137. This One Thing Will Make OCD Worse Every Time

Episode 137. There’s something that I have seen that makes OCD worse every single time. We need to be aware of it. We need to be on the lookout so that we can be self compassionate and also know how do we deal with it? How do we mitigate it? We’re gonna talk about that today.

Hello and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Carrie Bock. I’m a Christ follower, wife and mother licensed professional counselor who helps Christians struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing. When I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD, God called me to bring this podcast to you with practical tools for developing greater peace.

We’re here to bust through the shame and stigma surrounding struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories of healing and helping you replace uncertainty with faith. I’m here to help you let go of the past and future to walk in the present abundant life God has for you. So let’s dive right into today’s episode.

Our new website is up and running. I want you to check out all of my offerings, therapy offerings, as well as what we have going on with the podcast at karybach. com. If you really want to stay in touch with what’s going on definitely get on our email list so that you can be the first to be notified about certain things.

I’m going to be seeking to just kind of hang out with you guys once a month on Zoom. So once I have all of that squared away and scheduled we will be letting you know about it on via email. What’s the one thing that will make your OCD worse every single time? That is stress. Okay, when your stress goes up, your symptoms are going to go up.

Doesn’t matter what kind of mental health condition you have, this is the case, but it’s especially true with OCD. Part of the reason that is because OCD does this thing where it likes to morph. It likes to shift and change themes on you. You’re plugging along and you think, ah, things are going okay. And then some stressful life event happens, and OCD is like, Oh, hey, let me hop on that bandwagon and now throw in some other theme for you to be dealing with.

When we talk about stress, there are some things in our life that are considered, quote, positive stress. These are the type of things that we want to happen, okay? You get a job promotion, you move into a new house. Steve and I moved this year. Incredibly stressful. Like we did everything possible to make it as least stressful as possible.

It was still stressful. Like we took our time. We really, you know, had a long process of packing things up. We labeled, we did easy meals during the process. There was just so much, and it was still incredibly stressful. Getting married. It’s a joyous time. I mean, Getting married is a good thing, but it can be very stressful.

There’s a lot of logistics you’re trying to figure out and put in a row. Having a baby, you’re not sleeping as well, you’re eating maybe thrown a little off. All of these different things that are positive, even your kids sports schedules. If you have a kid that, you know, it’s really a high sports season for them, and you’re gone 2, nights a week, it What I’ve learned from parents is if you have one kid in sports, you’re probably gone about two to three times a week.

You have two kids in sports, you’re gone every night of the week. It’s just like hanging up, you know, sometimes Monday through Saturday is toast. These are things that you’re wanting to do, let’s say, and wanting to be involved in. So it’s positive stress, but we’ve still got to learn how to take care of ourselves, and how to factor in how to manage that stress, or reduce it as much as possible.

How can we mitigate it? And then you’ve got those positive stress things, but you then Negative stress happens to all of us at one point or another. You’ve got illness, whether it’s, you know, I’m sick right now getting over an illness that I got from my daughter that has kind of put me out of commission a lot this week.

It could be a chronic health issue that you’ve been dealing with. You can’t seem to get rid of it. You keep going to the doctor, this doctor and that doctor. And you may have that, or you may have a family member who’s dealing with health issues that you’re caregiving for. Caregiving can be a lot. You may experience something happenings at work.

You either lose your job, like unexpected layoff, write up, maybe your boss is just out to get you, doesn’t like you, or is trying to micromanage you in some way. Job stress is the real deal. I worked in a toxic work environment in the past. I know what that experience is like. I know what it’s like to be afraid of getting fired.

To the point where I threw up one night over it. And then I finally just said, I cannot let this affect me this way. And had to get to the point where I said, God is in control and if they fire me, they fire me. I can only do so much. I have done all that it is that I can do to please these people. And that is all I can do.

It’s not worth your health. Take it from me. If you have conflict in any of your close relationships, especially intimate relationship, like with a spouse, that can be highly stressful. If one person has their foot out the door, maybe you’re the person that has your foot out the door, that’s stressful, okay?

