Danielle Jhiani explains how OCD drives relationship arguments through compulsions like reassurance-seeking and urgent need to fix things. The fix: stop the compulsions, tolerate the discomfort, and use ERP techniques. Often the issue stops mattering after a week or two.
Welcome back. My name is Danielle Thornton Gianni. I'm an anxiety and OCD recovery coach. Helping people overcome these issues in their lives so you can have a happy, healthy life and relationships, just like I have. Today we're going to talk about how to deal with the arguments when it is the anxiety or OCD that is causing the arguments in the first place. If OCD or anxiety are what's causing the arguments, then it's important to understand that is the core of the work so that you're not having so many arguments in the future. If you have ocd, you have to stop all compulsions. And a common compulsion is the need to bring things up with your partner, to. To fix things urgent, to have certainty about something. So when you're in an argument, the person with OCD may feel like they need to talk about it a lot, ask a lot of questions, get reassurance, or the need to address it may be urgent. If you have ocd, it's really important that you're not doing this, because every time you give in to those compulsions, it just feeds OCD's need for more perfection and certainty. That is impossible. When you stop these compulsions, you allow the discomfort, you allow uncertainty. It fades away eventually. And you're usually able to see that I didn't even need to bring up that thing in the first place. It wasn't something that was a big deal. OCD was making it bigger than it should have. It doesn't even bother me anymore. So how do you know that OCD is causing you to want to bring something up? We know that OCD is attaching to something. If you have feelings of discomfort, which might be high anxiety or it might just be a low level, this thing is bothering me, okay. Followed by, you may have the discomfort, but typically it's also followed by compulsions, the need for certainty, the need to get rid of discomfort. Things like seeking reassurance from your partner, needing to talk about it or fix it right away. Seeking reassurance from friends or family, ruminating about it. Right. So my rule of thumb is if you think OCD is attaching to something, then you have to stop all compulsions, disengage with it for a while, and then see if it even bothers you anymore. Most the time, it's not going to. But if you're bringing things up and doing those compulsions, it's going to feed the OCD and it's going to negatively affect your relationship. So if it's the OCD that's causing these arguments in the first place. I don't even want you to focus on the argument or the topic of it. You need to focus on your OCD and how you change that dynamic. Because most of the time, if you don't focus on the OCD or the obsessions and compulsions, there won't even be an argument in the first place because that thing won't bother you at all anymore. There's nothing so urgent that we can't wait. Now your brain is going to tell you all these reasons why you should bring it up. Things like, well, if I don't bring it up, this person's going to do it again, or I'm not sticking up for myself, or things may go bad. Whatever those thoughts are, those are signs that OCD is attaching and that it's important that you don't bring it up. Instead, you're going to use your ERP techniques until all of those compulsions are at zero, until it would be no problem for you to wait to bring it up for a week or two. That's when you know that it's not a big deal and you can either accept it and let it go or address it at that time. But you have to be really careful about stopping all of the OCD compulsions. Until then, it's important to pick your battles. If you're bringing everything up that you want different in a relationship, your partner is going to feel like they're not good enough. They're going to get very frustrated, and that relationship is never going to be good enough for you or your partner. People don't change drastically. That doesn't mean that we can't have needs and boundaries in relationships. You absolutely can, but you have to pick those battles wisely. So focusing on what's important and accepting what's not important is key. And that can be really difficult for people with ocd. So my suggestion, if you have questions about that, set up a call with me. I can help you determine that very quickly. I hope this was helpful. Please comment, like and subscribe to this channel and we'll talk to you very soon.
