241. How to Make OCD Worse or Not!

I am in the process of writing a book. I am so super stoked about it. God has just really blessed me with an amazing writing coach to help me with outlining and making sure that my chapters are on point, and that I’m sticking to what I agreed to say to.

The book is gonna be about discerning between what OCD sounds like and what God sounds like. I really just am so impassioned that this book needs to be into the world. But part of that process for me has been just making space to have time to write and for this book to bring it out into the world. So one of the things that I’m doing as part of that process, which is actually kind of fun, is we’re gonna be doing some revisiting episodes We’re gonna be revisiting some concepts that I’ve talked about on the podcast before, some of our popular episodes, and I’m going to be adding to them, shifting what I’m saying a little bit.

It’s not a rerun, it’s a revisit. And today we’re revisiting episode 137, which is This Thing Will Make Your OCD Worse Every Time. And we talked on that episode about stress and how stress will make OCD worse every time. So I’ve done a little fun retitling for you, and today we’re gonna call this How to Make OCD Worse or Not.

How can we make OCD worse? Well, not manage your stress very well, not do anything to take care of that. Now, we cannot completely eliminate stress from our lives. That would be totally impossible and unrealistic, although you may try to do that in different ways from time to time. And I certainly do what I can to reduce stress from my life.

But let’s face it, some of the things in life that are stressful are things that we want. Have you ever done something like move? You may have really wanted to move, whether that was a local move or whether that was a move to a completely different state or even a different country. And the moving process, as we know, is very stressful regardless of how you do it.

Have you ever bought a house or started a new job, gotten married, had a baby? All of these things can be stressful even though they are things that we want. And that’s important for us to know that we even have what I would call positive stress showing up in our life that can make OCD worse. So you’re going through a transition, a major life transition or change, and it just seems like OCD is running rampant.

Just know, welcome to the club. You are normal. I hear this from many different people, that they have a major life shift, and OCD really gets activated, even if you’ve had a period of recovery or a period where things were just quieter in your mind with OCD. If you are looking for tools to deal with your OCD, I have an online course called Empowered Mind specifically for Christians who are looking to learn inference-based cognitive behavioral therapy, iCBT, and are looking to integrate their Christianity with this evidence-based practice.

So you can check that out by going to carriebock.com/training. All that information is on my website. So let’s talk about some steps to mitigating stress and managing OCD. Number one is to stay grounded in your spiritual practice to the best of your ability. I know that when you’re going through a busy, hectic, crazy season, that can be hard.

All of a sudden, you’re not sleeping well, and then you’re skipping time with God in the morning, or you’re just feeling all, like, out of sorts. Maybe you’re not feeling well or you’re displaced locationally. Maybe you had a rhythm and a routine, and that’s gotten thrown off. So let’s talk about some just small ways that you can stay grounded in your relationship with God in just a crazy season or a stressful season.

One of those may be just that you put a verse or two up around your house. So I have the same verse in the kitchen, and it’s right by the area where I would, like, chop vegetables or make food. So essentially kind of on the countertop near the stove, that area. And I don’t really have backsplash, but if you had backsplash, kinda sorta where that would be.

Not right behind the stove, but next to it. That’s irrelevant. However, I have one there, and I have one in my bathroom because those are places that I go to every single day, right? At some point or another, I’m gonna go make some type of food for my family. At some point or another, many times a day, I’m gonna be going to the bathroom in the morning and the evening if I’m at home.

I know that I will be able to see that scripture verse and read it over and really take some time to meditate on it and say, “Okay, what is this saying? How is God speaking to me through this particular verse?” If you struggle with scrupulosity, I really encourage you to pick verse about God’s love to have around you as a reminder.

It could be a verse about God’s love. It could be a verse about God’s grace maybe that you really need to think and lean into in this season. Could be a verse about forgiveness. So many different things that you could pick certainly. But just putting the word of God in your heart and in your mind is so helpful because then it comes out when we need it, and it comes to mind when we need it.

Other ways to remain grounded, praying in your car, taking these small pockets of time maybe where you’re waiting or where you don’t have much to do. Instead of giving into that initial urge of like, “Okay, I’m gonna pull out my phone, I’m gonna check this email, or I’m gonna go scroll on social media,” maybe just take a moment to take a few deep breaths and say a breath prayer.

We had an episode on that. I encourage you to listen to. Just breathe, take a minute, and really maybe just thank God for something at that moment. Just a small way throughout your day to remain connected with God. That abiding in Christ is gonna reduce your stress level overall. Even the secular people will tell you studies about meditation and prayer and how those reduce our stress.

