Danielle Jhiani explains why the best way to help someone with OCD is to stop engaging with it. Avoid reassurance, don't participate in compulsions, and resist offering certainty. Instead, encourage evidence-based treatment like exposure and response prevention.
Welcome back. Today I'm going to share with you the number one thing you can do to help somebody in your life that you care about, who has ocd. And stay tuned, because a lot of you are probably doing the opposite.
So if you care about somebody with OCD, or maybe you have OCD and you want to share this video with somebody else, I am going to help you understand one of the mistakes that people often make when they're trying to support somebody with ocd. And that number one thing is to stop engaging with the OCD in ways that you may not even be aware of. One of those ways that might be engaging with the OCD and getting you to do so would be to generally talk about it. So one of the things that you want to do is to not ask about their ocd. Try not to dig any deeper into those obsessions, because this just gives those attention. Don't ask too much about what your loved one's obsessions are, what the thoughts are, what their doubts or fears are, because these are just intrusive thoughts and doubts and fears. They really don't matter. It doesn't mean that's the way that they really feel. But giving them attention in there, mentally or emotionally or physically, is just going to continue to feed the ocd. So try not to ask about any of that, because essentially they're irrelevant. And the more we give them attention, the more OCD strengthens. It's okay to ask your loved one how they're feeling, how they're doing, but you want to be careful about doing this too much and putting too much focus on their feelings. The recovery journey is going to be slow and consistent if they're getting the proper help. So focusing too much on how they're feeling again gives these feelings so much attention. And what we're learning to do is not to give these thoughts and feelings as much attention as they are. So feel free to ask every once in a while, but keep it general. Try not to talk about the specifics or OCD all the time. You want to not participate in your loved one's compulsions. These could be a lot of things depending on their particular OCD subset. The compulsions are the things that they're doing to get certainty or to get perfection or for things in life to look a certain way. So when they're asking you for reassurance about something over and over again, when they're needing you to make decisions for them, make sure that you are allowing them to make decisions for themselves. Accepting uncertainty and allowing for things not to look or be a certain way. This is really important, something that you as somebody without OCD is able to do, and they're learning how to do this as well. The compulsions are what feeds the OCD and makes it worse. And they need to stop these completely. In those moments of anxiety or uncertainty. They may get angry or upset if you don't participate, but I promise you they're going to feel better in the long run and then they will stop asking in the long run. So if they get extremely emotional or even manipulative to try to get you to engage, just know that not engaging is helping them and engaging in this is actually hurting them. And then make sure not to give your partner certainty about any thoughts or fears that they have. None of us are certain about anything in life. We may be certain about how we feel today, none of us know how we're going to feel next year or what's going to happen tomorrow. So getting comfortable with uncertainty is really important for those people with ocd. So making sure that you're not giving them certainty in areas where it doesn't exist, which is pretty much anywhere, because none of us have 100% certainty anywhere in life. And they need to get more comfortable with this. If they're not getting the proper help, encourage them to check out my website or find another ERP specialist who can help them learn the recovery tools. It's very common for OCD to go misdiagnosed, undiagnosed and even untreated for a very long time. Your loved one needs to get exposure and response prevention treatment, nothing else. This is very important for long term recovery. If they're not getting the proper treatment, their OCD is going to get worse and as they get the proper treatment, their OCD is going to get better and you're going to notice that. So supporting them towards this is really helpful if you want to learn how to better support your loved one who has ocd. I have a new mini course coming out. You can check out the link in the description below and get on my pre launch list for 25% off this course, which launches very soon. This course is going to teach you more about what to do, what not to do, how you can support yourself, and more about what is OCD and why your partner struggles with it. I've gotten amazing feedback on this course. I know it's going to be helpful for you. Or if you have ocd, get your loved one on the list as soon as possible and we will talk to you very soon.
