trusting our senses, here and now evidence, likelihood based on patterns, etc.

However, OCD often distorts possibility with probability. Just because something is possible, does not make it probable. For example, we can generally trust the sun will come out each morning. But OCD might twist this and say, “But what if the sun gets sucked into a black hole over night and it doesn’t come up in the morning- anything is possible!” This is a great example of how just because something is possible, doesn’t mean it is likely to happen. Imagine how hard it would be to trust anything if we used this logic all the time!

4) Living the fear

Living the fear is a reasoning trick that happens when we become so absorbed in a doubt that we start to have a certain bodily experience, and then we believe that the bodily reaction is justification for the doubt. For example, what happens if you start convincing yourself you have bed bugs, and you think about them crawling over your skin, what they feel like and look like, how they are just hanging out in your bed waiting for you, multiplying and getting into your carpet and other furniture? Does your skin start to get itchy? Or what about when you are convinced you will get a panic attack, and you start visualizing what it will be like, what people will think of you, how intense the anxiety will be. Does your heart start beating faster? Do your palms get sweaty? Do feel shaky or disoriented?

The body responds to our imagination. We can have a body based reaction simply because of what our mind is focusing on. This happens a lot with taboo OCD themes where someone with POCD might start having an unwanted groinal response, which then makes them think must really be a pedophile. However, our body is designed to respond to just the thought of sex- it isn’t reflective of our desire or values. Sadly, many abuse survivors feel confused on if they “liked” it because their body had a response, but this DOES NOT reflect desire, it’s just our mammal brain responding anything sexual (real or imagined).

What happens when we become absorbed in these tricks?

It’s worth noting that the four examples above are just a few of the many reasoning tricks of OCD. It would take many blog posts to cover them all, so just know that in OCD therapy, we will go over all of them and parse out how they apply to your specific OCD!

Ok, so, what happens when we become absorbed in these tricks of OCD? Well, we start creating an entire obsessional narrative based on obsessional reasoning, and OCD becomes more and more convincing. We start to feel anxiety or disgust, and seek to alleviate it with compulsions. When we get into this OCD cycle, we enter this imaginary place that I-CBT calls the OCD bubble. We are no longer trusting our senses, we are living in the land of “what if” and everything feels real and scary. This is a hard place to be, and one that most people who start OCD therapy are quite accustomed to. It is possible to get out of this bubble and learn to trust your senses again. At ED and OCD therapy, we can help you do that with a blend of I-CBT therapy, ERP therapy and ACT therapy- which are all evidence based approaches in treating OCD.

Final Thoughts

OCD is so convincing because it uses its an obsessional reasoning process and plays upon our vulnerabilities- otherwise we wouldn’t get so sucked into it! It is totally possible to get out of the ‘OCD Bubble’ and learn to use and trust non-obsessional reasoning. It takes time, but it is well worth it to not be living in constant fear, anxiety and dread. There are several evidence based approaches to OCD- the one in this blog post is from I-CBT. At our practice, we can start with whatever approach sounds best to you and we can go over the ins and outs of each approach. I-CBT targets cognitions, while ERP targets the behavior, and in my opinion, both have there time and place and can be of great utility to folks struggling with OCD.

Reach out today to start OCD Therapy or Coaching.

If this resonates and if you are looking for an OCD therapist in CA, WA, UT, FL or MD- feel free to reach out to my team and learn more about our services. We offer free consultation calls to get a sense of our vibe!