#55: How to Open Up About Your OCD Struggle - Tips and Strategies

Telling someone that you struggle with OCD can be very difficult and overwhelming.

In this episode I provide practical strategies for having open and meaningful conversations about OCD, whether you're experiencing it or supporting someone who does. I discuss how to manage expectations for that initial conversation, managing disappointment, and how to explain OCD symptoms in relatable ways using metaphors. The episode also includes tips for listeners on how to best support someone with OCD, emphasising the importance of listening and understanding. 

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE.

Highlights include:
01:35 Challenges of Opening Up About OCD
02:54 Tips for Discussing OCD with Others
07:37 Explaining Obsessional Thoughts and Compulsions
11:26 Advice for Supporters of OCD Sufferers

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The Hello Therapy podcast and the information provided by Dr Liz White (DClinPsy, CPsychol, AFBPsS, CSci, HCPC reg.), is solely intended for informational and educational purposes and does not constitute personalised advice. Please reach out to your GP or a mental health professional if you need support. 

Transcript

Understanding OCD: Basics and Misconceptions

Speaker 1 0:09

Welcome to Hello Therapy, a podcast to help you take charge of your mental health through evidence-based psychological tips and tools straight from the therapy room so that you can live life better that you can live life better. Opening up about OCD, particularly for the first time, can feel overwhelming, especially because it's often one of the most misunderstood mental health issues. In this episode, I am breaking down the basics of OCD and offer some strategies for having open, meaningful conversations about it. So, whether you're living with OCD or supporting someone who is, this episode will help you navigate these discussions with confidence. So let's dive in. So first things first. What is OCD?

Understanding OCD and Its Challenges

Speaker 1 1:05

Ocd is a mental health issue that can be debilitating. It consists of obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions are unwanted distressing thoughts, images or urges that a person experiences. Compulsions, on the other hand, are repetitive behaviours or actions that a person performs to reduce anxiety or feelings of disgust. Ocd is characterized by a vicious cycle of obsessions and compulsions. Now, a lot of people who have OCD find it very difficult to tell people about their OCD. So if you feel like you have this big, dark secret or you're desperately trying to hide the number of checks you do or the number of times you wash your hands. You are not alone. It is really difficult, and partly that's because OCD even in 2025, is still really misunderstood, and this isn't helped by the media and social media, which can depict OCD as the butt of a joke or something that's positive like oh, I have OCD and therefore I can keep my house clean and tidy. These messages are damaging and contribute to the stigma that people with OCD feel. People with OCD often have a lot of fears around telling other people that they experience OCD. You can experience a lot of shame, a lot of embarrassment and when you feel that it makes sense to keep it hidden because you don't want other people to think of you in a negative way. So let's try and make this process a little easier for you if you're thinking about telling people about your OCD.

Speaker 1 2:54

First, I'm going to go through some general tips for that initial conversation Now. My first tip here is to manage your own expectations. The person or the people that you're telling probably won't understand exactly what you're going through. If they have never experienced OCD, they're going to find it quite difficult to actually put themselves in your shoes. And even if you're telling people who do experience OCD because OCD is so idiosyncratic, it's so individual, they might not understand your particular theme or subtype. And I think the other thing that can show up here is perfectionism. So if you're going into this conversation hoping that the person that you tell is going to fully understand 100%, then that is going to set you up for disappointment. So just check in with yourself and see is there any perfectionism showing up here? What am I expecting of the other person? And my second point is dealing with disappointment.

Speaker 1 3:59

You may not get the response that you want or that you need, and this is going to bring up difficult feelings maybe sadness, disappointment, anger, frustration. It could be that the other person needs time for it to sink in. They might not have any clue about any mental health stuff, so they might need to go away and read up or have a think about it. The important thing to focus on is that in telling someone, you are taking such a brave and important step, because keeping it to yourself means that you can't get support for it. So if you've gotten yourself this far, give yourself a pat on the back.

Speaker 1 4:40

The next point is to think about the how. Sometimes, when you feel like you've got something big to tell someone, it is really difficult to kind of sit down and have a really serious talk, and that might not suit you. You may feel more comfortable messaging someone first, you know, saying look, I've got something to tell you, can we meet? Or you may even want to tell someone over messaging, for example. That might feel best for you at this point. I think what I'm saying here is to keep your options open and, if you are going to tell someone in person, just have a think about well, where am I going to be? Is it going to be private? You are most likely going to be sharing personal, sensitive information about yourself, so just have a think about that beforehand.

Speaker 1 5:28

My next point is get clear on what you want. So, before you embark on this conversation with someone, what is it that you want from the person and what do you want from having that conversation? Is it support in general? Is it support from that specific person? What support do you need from them? And I think having a think about this beforehand can be really helpful. It might be something like well, I'm telling you because I need help accessing professional help, or I'm telling you because I just need you to know that that's what's going on for me at the moment, or I'm telling you because I've noticed that I'm seeking reassurance from you, or I'm asking you to do some of my checks and I feel like that's probably not the best thing for me. So can we think together about how to manage that?

