A short YouTube coaching video by Danielle Jhiani explaining three common signs of OCD: (1) persistent rumination/obsessing about topics like health, relationships, or the future; (2) avoidance of situations due to fear or discomfort; and (3) excessive reassurance-seeking from others or the internet. The creator frames OCD as manageable and offers hopeful encouragement to respond differently to intrusive thoughts.
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Welcome back. My name is Danielle Thornton Gianni. I'm an anxiety and OCD recovery coach. I help people eliminate anxiety and OCD from their lives just like I did. So you can have an amazing life with amazing, healthy relationships. Today we're going to talk about three signs that you might have ocd. But first, I want to give you a really hopeful fact that if you do in fact have ocd, you do not have to struggle with this for the rest of your life. I am living proof that when you learn how to respond to intrusive thoughts differently, those intrusive thoughts will lessen and lessen. And if you make these tips and tools a way of life, if you're consistent, OCD will fade away more and more. Now, three signs that you might have ocd. Number one is either obsessing or ruminating. You might be ruminating or overthinking. And when we overthink, we just think about that same topic over and over again, and it turns into an obsession when we start doing this for days, weeks, months, or even years. So you may find that you're always thinking about food. You're always worried about your health, you're always thinking about relationships. You're always worried about the future or what might happen. You're always obsessing about what other people think about you. Health, relationships, career. All of these things are typical things that OCD will attach to. So if you find yourself ruminating days, weeks, months, or even longer, and obsessing and thinking about the same types of topics, you may have ocd. There are times where we can think our way out of things, but most of the time, this is a coping mechanism that the brain uses because it thinks it can just figure everything out. It thinks it can find the answer to everything. That's our ego, and it can't. If you're ruminating, you are going down the rabbit hole of negative thoughts, negative stories, and it actually makes things worse in the long run. The number two sign that you might have OCD is that you do a lot of avoidance. You may or may not be aware of this. A lot of my clients are aware of some things they avoid, but not others. I avoided relationships out of fear for about 18 years. Didn't really realize I was doing it. I wasn't conscious of it. My brain was giving me rational reasons why I should not get into that relationship. They felt rational at the time, but after a very long time of not being in a relationship, I realized that I might be the common denominator. If you avoid due to fear or even just a low level discomfort, then you might have ocd. This is a very common compulsion. People with OCD tend to not like the, the uncomfortable feelings, the uncomfortable thoughts, not knowing how to cope with discomfort in new situations or fear based situations. So the coping mechanism is to avoid and run away and go back to the comfort zone. All that does is it teaches you that you can't handle it. And then your brain thinks that you can't handle a lot of other things and that fear grows, your life shrinks and things get worse. And whether or not you have ocd, have you had a diagnosis? Do you relate to these three tips that we just talked about and continue to watch these videos and let me know what you think. Like subscribe so I know that these videos are good for you and we will talk more very soon. Have a great day.
Try to push them away. You might try to push your feelings away and not really accept them and allow your body to process those emotions. And number three is that you seek a lot of reassurance from other people. Now it's normal from time to seek reassurance, we, we might have a big problem. You might have a big decision coming up or trying to decide whether to stay in a relationship. So you might talk to one of your best friends or maybe one of your parents, but then someone without OCD is going to make a decision and stick with it and, and they're going to move on. Someone with OCD is really going to struggle with knowing what the right decisions are, how they really feel, what they should do. They're going to struggle with their judgment with other people and situations. So seeking reassurance in asking people questions, searching the Internet, all of those types of reassurance seeking behaviors is something that if you have ocd, you're going to probably do quite a bit. The problem with this is no one else can give us that certainty. It has to come from within. And the more we seek certainty outside of ourselves, the less confidence we lose in ourselves and the more we feed the ocd, because OCD is just going to need more and more certainty. Even when you think you get certainty or reassurance from somebody else, OCD is just going to doubt shortly after that. So it's very ineffective and it actually has the opposite effect.