I think that’s a good thing for us to remember is, like, we already have these spiritual practices that can help us reduce stress. Now, if you’re struggling with scrupulosity, you may say, “That period of time really stresses me out in the morning.” And so I understand that, and I hear you, and I just want you to know that God understands that, too, and He understands that you may be struggling with certain rituals or feeling very rigid about your spirituality.

So anything that you can do to kinda shake that up, make OCD mad, maybe just focusing on a small passage of scripture instead of feeling like I have to be reading for this amount of time, or I have to say my prayer exactly this way. Maybe leaning into something different, making sure that you’re not repeating things over and over again because you didn’t feel like it was sincere or didn’t feel like it was right.

Just do the best that you can, and God knows your heart, and He knows that you want to love Him and that you want to serve Him and grow closer to Him. And so if the time with God is hard, just take it one step at a time and one day at a time and see what you can do, what’s feasible in this season of stress or in this season of OCD.

Number two, I want you to be real with yourself in recognizing what’s going on, and then entering into a state of self-compassion. In really hard seasons, just saying to yourself or saying to a loved one, “This is a hard season right now,” or, “I’m going through a stressful time. Even though I really want to have this baby, it’s stressful going through these hormonal changes.

It’s stressful with my body changing and doing all kinds of things. It’s stressful just waiting maybe and not knowing, like, how things are going to turn out, and going to all the appointments can be stressful.” All the things, right? Giving yourself that permission to acknowledge maybe a mixture of feelings that you’re having.

I know that this was a big one that I felt, particularly when I was pregnant. It was kind of like, “Oh, hey, I’m supposed to be, like, super happy all the time. This is really great. I’m having a baby when I’m older. Not everybody can have a baby when they’re older, so therefore, like, I should be super grateful.”

It’s all like whenever you tell yourself how you should feel, it usually just ends up backfiring, and it’s better to just be honest with yourself about, “How do I actually feel?” And at the time, I was going through some depression for a variety of issues of different things that were happening. I think there was also some physiological stuff happening with sleep apnea getting worse, and I think that that was also driving my depression.

I didn’t know that at the time. All I knew was I was pregnant and depressed, and I wasn’t, quote, supposed to be according to how I was self-judging myself. So entering into a state of compassion for yourself and just being like, “You know what? I feel anxious.” Or I feel sad. These are just part of our human experience, that we have this wide range of emotions, and we certainly have emotions because we’re created in God’s image.

If you’re angry, you’re angry. That doesn’t mean that you have to go act on it, but it doesn’t mean that you suppress it either. It means that you say, “You know what? Let’s just lay this on the table. This is how I feel,” and then I can sort those things with God and figure out what to do about it, how to handle it in a healthy way.

You’re not perfect. Don’t expect yourself to be perfect when you’re in a season of high stress, and you may be caregiving for a loved one. You may have a child that’s having some behavior issues. There are so many different things that we face in life, and crises happen every single day. So just being really gentle with yourself and saying, “Hey, I’m not where I want to be right now, and in terms of coping with my OCD or maybe even in terms of coping with my stress, I’m not where I want to right now.

But that’s okay, because I can just take small steps today.” And those small steps will lead to bigger and bigger steps for you. Number three is move your body. Do some type of physical movement. That’s really, really good for stress. It’s really good for depression, anxiety, and especially when you are dealing with OCD.

I know different people have thoughts about medication. I’m personally like, hey, if medication is a good avenue for you and you wanna talk to your doctor about that. But there are plenty of studies that really show that good OCD treatment works well when someone engages in some type of medication and therapy working together, and oftentimes people will tend to pick one or the other, and then there’s, like, this missing link.

However, what I tell people is that if you’re not going to use medication, if you just say, “That’s absolutely not for me,” or, “I’ve had bad side effects,” that I really encourage people to exercise, because that’s so good for your brain and so good for your body. That can really benefit you. It’s not going to cure your OCD.

It will help you cope with stress better though, and you will feel better as a result. You may say, “Well, I’m stressed out, and I’m way too busy to exercise,” but I think that’s where it’s important to find these little pockets of your day to engage in some type of movement, whether it’s a short walk in the morning, whether it’s a walk on your lunch break, taking the stairs instead of at your office building when you go to lunch instead of just using the elevator.

There are many different options for you to engage in small bursts of movement. Maybe you get up, and you do 20 squats before you get out the door. Whatever it is, just finding these little pockets where you can do some type of movement. Oftentimes what I find with OCD is people will engage in this all or nothing thinking, right?

Like, “I’ve either gotta be like hardcore in, and I’ve gotta like go to the gym and really get into lifting weights,” whatever it is you’re telling yourself. But small changes add up to bigger changes. Finding things that you can do within your physical ability level as well. We’re not trying to create further problems because you went gung ho for a workout that your body wasn’t prepared for.

