It’s OCD Awareness Week and I have been thinking about why it is so important to have a week to bring awareness to OCD. First and foremost, bringing our awareness to the disorder invites us to have true compassion for the struggles of the roughly 7-8 million Americans, and anywhere from 80 to over 300 million people globally who will contend with OCD in their lifetime. OCD is a disorder that is time-consuming, debilitating, erodes your confidence and spirit, and can make just getting through the normal tasks of the day feel like a high-risk operation. Second: the message we can bring this week is one of hope: many who have OCD feel resigned that it is a “condition” that is unchangeable, rather than a “disorder” that can be treated. In spreading this message, we help sufferers understand that despite the significant difficulties that OCD causes in a person’s life, it is also is a very treatable disorder, it is not a forever way of life—with effective treatment, it can be overcome. And the third reason to bring awareness to OCD—is to change our understanding of what OCD is, and what it isn’t. It is a debilitating disorder. It is not a willful choice or a personality quirk.
We might not understand from seeing behavior on the outside (checking, repeating, redoing, avoiding, asking for reassurance) what is actually happening on the inside. We think of kids washing their hands over and over till they are raw, or the child who ties and reties their shoes until they feel just right—but they never do feel right, or adults checking the stove over and over to make sure it’s off, opening and closing doors to make sure they’re locked, flipping light switches on and off.
OCD is About Control, But It’s Not What You Think
Sometimes families will say—I think my child really needs to have control and that’s why they are doing these repetitive actions. And it’s understandable because from the outside OCD does look like a child is trying to control their family: just answer this question again, just wash your hands again before you hand me anything, just open the door for me—I can’t touch the doorknob! But who is controlling whom?
While it may look like (and feel like!) kids with OCD are trying to control their family and their environment—it’s really that they themselves are feeling controlled by OCD and they are trying to figure out how to navigate that very stressful landscape of being constantly afraid that any simple action in their day feels like it could have terrible consequences. This is why we say that OCD is a “no-fault” disorder, it is not the person’s personality or desire to control. Children (and adults) with OCD are, by no fault of their own, plagued by intrusive thoughts of harm, or contamination, or evenness, or other fears and feel like if they don’t follow what the OCD says—do it again, do it evenly, avoid it!—that some harm will befall them or their family. While this is not true and not the way the world works— that stepping on a crack does break your mother’s back— it is very much how OCD works and how it feels. This is why one immediate distinction and simple intervention that we talk about in a first meeting with anyone seeking treatment for OCD whether 5 years old of 85, is to “edit” the way they talk to themselves about OCD. Rather than saying: “I have to tap the table 5 times before turning on the light or something bad will happen,” or, “I have to take a picture of the stove being off or I won’t be sure,” we say—let’s do a little truth edit: “I feel like I have to tap the table 5 ties before turning on the light, or something bad will happen, but that’s not true, that’s a brain trick…” “I feel like I have to take a picture of the stove because otherwise I feel like I can’t trust myself that I did—even though another part of me knows that I did!”
Relabeling the OCD Narrative and Downgrading the Authority is the Key
As people with OCD learn to tell a different story about OCD, a strategy called “relabeling” instead of saying I have to check the stove over and over until it feels right or else, they learn to say, my brain is telling me I have to, or, I feel like I have to, but I know that’s not true! As they practice their relabeling muscle, downgrading the authority of intrusive thoughts by thinking of them as junk mail, spam, or brain hiccups, they begin to break that unhelpful and unnecessary connection, weaken the OCD fear circuit, and build new healthy circuits getting used to doing things the “old” non-OCD way. This is what neuroplasticity is all about – on purpose teaching your brain new tricks. And the brain really is eager and willing to learn. Treatment is about creating step by step “opportunities” or exposures to practice refraining from rituals like checking and redoing one small step at a time and seeing that they can ride out the anxiety. Like getting into a cold swimming pool, it feels uncomfortable at first, and then you adjust.
Whether you are a parent of a child with OCD, or an adult looking for relief and answers, I hope you will feel empowered to explore the powerful treatments that are available and in so doing—help change the course of your or your child’s life—for a lifetime.
To find practitioners in your area—please check out the Resources here. To check out the fully revised and updated edition of my book Freeing Your Child from OCD, click here. For a recent podcast conversation with the wonderful OCD advocate and author, Nathasha Daniels, click here. Together, we can help support those contending with OCD to learn the tricks the brain can play and free themselves one small step at a time. And as always, here’s to less worry all around.
©2025 Tamar Chansky, Ph.D. A version of this post was previously published on Psychology Today
