Perhaps you have to rub your hands together 23 times to be released from a hand-washing compulsion. Or worse, maybe you have to keep rubbing them an unspecified number of times until it feels… perfect.
In my case, my rituals usually had to keep going until they felt just right. It could take minutes, hours, or I might have to get back to re-reading that label or repeating that mental list the next day. There wasn’t a specific fear attached to not doing the ritual correctly; it just had to be done.
One method of behavioral therapy is to resist an OCD ritual and then notice that nothing catastrophic occurred. That was a useless technique for me, since I usually wasn’t preventing a specific calamity. But I did know that I had to do my rituals perfectly. I had to think the right thoughts. And if I overheard someone cough, that was a sign that I had to start all over again.
One way to ween yourself off OCD is to practice imperfection. There are a few approaches you could try:
Affirmations:
If you think that an anxiety or fear of negative outcomes is associated with your OCD, you can repeat (you’re good at that) an affirmation like one of the following, before and after you do an OCD-inducing task. This may help to calm you if it feels like you haven’t done the OCD ritual perfectly.
I am relaxed, I am tranquil, I am fearless, I am care-free
I got, or possibly adapted this one from somewhere… maybe Wayne Dyer
I am whole, perfect, strong, powerful, loving, harmonious and happy
This one comes from The Master Key System, an early text on mastering your thoughts and your reality.
I am safe and free and surrounded by love
Look around you and see that this is true.
Walk-Throughs:
Another method is to put yourself in situations where normally you would have to do a ritual, but because you have artificially placed yourself in the environment, you can avoid it. For example, if you normally have to touch things as you walk by, try walking from your bedroom to your living room and back knowing that this is an OCD-free walk. It’s usually easier than it may sound.
Practice Imperfection:
This third method is what I practice now that I have eliminated my OCD symptoms (this post talks about my self-cure). This is a sort of check-in to make sure that I am still free of OCD. I do a lot of qigong and yoga. Usually these practices have a set number of repetitions, whether by habit of the instructor or by tradition. If I lose count, or think I may have done one too many, I intentionally let it go and move on. I don’t try to fix it. I allow it to be imperfect.
Of course, you really would like to be free of OCD, and some day you will be. But for now, you can do little things to practice a reduction in occurrences. Every time you practice, you are reinforcing a new way of doing things, freeing your brain, bit by bit, from the rut of OCD.
