3 Things to Do During an OCD Flare-Up | Practical ERP Tips
3 Things to Do During an OCD Flare-Up
If you live with OCD, you probably know the feeling of a flare-up all too well. Things might have been manageable for a while, and then suddenly the thoughts get louder, the urges feel stronger, and it’s harder to trust yourself again.
First, nothing has gone wrong. A flare-up generally means your brain’s alarm system is activated again, and you have an opportunity to respond differently.
Here are three things you can do in the middle of an OCD flare-up:
-
Name What’s Happening (and Externalize It)
One of the most helpful things you can do is simply recognize: this is OCD.
Not intuition. Not a sign. Not something you need to figure out right now.
You might say to yourself, “This is an OCD thought” Or “my brain is sending a false alarm.”
This creates just enough space between you and the thought, so you don’t automatically fall into the spiral of analyzing, checking, or fixing. The goal isn’t to feel better immediately, but rather to see more clearly what’s happening.
-
Resist the Urge to Fix or Figure It Out
During a flare-up, OCD will feel especially convincing. It will push harder for certainty, reassurance, or relief. This is where your response matters most. Instead of engaging in compulsions (mental or physical), practice leaving the thought unsolved.
That might look something like:
- Not Googling
- Not replaying the situation
- Not asking for reassurance
- Not trying to “land” on the right answer
You can even respond with something like:
- “Maybe, maybe not.”
- “I’m not going to figure this out right now.”
This is the core of ERP. It’s learning that you can tolerate uncertainty without needing to resolve it.
-
Get Back to Your Life (Even If It Feels Uncomfortable)
OCD flare-ups often pull you out of your life and into your head. One of the most powerful responses is to gently return to what you were doing, or choose something meaningful to engage in.
Not because you feel ready. Not because the anxiety is gone. But because you’re practicing living your life alongside the discomfort.
This might mean:
- Continuing a conversation
- Going to work or the gym
- Watching a show without analyzing your thoughts
- Engaging in something you value
The goal is to show your brain that anxiety doesn’t get to decide what you do. You can coexist with anxiety!
OCD flare-ups can feel discouraging, but they’re opportunities to reinforce new patterns. Each time you respond differently, by noticing, not engaging, and continuing your life, you’re retraining your brain.
For more helpful tips and tools to help with OCD, check out our resources page.
Avoidance in OCD: Why It Works Until It Doesn’t
Avoidance Works… Until It Doesn’t
Avoidance is one of those things that makes perfect sense in the moment. You cancel the plans because you feel overwhelmed, put off the phone call because it feels stressful, leave the store because anxiety starts rising, or tell yourself, “I’ll deal with it later.” And for a little while, it works. You feel relief, your body calms down, and the tension drops. That is what makes avoidance so powerful. It often gives immediate relief.
The problem is that short term relief can come with a long-term cost.
What Avoidance Teaches the Brain
When we consistently avoid something, the brain often learns that the situation must be dangerous, anxiety must mean something is wrong, discomfort is intolerable, and escape is the only way to feel okay. Over time, fear usually grows instead of shrinking.
What once felt manageable can begin to feel impossible. The circle gets smaller. Fewer places feel safe, fewer risks feel worth taking, and more energy gets spent trying to prevent discomfort before it even happens.
Avoidance in Anxiety
With anxiety, avoidance can look like skipping social situations, staying home more often, putting off difficult conversations, waiting until you “feel ready,” or leaving situations when panic rises. None of this means you are weak or failing. It means your nervous system found a strategy that lowers distress quickly. It just may not be helping anymore.
Avoidance in OCD
Avoidance also shows up often in OCD. Sometimes people think OCD is only about rituals or visible compulsions, but avoidance can be a major part of the cycle. A person may avoid places, objects, or people that trigger fears. They may avoid driving, relationships, parenting decisions, or responsibilities because of intrusive thoughts. Others avoid uncertainty by constantly researching, asking for reassurance, or trying to prevent mistakes at all costs.
The more avoidance runs the show, the more convincing OCD can become.
So What Helps?
Healing is all about learning that you can feel discomfort and still move forward. That may mean staying in the conversation a little longer, making the appointment, driving the route you have been avoiding, or allowing uncertainty to be present without trying to solve it immediately.
Not giant leaps. Often small, repeated steps.
A Different Goal
Many people believe the goal is to never feel anxious again. A healthier goal is often this: I can feel anxious and still live my life.
That shift can change everything.
Final Thought
Avoidance is understandable. It often starts as self-protection. But if your world has been getting smaller, your confidence has been dropping, or anxiety seems to be spreading, it may be worth asking whether avoidance is helping you or quietly keeping you stuck.
Sometimes freedom begins with one small step toward the thing you’ve been avoiding.
If you’d like more support, education, and practical tools for OCD and anxiety, visit the Resources page on my website to explore guides, tools, and helpful next steps.
Is This Love or Anxiety? How OCD Distorts Romantic Feelings (Especially on Valentine’s Day)
Is This Love or Anxiety? How OCD Distorts Romantic Feelings (Especially on Valentine’s Day)
Valentine’s Day is often portrayed as a time filled with romance, connection, and emotional certainty. But for many people, it brings something very different. Instead of feeling close to their partner, they feel anxious. Instead of enjoying the relationship, they find themselves questioning it. Thoughts like “What if I don’t really love my partner?” or “Why don’t I feel what I’m supposed to feel?” can become louder and harder to ignore. For individuals with Relationship OCD (ROCD), Valentine’s Day can intensify these doubts and turn love into something that feels less like connection and more like a problem to solve.