That’s part of recognizing where you’re at in the previous step and being compassionate. Maybe you are only able to do walking for 15 minutes. That’s okay. Like start wherever you’re able, and your brain and body will certainly thank you. Definitely helpful for stress. I know that many people are getting walking pads nowadays.

I recently, because I do so much sitting for work, I finally said, “You know what? I really need to do this walking pad,” and have gotten to the point where I can do a little bit of walking and working on the computer at the same time. But however you get your movement in, definitely get it in. The next step is to focus on what you can control.

You cannot control everything, although OCD will cause you to believe that you can control things that you actually can’t control. You cannot control other people’s feelings, other people’s behavior. You cannot control the weather. You cannot control many different factors that are outside of your control in terms of job Housing market.

There are just so many things we could list, right, that are outside of our control. But what we can say is for the things that are within our control, we can look at, what can I actually do in this situation? Maybe it’s a rough job market. What can I do? Can I work on my LinkedIn profile? Can I go to a networking meeting?

Can I talk to other people in my field and see what they’re doing? How can I get more training or better myself so that I can improve my job standing? Maybe we just talked about health, and that’s really this whole thing. What small changes can we make to improve our health and reduce stress levels?

That’s one thing that we can control to some extent. I can control how I communicate in a relationship. I can’t control how that person receives what I communicate, but I can work on my words, my tone of voice. I can express how I feel. I can express wants and needs in a relationship, but I can’t make that other person provide those wants or needs.

I can’t make that other person do anything that they don’t want to do. So recognizing, what’s my responsibility, what’s my role here? And then these other things that I can’t control, I really have to be able to surrender and release those things over to God and say, “Okay, God, I can’t control this. This is your department.

I can pray that you will soften this person’s heart. I can pray that you will give me wisdom and understanding. I can pray that you will give me the right words to say, that you will help me to have self-control, be able to remain calm in this relationship, maybe where I have a tendency to get hot-tempered.”

These are things that you can connect with God over. And as you pray through those things and as you really surrender and say, “Hey, it’s not my will, but yours be done. I can’t do this on my own. I desperately need you to intervene,” that God gives us a sense of peace back, where He says, “Okay, you can trust me to move forward and to keep going Our next point is learn to say no.

No is a complete sentence. If you are going through a busy and stressful season, there are going to be things that you have to say no to. I shared earlier that I’m in this book-writing process, and I really believe that I’m about to enter a season of no, that there are gonna probably be many things that I say no to in order to say yes to writing this book, in order to getting it out into the world.

I have said no many times to individual therapy clients so that I could really focus on intensives and focus on Empowered Mind, the ICBT course that I have. By saying no to one thing, it means you’re saying yes to something else, and that’s important for you to keep in mind. You cannot do all the things in this season, and that may mean that you do grocery pickup or delivery.

It may mean that you do some more, like, ready-made meals rather than cooking everything from scratch. Saying no can be a hard skill to learn, and if you find yourself constantly struggling with boundaries, I really encourage you to get some therapy surrounding that. And I am certainly happy to help you if you’re interested, looking at some intensive therapy or a therapy retreat surrounding being able to be assertive in your communication and being able to say no.

Oftentimes, it goes back to, uh, difficult experiences in childhood where you weren’t given a voice or weren’t able to stand up for yourself. So I would love to process through some of that with you. Or if you have a therapist in your area that you can see and get some specifically tailored trauma therapy surrounding, that would be really helpful for you These are things that you can learn and you can practice.

They’re hard at first. They feel uncomfortable, but if you have trouble saying no, just know that that’s something that you can work through and get better at over time. And our last step in managing your stress and helping your OCD is to ask for help. It is okay to ask for help. It is okay to say, “Hey, can you watch my child for a few hours while I pack up these boxes to prepare for our move?”

It is okay to ask your spouse, “Hey, can you help me with this particular house project so that I can get it off my to-do list and not be stressed or worried about it?” Or, “Can we carve out three hours this Saturday to really tackle this particular organization project or a lawn project that we have?” That is really gonna help you.

It’s okay to ask for what you need. That’s an important thing to note. And asking for help, just like boundaries, can be really hard at first, and it takes a certain level of humility. This is something that God has had to work with me on in terms of being able to ask other people for help. But I know now that it is so important.

We weren’t meant to be an island, to be alone and isolated. We were meant to live in community and be somewhat interdependent on each other, and I mean that in a very healthy way, not in a negative way. So if you need to ask somebody for help, then don’t be afraid to use your support system. All right. I hope this episode was helpful for you.

Thanks so much for tuning in today and letting us revisit a really important topic on dealing with stress in relationship to OCD. If you are on YouTube, please hit like and subscribe, comment, and let me know if this episode was helpful for you. Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you.

Christian Faith and 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.