OCD Myths, Debunked #2: OCD Is Completely Illogical

Welcome back to my series about the myths and misconceptions surrounding OCD! The goal of this series is to provide support to people who want to understand OCD for what it really is, rather than what it’s been built up to be in society, media, and pop culture. These misconceptions impact clients and clinicians alike, and deserve to be debunked.

The misconception of the day: OCD is completely illogical.

While OCD can certainly be based in magical thinking, or have little connection to reality, real life OCD is infinitely more complex and personal to the person who experiences it.  One method of treating OCD, called Inference Based CBT (I-CBT), bases treatment on the idea that an individual person’s OCD themes will be related to the stories we tell ourselves about why our OCD keeps us safe.

For example, if I have harm OCD themes, I may be scared of the possibility of harming my loved ones by accidentally poisoning their food. I can come up with many reasons why this could happen…

• Food safety standards are often very precise, and I could easily mess them up.
• I’ve read many news articles about food poisoning that happened unintentionally.
• One time, I even undercooked my own eggs and it made my stomach hurt later that day.

See? I can absolutely find stories that let me logically justify my OCD fears. I might use compulsions in reaction to these fears…

• Rigorous handwashing (many minutes, very hot water, strong cleansers)
• Checking my food (measuring and remeasuring food temperature, checking and rechecking for raw meat)
• Avoiding food prep in the first place I feel like I’m preventing sure harm.

These compulsions follow an important logic clearly based on my experiences and knowledge.

However- and this is a big one- OCD logic is not infallible. Nothing happening in the here and now is actually telling me that any of these stories are happening.

• My food thermometer told me my chicken was cooked to a safe temperature.
• Visually looking at my food tells me there’s no giant patches of mold waiting to cause illness.
• The smell and taste of the food I’m enjoying tells me it’s not spoiled.

These stories feel important to me because I’m invested in them connecting to each other. What’s more, I care so much about my loved ones that the idea of harming them feels so devastating that these stories feel very important to react to. The reality is though, I don’t need to do my compulsions to prevent harm, because the stories telling me harm is imminent aren’t actually relevant right now. The logic exists, and matters to me, but reality and my senses tell me that I’m safe anyway. Some questions I can ask myself when I’m having these doubts could be…

• Is there anything in the here and now that is a threat?
• What are my 5 senses telling me?
• Is the logic I’m using based on what’s actually happening right now, or is it based on past experiences, stories, and things I’ve heard from others?

When we push the idea that OCD needs to be ”illogical”, we discount the core experience of obsessive thoughts in the first place, and belittle the people dealing with those obsessions. Dismissing these very real fears based on very real stories just creates a rift in understanding and can increase the stigma of OCD. Diagnosis may even be missed by people who believe OCD can’t make sense and still be OCD. A more accurate statement would be that the logic of OCD is not based in the present. It exists, and it’s important to understand nonjudgmentally, and it also doesn’t represent real danger. This nuance is crucial. That’s where the work is!