A YouTube talk by Danielle Jhiani (anxiety and OCD recovery coach) explaining why labeling thoughts as 'OCD' can worsen symptoms. She argues that focusing on certainty/perfection and labeling thoughts is a compulsion that reinforces anxiety; recovery requires accepting uncertainty and imperfection and using ERP-style response-prevention skills to stop compulsive responses. The video also promotes her recovery programs.
Foreign.
Welcome back. My name is Danielle Thornton Gianni. I'm an anxiety and OCD recovery coach, helping people reach lifetime recovery from anxiety and any OCD subset, just like I have today. We're going to talk about a common mistake that people make, which is labeling their thoughts as ocd, how this can be a mistake, and what to do instead. First, I want to recognize that knowing when OCD shows up is very important because you need to know what to do and how to respond when OCD does show up. Before you get proper treatment, your response or compulsions are actually making it worse. So it is very important to know when OCD is showing up and what to do so that you can quiet OCD more and more over time. But labeling your thoughts as OCD can make your OCD worse. Here's the reason. The reason you're struggling with OCD in the first place is you struggle with discomfort, uncertainty, or imperfection in life, and especially in your OCD theme. And the more we try to seek comfort and certainty, the more you're training your brain to be anxious with uncertainty and imperfection, which is part of life for everybody. And the more anxious your brain will become and the more your OCD will attach to these situations. So in order to recover from ocd, you actually have to get comfortable with uncertainty and imperfection. Until you do those things and you will not get better and your brain will continue to be anxious. In these and other situations, you're not really sure how to effectively handle the uncomfortable thoughts and feelings that you're dealing with. But this is something that you can do, and most of this requires doing the opposite of what you're doing now. So if you're labeling your thoughts as OCD to try to get certainty as to whether they're true or not, or to feel better, then this is actually a compulsion and it's going to make it worse. Now, this isn't your fault, especially if you haven't had proper treatment yet. If you don't know what to do with uncertainty, doubt, imperfection, and discomfort in life, then what are you to do? Right? And people will tell you, just don't give the thoughts attention. And that is one technique, but that's not the most effective technique technique, because if you're just trying not to give it attention, but you don't have a tool to put in its place, it's actually going to help you feel better, then you're going to continue to struggle. Now, if you're labeling a particular thought as this is my OCD showing up and you are mentally accepting uncertainty and imperfection and then not giving it attention. That's different. You're not saying that this is true or not true, or that there isn't gray area here, or not accepting it or trying to push it away. All of those things are going to make it worse. So if you're doing it that way, then you're actually accepting uncertainty, imperfection. You're letting the thought be there, all exposure, and then you're practicing response prevention, preventing the response to the thoughts. And that is going to work just fine. The trouble comes when we're trying to figure out if it's true or not, we, or if it's OCD or not, or if it's you or not. Again, the problem with this is thoughts are just thoughts. They're all your thoughts. It's just that some are fear based, some are doubt, some are uncomfortable and some are not. And this is what matters. There's no such thing as an OCD thought. There are just thoughts that you then start obsessing and compulsing about. OCD is obsessions and compulsions. It's not a thought or feeling. So OCD is your response, which is why you can eliminate OCD from your life by changing your response. You can't eliminate fear based thoughts, doubtful thoughts, discomfort and imperfection in life. Which is why my recovery programs and the real method work so well, is because I, I teach you how to respond to fear, discomfort, doubt, uncertainty and imperfection in life, whether it's OCD or not. And when you use the tools that I teach you, OCD will fade away and you will be able to deal with doubt and uncertainty in the way that everybody else without OCD does and OCD will stop attaching to things. The reason why trying to give your brain certainty or label something as OCD or not, or try to get rid of it, or try to figure out if it's true or not. The reason why these compulsions don't work is because your brain right now, when it's in an anxious state, it thinks that safety is certainty and perfection. These don't exist. Certainty does not exist about anything. And either does perfection. They're not possible. So when your brain gets a hit of certainty, if you get a certain thought and you're like, oh, that's just ocd, it can often fade away and you may feel better in the short term. In the long term, your brain's just going to doubt again because it's going to continue to seek that certainty and perfection. It's going to continue to be hypervigilant of what's going on and scanning for danger in your environment. So those are the things that you have to stop. And the way that we do that is not responding with, trying to get rid of the thoughts, trying to get rid of the feelings, determine if they're true, and all the other 15 to 20 compulsions that you probably do. Let's talk about what you do instead of labeling your thoughts as OCD or not. OCD is showing up. When you have feelings of discomfort, and that might be feels like a lot of anxiety. The 1, 2, and 3 isn't going to feel the same. It's going to feel like this thing's bugging me and I can't let it go. And then the compulsive responses that you do, all of those have to be stopped. And this is a key piece that I can help you with. A lot of therapists unfortunately don't do. This is helping you identify all of your compulsions. You probably know five to eight, you probably have at least 15 of them that you're doing. So all of those have to be stopped. That response has to be prevented in order to retrain the brain to not pay attention or do anything about these thoughts and feelings that you're getting. So knowing when OCD is showing up, either the discomfort and or the compulsive responses, that's when you know that OCD is showing up, and that's when you start using your recovery techniques. If you've learned ERP in the past, use those. If they're helpful, keep using them. If you haven't, join one of our programs and we can teach those to you. You should have at least three or four ERP skills that you understand and know how to use. Some of them are quick, some take a little bit more time. But those skills are what you're going to use extremely consistently to actually get better. So essentially, you recognize when OCD is showing up. When your brain wants to attach to something, whether that's just feeling anxious, discomfort or being bothered or obsessing about something, you stop doing that. And when you stop obsessing and you stop compulsions, OCD stops. I haven't struggled with OCD in a few years because I've learned the tools. I've identified all my compulsions, I've gotten them to zero, and I make this a way of life. I catch uncertain thoughts. And even if it's not obsessing and compulsing, I still use the tools in order to keep things from sticking I've never seen this not work. My method will teach you exactly what to do. Check out the link in the description below if you want help, and we'll talk to you very soon.
