The Mighty Logo

I Can't 'Positively Think' My Way Out of OCD

The most helpful emails in health
Browse our free newsletters

Editor's Note

If you struggle with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), the following post could be potentially triggering. You can contact the Crisis Text Line by texting “START” to 741-741. To find help, visit the International OCD Foundation’s website.

I have obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). And my OCD brain told me if I didn’t open up with this fact, this bit of writing would be officially bad. So, there it is, bold as brass. The way I can best describe OCD is like extreme superstition. I’ve always liked the idea of superstition, in believing in something so much you’d carry salt in your pocket, refuse to walk under ladders, never step on the cracks. I carried around good luck charms and prayed obsessively when I wanted something good to happen or when I wanted to ward off evil spirits.

What OCD tells you, at its core, is: do this and nothing bad will happen. Don’t do it, the bad thing will happen, and it will all be your fault. And the worst part is, “it” and the “bad thing” can be basically anything.

As a teenager, I was entranced by ideas like the law of attraction, astrology and everything else that can be found in the “alternative” section of a bookshop. The secret, you say? Have an attitude of gratitude, and life will work itself out. These schools of thought, often allegedly rooted in ancient Hinduism, offered quick fixes to my dilapidating mental state.

Let’s get this out of the way: I don’t think everyone who follows a religion or set of spiritual beliefs has OCD. They’re clearly not the same thing. There’s a lot of intellectual purity surrounding a posterior reasoning that is a little unfair at times. Having a set of personal beliefs is a beautiful thing, and I don’t want to condescend and suggest it’s purely about “what gets you through the day,” because believing in stuff, whatever those beliefs are, is about finding meaning and joy in life as much as anything else. Most people can talk about superstitions without spiraling into a neurotic nightmare. People can follow superstitions for fun, or it’s a thing that brings some order into their life. But the little goblin (mental illness) that lives in my brain loves shiny things, and crystals are very, very shiny.

Often, the secret, the key, the self-help advice, the whatever, boils down to this: just think positively. Many people with anxiety will know, trying to use a positive mental attitude to get out of a hole and squash down the negative thoughts often only makes them more prominent. Most of the time, you can’t do it. It was a huge revelation when I started treatment for OCD to hear someone say, “Thinking positively won’t make this go away.” Just before starting treatment, I was at a point in my life where nearly every minute of my day was guided by OCD. If I wasn’t actively engaging with one of my obsessions or compulsions, I was thinking about it. Nothing could take my mind off it.

With these secrets and laws, I became certain the reason why bad things happened was because of me — and I’m not talking about the consequences of my own actions, here. I’m talking about things that were totally out of my control. If reality is bendable to the will of positive thinking, then the negative things must be my fault. It’s because I’m not positive enough, right? When you have intrusive thoughts that can be as violent as they are bizarre, the idea of simply thinking happy things can get rid of the bad things is a very seductive thought. And when it doesn’t work (because it probably won’t), you may be left feeling ashamed and like you’re a failure of a person.

There’s something pernicious about quick fixes, about denying people of the reality things take time to heal. In therapy, in treatment, I’ve found nothing is easy. Fighting compulsions is a daily battle and requires an awful lot of self-awareness, in how to not react with your bizarre compulsions. Mostly, I try to ignore this sort of stuff — the pamphlets promising healing in a few simple steps, crystals, tarot cards and the like. What I don’t know can’t make me spiral. No more horoscopes, no more daily affirmations, nothing to sink into.

Solipsism, the idea that nothing exists outside of your perception, which these beliefs are often rooted in, seems to me to be the strategy of a confused world. It isn’t a surprise astrology, law of attraction and other belief systems of a similar nature have taken off in a world that is more out of control than ever. And I don’t think these things work as “explanations.” I think they’re more of a refusal of an explanation. Don’t question it — it’s to do with the planets. It’s mercury in retrograde (fun fact: retrogrades aren’t even real, but that’s for another day), it’s your moon chart, it’s because of something we don’t understand.

Being positive and full of gratitude is a beautiful thing, but it’s not a mindset that’s always available to everyone. Gratitude often gets a bad rep because I’ve found most of the time, you’re asked to be grateful when you’re struggling. I remember one time, when I was incredibly unwell, I reached out for support in my community and was told to keep a gratitude journal. Because (obviously) the problem was I was ungrateful, not that I was sick and needed treatment. In being actually grateful, you open yourself up to the virtue of attention. It’s understanding things aren’t perfect. Not just ignoring the negative things in favor of clutching at straws. It’s allowing yourself to feel the way you feel without judgment.

There’s a writer, Kate Bowler, who says, “We treat sick people like they’re a problem to be solved, rather than a person to be loved.” My worry is today’s popular philosophies teach us to treat ourselves like we’re a product to be fixed with a little bit of this, a little bit of that.

I’m trying hard to not be disrespectful of anyone’s beliefs, and it’s not like OCD has made me a hardline atheist. I’ve commonly heard it’s naïve to think there’s nothing out there, but I think it’s more naïve to believe anyone, who has come to a conclusion either way, is being narrow-minded. Someone who has invested their time, money and energy into a certain belief system, whether it’s Christianity or astrology, is not simply naïve or just hasn’t thought about it enough.

I still believe in so much. I believe people are capable of being incredibly wonderful, that we should care about each other and that some things (though not everything) happen for a reason. Maybe these things are real — maybe the planets are controlling my moods, and I should read my horoscope if I want to live a happy and healthy life. OCD has taken many things from me, but it’s taught me many things, too, the most important being things aren’t always as simple as they may seem.

Getty image by oatawa

Originally published: February 10, 2021
Want more of The Mighty?
You can find even more stories on our Home page. There, you’ll also find thoughts and questions by our community.
Take Me Home