If you’re going through a situation in hard economic times, You don’t know how you’re going to put food on the table, clothing for your, you or your kids, housing. You can’t find the housing in your price range that you need. That’s, you know, a huge issue in today’s society. If you have a death of a loved one and you’re going through a grief and loss process, all of these things.

It can be stressful and take a toll on you. So I have come up with five tips that I want to give you today to mitigate stress. If you say, yes, I raised my hand on several of those different things, I mean, I can tell you in my own life, as far as getting married. Having a baby, having a family member with a chronic health issue, and going through grief and loss.

I went through all of those things in probably a three year period. It was a lot, okay? And so when you have multiple of these things going on and it’s compounded, here’s some ways that you can mitigate stress. Number one, recognize what you’re going through, how stressful it is, and go easy on yourself, okay?

Open yourself up to a sense of compassion. You’re not perfect, you’re not gonna be perfect, and I would say even you’re not gonna cope you. perfectly. Like, what does that mean? You’re not going to cope at 100 percent capacity. Maybe you feel like, Oh, I was doing so well at managing my day to day stress. I had a workout routine or I was putting healthy foods in my body.

I was meal planning and you were on a really good flow and you got thrown off by one of these unexpected health things that came up. You know, maybe you got sick. Maybe you had a job stress and all of a sudden they were wanting you to work 45 hours a week and you got thrown off your course. Be compassionate towards yourself.

I think sometimes when we sit down and we recognize, wow, I’ve got a lot going on. And this is something that I have to do for people. in therapy sometimes, just give them a reality check. Like you do realize what you’re telling me, right? Like you’ve been through some stuff and you’re here and you’re putting one foot in front of the other.

That says something, you know, sometimes you hear people that have been through a lot of trauma and I’m like, how did you make it to this point without dying? I don’t even know how you’re here. So just recognizing that God gives us this sense of, Resilience, and it’s by his grace and mercy that we have even made it as far as we have in this life.

I do not know how I would still be standing if it were not for the Lord. Just recognizing, like, it’s okay. That I’m not coping at 100 percent capacity. It’s okay that I have relapsed a little bit with my OCD and I’ve gotten sucked into some rituals and some routines that I normally would have said no to, but I’m going through this stress and it’s kicked up into high gear.

Just being compassionate with yourself. Tip number two is to exercise. I know that this can be hard sometimes because you’re thinking I’ve got so much going on I don’t have time to exercise. Find that 20 minutes to take a walk outside. Do a little bit of walking on your lunch break. Do a few squats when you first get up in the morning or some planks.

Do something, move your body, stretch before you go to bed. Just do something that’s really going to help your mind and your body. I’ve talked about this before, antidepressants and exercise have gone like head to head with each other in psychological studies. Whether the people were taking medication or not, the people that exercised always fared really well as far as their mood goes.

So exercise is really good for your mind and for reducing the level of stress and anxiety that we hold in our body. Tip number three for mitigating stress, this one’s so huge, recognize what is actually in your control. Okay, back to toxic work situation. I got written up over some stuff that was flat out lies, just gonna throw that out there.

Some of it was flat out lies and I realized I cannot control if these people are over here lying about what kind of work I’m doing. I am showing up. I am doing the very best of my ability. May not be the best at my job. But I am putting in the effort and I did care and I think that’s why it upset me so bad because I was like, man, I’m like, I really do care like about doing a good job.

It was not in my control. Some of the things that happened in that work environment, there were expectations that were put on me. It’s like, I don’t have control. control always on meeting those expectations because they had to do with other people were involved, right? So you can only do what you can do about a situation.

If you are working with other people and if you’re pulling your weight and they are not pulling their weight, there’s nothing that you can do about that. You’ve got to let it go. We can get super worked up over other people’s poor behavior. Not just in a work environment, but in family situations, people not doing what they need to do, not carrying their weight.

What you have to learn to say is, I’ve got to have grace. I’ve got to let some things go. I’ve got to set boundaries where necessary and healthy, but then that’s it. That’s all I can do is speak my piece, speak the truth and love, and move forward. You cannot control other people. You cannot make them do things they don’t want to do.