Explaining Obsessional Thoughts and Compulsions

Speaker 1 6:18

And my final point here is think about how much detail you want to give the person. You do not have to talk about all the ins and outs of the OCD experience. You can keep it broad. Sometimes it helps to just make a little list of the symptoms that you do experience and have a think about. Okay, I'd be comfortable sharing this, but not this. And it can be helpful to think about it in terms of, like a newspaper article. You know, are you going to just say the headline or are you going to go into the detail of the story? And just a final note on that if you have told someone and they are asking you probing questions and they're trying to get to the detail, they want to know you know what's the content of your intrusive thoughts, what are these thoughts saying to you and you're not feeling comfortable about sharing that at that point in time, then say that you can say something like I really appreciate you being curious about this and wanting to know more, but the moment I'm just not comfortable sharing that level of detail. Let me share some resources with you and maybe you could learn about it that way and you can direct the person to various resources on the internet. I'm going to put a few of them in the description and you can always show them my channel.

Speaker 1 7:37

So how do you explain obsessional thoughts or intrusive thoughts to someone who doesn't have OCD when you are outside of the OCD experience? If you don't experience OCD, it can look nonsensical. It doesn't make sense. Doing these compulsions in this way doesn't make sense. People can often have thoughts like but it's just not logical thinking in that way. Or you may hear people saying just stop thinking about it, think about something else. So here is the first thing to say to someone about obsessional thoughts OCD is not about logic. It's about a whole load of other things, especially doubt, fear. Load of other things, especially doubt, fear, anxiety, disgust, and there are lots of underlying thinking patterns and beliefs that can drive the OCD experience and I have a video where I've talked about that in a lot more detail.

Speaker 1 8:38

So things like perfectionism, intolerance of uncertainty, inflated responsibility, so feeling over responsible for things and to make it a bit more real for the person, you can say something like this Do you ever get a song stuck in your head? It's just going round and round and round and you end up singing this song in your head when you don't even realise it. The person will probably say, yeah, that's happened to me. Well, intrusive thoughts are just like that, except the big difference is that the song that's stuck in your head is a song that you don't want. It's a song that is distressing. It makes you feel awful about yourself, it makes you doubt yourself, it makes you feel anxious, and it feels like the only way that you can get rid of this song playing over and over and over in your head is to do certain actions, and these are called compulsions.

Speaker 1 9:35

So how do you explain compulsions? Now, someone that doesn't have OCD might think well, just stop doing them. And, as we know, it is not that simple, and if it was, you would have done it already. So someone who doesn't experience OCD might see you checking the door over and over again and think but you've seen yourself lock the door already. Why are you checking, checking it?

Speaker 1 10:01

And one way of explaining compulsion to someone is to ask them have you ever had a really bad itch, like an unbearable itch, on your body? I know I have, and for me it's usually on my foot when I've got a shoe on. Compulsions are just like that itch. You scratch it for temporary relief and it dies down, but the itch always comes back and often stronger than before. The more you scratch, the worse it gets and stopping scratching feels impossible. This is what a compulsion is like. But for some people stopping the scratch feels really risky. It feels irresponsible, like not the right thing to do. I cannot not do this compulsion because if I do something bad might happen to me or my loved ones and I need to make sure that doesn't happen.

Advice for Supporters of OCD Sufferers

Speaker 1 10:53

And in the case of compulsions or explaining compulsions, you may want to use an example in your own life. So, for example, with contamination OCD, you might say to someone. Well, so, for example, I wash my hands many, many times just to make sure that I don't have any germs on them, because I don't want to pass germs on to someone else. But remember, only share stuff that you're comfortable with. So there are some ideas for how to explain OCD to your loved ones, but now I have some tips for people who are the ones listening. So if you are a family member, a friend, a partner of someone who does experience OCD, then here are my tips for having that conversation with them.

Speaker 1 11:40

Now my first tip is to just listen. You may have lots of questions, but try and hold off. It can take so much to disclose OCD to someone, so try and go slow. If you have questions, then read up on it on the internet. I think the other thing that we can tend to do is to go into problem solving mode. You know you care about this person so you want to help them, and that's only natural. But just bear in mind that even just saying it to you is difficult and that moment in time might not be the right time to think about problem solving and the person might not even want that from you. So that brings me to my second point, which is to ask the person how can I support you? What do you need from me? So I think another point to say is to thank them for telling you. It can take a lot to say it, so saying something like thank you for trusting me with this, I really appreciate it, that can go a long way and can really help the person feel supported. So that brings me to the end of this episode and I hope that it's helped give you some ideas on how to have open conversations about OCD.

Speaker 1 12:58

There is a video of this episode on my YouTube channel at DrLizWhite, where I have lots more resources for anxiety and OCD, so go and subscribe. The link is in the show notes. Thank you for listening to this episode of Hello Therapy. If you found it helpful, don't forget to subscribe, follow and review. You can get more wellbeing and mental health tips by joining our email list and visiting the resources section of our website at harleyclinicalcouk. The Hello Therapy podcast and the information provided by me, dr Liz White, is solely intended for information and educational purposes and does not constitute personalized advice. Please do reach out to your GP or a mental health professional if you need support. Until next time, take care of yourself.