How To Handle Holidays When You Have OCD

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Welcome. My name is Danielle Thornton. I am an anxiety and OCD recovery coach. And today I'm going to talk about how OCD affects us during the holidays. So with Thanksgiving coming up here in the US and then Christmas very closely soon thereafter, the holidays are definitely a time of more stress. And also for a lot of people, OCD symptoms can increase during this time. And I want to talk a little bit about why. So you've probably heard me say that OCD wants two things, certainty and perfection. And any type of holiday or big event or big transition in life, OCD is going to attach to these things. So what happens this time of year, typically with people with ocd, is that the perfection and certainty tend to come into play. So OCD can tend to have very high expectations of the holidays because again, OCD wants things to look a certain way, which is where the perfection comes in. So it wants Christmas to look perfect. It often compares, right? A common OCD compulsion, comparing our lives to somebody else's, our home, our. Our gift giving ability, our food, any of that stuff. The expectations get high because OCD creates this picture perfect of what it wants. And then when things don't look that way or we're afraid they're not going to look that way, then that's when we start to feel anxious or uncomfortable. Another common intrusive thought with OCD is what if I have anxiety on that day, right? What if I ruin the day with my family, or I don't have a good time with my partner, or I can't go at all because of anxiety? These are all intrusive thoughts that are common with ocd. And the fear of what might happen is what keeps us stuck, right? Because a lot of times the fear of what's going to happen is where all the anxiety comes from. And most of the time when we go do that thing anyway, those things don't really happen. And if they do, it's not as difficult as we make it out to be. So let's talk about during the holiday itself. And what happens is we have this idea of the way we want it to go. OCD is telling us it should look a certain way. And then if things don't go exactly the way we want it to that day or the way that we envisioned, then we start to get anxious and uncomfortable and start to spiral. We typically catastrophize that situation. Then we start analyzing and ruminating about it, wondering what other people thought. Was it good enough? Was it not good enough? Okay. These are all ways that OCD shows up. So certainty and perfection, the compulsions that come into play. Again, comparing, analyzing, trying to figure something out, ruminating, googling. Again, searching for certainty and perfection. So what do you do? How do you combat OCD around the holidays? It's actually the same way you combat OCD any other time. And hopefully you're working with an ERP specialist like myself or somebody else who can help you get to that recovery stage of ocd. But if you're not, some of the tips and tricks that I have for you using ERP would be letting it be what it is, right? Leading up to it, during it, after it, letting it be what it is, what it's going to be. Acceptance without trying to overthink over, control over, prepare without comparing or analyzing everything too much. You can even plan on things going wrong. Okay, this is kind of a great exposure because chances are things are not going to go exactly how you want them to. It never works out that way. So when we plan on things going wrong, we're not extremely disappointed and upset and uncomfortable when they do. And again, what you think is going wrong, no one else knows, right? It's just the way that the day turns out, the way things happen with different people, different personalities and different schedules. All of that is the exposure and then the response. Prevention is not doing the compulsions, not comparing, not making sure it's perfect, not avoiding anything, even if you might get anxiety, not talking about your fears or concerns to other people and seeking any sort of reassurance. Again, you're going to let things be what they are, let things go the way they go. When we practice exposure and response prevention in this way, when we let things be how they are, however imperfect they're going to be, we have a lot better time. We feel better, we enjoy the moment more, and everybody else enjoys it better too. So if you need any additional help with your ocd, whether that's relationship, ocd, harm, OCD contamination, ocd, any of them, please visit the link below. I have the path, which is a cost effective membership program for anybody who wants to get to recovery from ocd. And I also offer one on one sessions with me. I have recovered from ocd. You can recover from ocd? It's very possible. I see it with my clients every single day. I hope you guys have a wonderful holiday season.