The problem that I see with OCD is it’s going to tell you that you can control some stuff that you can’t really control. It’s going to tell you if you jump through this hoop, or you seek that reassurance, or you research this, then you really can stay safe. Nope. Nope. Not in control of that. You can do all the googling you want and still get a health issue.

You can seek all the reassurance you want, and you can still be more confused than when you started. Don’t believe the lies the OCD is telling you. Number four, this goes along with setting boundaries. Don’t be afraid to say no. There are some things that I would really love to be doing right now. I can think of some volunteer work I’d love to get involved in.

I can think of some extra things that they would love for me to be doing at the church that I have been asked to do and I would love to do. However, I cannot do it all. I’ve had to realize that. Certain things have come up recently and just something in my spirit was like, no, I am not doing that. It’s not bad.

It’s a good thing, but it’s just not for me right now. I need to not get burnt out, not get overwhelmed. And some things are good things, but they’re not for this season. And if you’re in a season of stress and busyness and struggle, it’s okay for you to say no. It’s okay for you to say, man, that’s a great opportunity.

Thank you so much for thinking of me. It’s just not the right season for my family right now. Oh, hey, you want me to work on that project with you? Can we do that after soccer season is over? Is that okay? When we say no to some things, that means we’re saying yes to other things, even if that is yes to rest for this season, because you have a lot of stressful things going on, or if that is yes to taking care of yourself and giving yourself time.

time to reflect or journal or be with God, be in contemplation because you’re going through some emotional things right now. That’s okay. It’s okay to say no. Tip number five for mitigating stress is to ask for help. Other people cannot throw you a life preserver if they don’t know that you’re drowning.

I’m talking to myself on this one because this is one I’ve struggled with for a long time, asking for help. I would like everybody to think that Carrie has it going on over here and all her ducks are in a row. They are not, most of the time. God has shown me that I need to live in humility and allow other people to love me.

because I do have people in my life who do care about me and want to step in and help when needed. So I don’t need to be afraid to reach out and say, Hey, I’ve got this going on. Or, Hey, can you pick up my daughter? Because I’ve got to be over here dropping my husband off at this appointment. Can you watch my daughter for a couple hours so that my husband and I can get a much needed date?

It’s hard sometimes to be vulnerable. It’s hard to reach out for help. Sometimes you may not feel like you have the support system or you have people that you can ask. And I’ve definitely felt that at different points in life. or had those seasons that felt more lonely than others. But what I’ve noticed is usually there are people in our lives somewhere, even if you may not have talked to them in a little while, or it’s somebody that you haven’t taken the full time to cultivate the relationship.

We’re really worried sometimes about burdening people or being Too needy or too much. But if you are the kind of person that you’re going to go out of your way to help somebody when they need something, they’re going to know that about you and receive the relationship as reciprocal. You know, we can’t be asking all the time and not ever giving to others.

There has to be a balance there. Even if you don’t have a physical need or that someone can meet, I would still encourage you to share with other people how they can be praying for you too. That’s a huge one. Be vulnerable and let people know, hey, this is something that I am wrestling with God with. Even if you don’t give them all the details, you just say, Hey, I’ve been really stressed out with work or I’ve been just stressed out with the kids or a variety of different things going on in my life.

Please pray for me. That goes a long way and people will be willing to lift you up in prayer and love and support you. If you’re going through a period of stress right now, Just know that it’s not always going to be this way. You’re not always going to feel as stressed as you do right now. And hopefully, if you can put some of these tips into practice, it’ll help you get through this stressful season when your OCD is flaring up.

If there’s some way I can help and support you in this process, I would love to be able to do that for you. Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you. Were you blessed by today’s episode? If so, I’d really appreciate it if you would go over to your iTunes account or Apple Podcasts app on your computer if you’re an Android person and leave us a review. This really helps other Christians who are struggling with OCD be able to find our show.

Christian Faith in OCD is a production of By the Well Counseling. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not be a substitute for seeking mental health treatment in your area.