How micro-monitoring OCD symptoms can keep you from getting better

Key takeaways

• Micromonitoring OCD involves repeatedly checking for anxiety and intrusive thoughts and/or compulsively consuming information about how to get better.
• Compulsive symptom monitoring keeps OCD active by reinforcing that OCD itself is something to be feared.
• Improvement in OCD cannot be accurately measured moment by moment through internal monitoring.
• A key component of ERP for micromonitoring OCD symptoms is self-compassionately accepting that recovery is an imperfect process.

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

In my recent Shoulders Back! newsletter survey, readers indicated they were most interested in learning how to avoid the pitfalls that can sabotage OCD recovery. So for this FredTalks blog post, I’m going to discuss one of the saboteurs I see most often in my private practice as an ERP for OCD therapist: micro-monitoring your OCD symptoms in hopes that you can finally eliminate them all.

Compulsive micro-monitoring of OCD symptoms

This subtle saboteur is a category of OCD compulsions that can include:

• Periodically checking your anxiety level, and then comparing your current level to how you’ve felt previously and to how you’d like to feel to see how much progress you’re making.
• Evaluating your mental state for how many intrusive thoughts you’ve had recently to see if you’re having fewer than you were before.
• Consuming as much online OCD treatment information as possible to make sure you’re not missing anything that could help you get rid of every single symptom you’re experiencing.

How OCD cons you into doing these compulsions

I often see people with OCD begin to participate in these micro-monitoring compulsions when they’re about three-quarters of the way through their OCD therapy journey (although these compulsions can happen at any time). These are hard-working therapy participants who are feeling so much better, and they can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Then they start having the thought that if fewer symptoms are better, no symptoms would be best.

So they next increase their efforts to notice obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors so they can address them while also increasing their intake of OCD recovery info online. These sound like great things to do, right? However, the problem here is not with being mindful or becoming more educated, but with the intrusive thoughts that are driving these behaviors, which tend to be some variant of one or more of the following:

• What if I always have some level of anxiety for the rest of my life?
• What if OCD never stops bothering me / never goes away?
• What if I’m not doing my ERP therapy well enough and that’s why I’m still having symptoms?
• What if I never fully recover? What if my life isn’t what it could be as a result?

The lie that OCD is selling you is that you can only enjoy your life if OCD isn’t there. That you’ll only be happy if you never have any intrusive thoughts, you never feel the urge to do compulsions,  and you never feel any anxiety. In other words, you’re now obsessing about OCD itself and your recovery from it.

How to avoid the micro-monitoring pitfall

Building on what Susan David, PhD shared in her brilliant TED Talk “The gift and power of emotional courage,” wanting to have no anxiety and no intrusive thoughts are dead people’s goals. Everyone living on the planet is going to have intrusive thoughts and/or anxiety sometimes. And every once in a while, your OCD is likely to react negatively to one of those intrusive thoughts and then you’ll feel anxious.

And while that’s not fun, it’s okay, because OCD recovery is not about attaining perfection. It’s not about having zero symptoms. The antidote to the subtle micro-monitoring pitfall is embracing that perspective by:

• Giving yourself permission to be imperfect in your recovery and with your ERP. Trying to do therapy perfectly is doing OCD therapy in an OCD way!
• Telling yourself and your OCD, “It’s fine that I’m having symptoms, OCD. The more I micro-monitor you and try to get you to go away, the more I’m acting like these obsessions are relevant, which only makes you stronger. Instead, I’m going to recognize that everyone with OCD has symptoms sometimes, even people in a good recovery. I’m going to focus on the life I’m building, use my ERP skills as needed / as my therapist and I have agreed upon, and do the exposure of enjoying myself even when you’re present and even when I have anxiety.”
• Using self-compassion liberally. If you beat yourself up for having symptoms, that’s only going to reinforce OCD’s obsessive beliefs that symptoms are the obstacle to you living a great life. But it’s not the symptoms that are the problem—it’s our relationship to them. With ERP, we’re building a new mental process, one where we learn to accept the presence of intrusive thoughts and anxiety and respond to them in a non-compulsive, imperfect, and self-compassionate way.

For more information about this topic, please see the following:

• Why There’s No Cure for OCD: But you can have an amazing, joyful life anyway.
• The Unintended Consequence of Saying OCD Can Be Cured: People can feel demoralized and unmotivated.
• The 5 Secrets OCD Doesn’t Want You to Know about Anxiety

If you have questions about this blog post, please put them in the Comments section below and I’ll do my best to answer them!

Learn more about taming OCD

To learn more about how I changed my relationship with OCD and reclaimed my life, see chapter 19 of Is Fred in the Refrigerator? Taming OCD and Reclaiming My Life.  Click here to purchase your copy.