Once OCD enters your life,—whether the person with OCD is you or someone you love— your life changes. You get a heaping dose of things you don’t want. Unmanaged OCD can take away the things you want.
So, how do you get more of what you want? That’a the topic of today’s podcast.
Welcome to the Free Me From OCD Podcast. We’re here to offer educational resources, coaching and community support to help you say YES to your life by saying NO to OCD. I’m Dr. Vicki Rackner your podcast host and OCD coach. I call on my experience as a mother of a son diagnosed with OCD when he was in college, surgeon and certified life coach to help you get in the driver’s seat of your life. My vision is to help you move towards a future in which OCD is nothing more than the background noise of your full life. This information is intended as an adjunct—not a substitute— for therapy.
I keep a magic want next to my computer for a reason. It’s a constant reminder of my work. I’m here to help my clients get what they want.
It seems like it would be such a simple thing. Every kid can tell you what they want for their birthdays.
Why is it that it’s so hard to know what you want, to ask for it, and celebrate it?
And why is this even more challenging when OCD enters your life.
In this episode, I’ll talk about the challenges you face as you go after what you want. In the next episode, I’ll share some tips for overcoming barriers so you can get what you want.
Here are the top three reasons getting what you want seems like such a challenge.
First, you have a human brain.
Brains are exquisitely sensitive to threats, danger and pain. Your brain decides where your attention goes, and escaping danger and staying alive are the highest priorities.
When you’re fighting for your life, you don’t daydream about where you go on vacation. When you’re safe you connect with your longings and desires.
The very presence of OCD shifts your brain’s focus to survival.
Many obsessions address danger, whether it’s contamination or being expelled from the tribe because you’re a bad person.
When you are the grips of unmanaged OCD, you are focussed on survival—not what you want.
When you feel unsafe you’re more likely to focus on what you DON’T WANT.
When you feel safe, you can shoot your focus to what you DO want.
With OCD, you may have complete clarity about what you DON’T WANT.
Sometimes your unhappiness with the things you don’t want points to your desires. The pandemic-related social isolation tells you that getting and staying connected with important people is something you want.
However, moving away from what you don’t want is not always the same as moving towards something you want.
Here’s the paradox of OCD. You want to get less of what you don’t want. The best way to do this is to manage OCD. This is hard work. Where does the best motivation come from? It’s a focus on what you want.
You may know someone who set a goal of eating more healthfully Maybe they put a picture of themselves at their peak weight on the fridge. Seeing that picture is like aversion therapy. However, the results wear off over time.
If you are committed to losing weight, a more effective picture to put on the fridge is a representation about what you DO want.
So, the mere presence of OCD in your life makes it challenging to think about what you want.
The second reason it’s so hard to get what you want is this: you are raised to be a polite person.
You may have been taught lessons about what it means to be a person who asks for what they want, and often it’s not an attractive label. Who wants to be known as pushy or assertive or demanding.
We are born with ways of getting what we want. A baby cries and then is able to point to things they want. As the child acquires language, they’ll tell a stranger at the grocery store what they want want for their birthday.
As the child gets older, then the parents tell them, “Don’t just blurt out what you want; wait until somebody asks you before you tell them.”
You might have thoughts about people who ask for what they want. They’re selfish of pushy.
I was talking with an adult about her recent birthday celebration. She said that her husband gave her an awful gift. I asked, “”Well, did you leave him any hints?” She said, “I shouldn’t have to. If he loved me, he would know what I wanted.”
You may have been taught to focus on the wants and needs of others—and ignore your own.
That means you’re out of practice with connecting with what you want.
The third reason is this: we have beliefs about how to go about getting what we want, and we often get it wrong.
Belief #1: Your human brain will tell you, “Someone else needs to do something differently so I can get what I want.”
You might think, “What I really want is for my child to manage their OCD.” You might put your efforts into getting your child to do their OCD work.
Your life will work better if your plan to get what you want only involves actions that you take—not the actions that others take.
I worked with a mom who wants her child to spend less time performing compulsions. Intellectually she understands that her child will ultimately decide whether to do the OCD work.
I asked, “What if your child decides not to do their OCD work?”
She said, “What I really want is to go to bed at night. Thinking, “I’m a good parent.” That is something that does not even involve a magic wand—just a change in thoughts.
Belief #2: You have to earn the right to get what you want. Many people think about going after what they want is the reward for doing things they don’t want to do. You get dessert if you eat your dinner. You get screen time after you practiced the piano. You can see how easy it is to think that you have to be worthy of going after the things you want.
You don’t need anyone’s permission to get what you want. If you really believe you need permission, I grant it!
Belief #3 You have to concern yourself with what other people think if you go after what you want.
Do you sometimes feel like you’re living someone else’s life—not the life you wanted for yourself.
What other people think of you is none of your business. Think of other peoples’ opinion of you as reverse gossip
Anyone with a member of the family of someone with neurodiversity understands this challenge.
You might think, “How can I focus on the things that I want when others are in pain?”
Here’s the reason. You want to bring your best self to the challenge of being freed from OCD. Everybody benefits.
In summary, in this episode we talked about the three reasons people find it so hard to get what they want:
- The human brain focuses on danger and pain. When you feel unsafe you’re more likely to focus on what you DON’T want. Often moving away from what you don’t want leads you in a different direction than what you DO want.
- You want to be a polite person, and you may have been taught manners around asking for what you want.
- You have beliefs about what it means when you identify what you want, or go after what you want.
Here’s the paradox. The best incentive for doing the hard work of managing OCD is the focus on what you want. That’s why this is such an important topic.
In the next episode, you’ll take away ideas for identifying what you want, and going after it. i
Thank you again for your listening ear and your commitment to yourself and to the people you love.
Please leave a review. It will help others like you find this podcast sand benefit from the ideas you’re hearing.
And if no one has told you yet today, I admire your courage. Managing OCD may be the hardest job I’ve taken on. Whether you’re an OCD Warrior or and OCD Champion, you’re not alone. There’s hope for a better tomorrow. You got this!