OCD often targets what matters most. In relationships, this can show up as an urgent need for certainty about feelings, attraction, and compatibility. Folks with ROCD may spend significant time analyzing their emotions, scanning their relationship for signs of failure, or seeking reassurance. Common experiences of this might include:
- Constantly evaluating feelings toward a partner
- Comparing the relationship to others
- Googling signs of being in the “wrong” relationship
- Seeking reassurance from friends or partners
- Mentally replaying interactions for proof of love, or lack thereof
Over time, the relationship can become overshadowed by self-monitoring. Instead of being present with a partner, the person becomes preoccupied with trying to feel certain.
Valentine’s Day can amplify this cycle by reinforcing the idea that love should feel obvious, intense, and emotionally clear. Cultural messages suggest that if a relationship is real, it should feel “magical,” especially on a day dedicated to romance. Yet feelings naturally fluctuate. They shift with stress, mood, life transitions, and countless other factors. OCD interprets this normal variability as danger, turning ordinary emotional changes into evidence that something is fundamentally wrong. In reality, uncertainty is not a sign of failure in love, but rather an inevitable part of being in a relationship with another human being.
It can be helpful to distinguish between anxiety-driven doubt and healthy relationship reflection. While both can involve questioning, they often feel very different.
Anxiety-driven doubt often feels like:
- Urgent, repetitive questioning
- A strong need for certainty
- Fear-based conclusions
- Treating temporary emotions as permanent truths
Healthy reflection often looks like:
- Slower, grounded consideration over time
- Curiosity rather than panic
- Attention to patterns, values, and emotional safety, not just feelings
The goal is to learn how not to let doubt dictate the relationship, rather than eliminating doubt entirely.
One meaningful shift for folks with ROCD is moving away from questions centered on certainty, such as “Do I love them enough?” or “Are they the right person?” and toward questions rooted in values. Asking questions like:
- “How do I want to show up in relationships?”
- “What kind of partner do I want to be?”
- “What matters to me in connection and commitment?”
can help reorient attention from internal monitoring to intentional action. Love is not measured by how certain you feel on Valentine’s Day, but by how you choose to show up in moments of connection, uncertainty, and vulnerability.
For those struggling with ROCD, Valentine’s Day can be an opportunity to practice relating differently to intrusive thoughts. This might look like noticing a doubt without arguing with it, naming it as anxiety, allowing uncertainty to exist, and choosing a values-based action. This approach does not erase anxiety, but it creates space for connection to exist alongside it.
Sometimes doubt does not signal the absence of love, but rather, it signals the presence of anxiety. And learning to live with uncertainty, rather than trying to eliminate it, can become one of the most meaningful acts of love within a relationship.
Exposure Therapy Is Not Fear Factor
Exposure Therapy Is Not Fear Factor
When people first hear about Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), they sometimes imagine a therapy session run by a game show host. They picture being locked in a room with spiders, licking a toilet seat to “face their fear,” or getting pushed straight into a situation they have avoided for years while everyone stands around with clipboards and a stopwatch.
Spoiler alert. That is not how therapy works!
Exposure therapy is not a dare. It is not humiliation or shock value. It is not a dramatic moment where you scream “I am cured” while conquering your biggest fear in one afternoon. ERP is a science-based treatment designed to help people live their lives with more freedom, not more terror.
So, let’s clear some things up.
What ERP Actually Is
Exposure and Response Prevention is a structured, evidence-based therapy for OCD and anxiety disorders. It helps you notice uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, and sensations and choose how to respond instead of reacting on autopilot. The goal is not to make you fearless. The goal is to help fear lose its control over your decisions.
ERP involves gradual exposures. We work together to decide what challenges you will face, when you will face them, and how we will measure progress. There are no surprise tasks, and you will never be put into something unsafe. The therapist’s job is not to shock you or entertain the internet. The job is to help you build confidence by practicing discomfort in manageable steps.
Anxiety loves to tell you that you cannot handle something unless you avoid it. ERP helps prove that your brain has underestimated you.
What ERP Is Not
- A punishment
- A stunt show
- A chance to test how much you can endure
- A competition to see who can tolerate the most germs
- A moral test to prove you are a good person
ERP does not exist to make you uncomfortable for fun. It exists because discomfort is already taking over your life, and therapy gives you a healthy place to learn how to handle it.
Sometimes people think ERP means doing the scariest possible thing right away. That would be like walking into a gym for the first time and immediately trying to lift a refrigerator. ERP is more like strength training. You build tolerance little by little. You develop emotional muscles through repetition, consistency, and support.
Why ERP Matters
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is really sneaky. It does not usually center around random fears. It goes after what you care about most. Your health, your loved ones, your morals, your faith, your identity, your safety, your future. It attacks your values by making everything feel risky, uncertain, or morally significant.
ERP helps you live based on your values again, instead of fear. The work is about choosing how you spend your time, your energy, and your attention. It is learning to let intrusive thoughts exist without needing to fix them, fight them, or run away.
In other words, ERP helps you take your life back. One step at a time. One choice at a time.
So Does ERP Work?
Yes. ERP is considered the gold standard treatment for OCD. It is well researched, effective, and empowering. The success comes from building skills you can use outside the therapy room, not just while you are sitting on the couch. ERP teaches you how to face uncertainty, get your time back, and make choices based on what matters, not anxiety, fear, or intrusive thoughts.
No Fear Factor auditions required.
The Silent Struggle: Living with Mental Compulsions
The Silent Struggle: Living with Mental Compulsions
When most people think of OCD, they imagine someone washing their hands over and over or checking the stove repeatedly. While those are common examples, what many people don’t see are the mental compulsions. The quiet, internal rituals that happen entirely inside the mind.
Mental compulsions are repetitive thoughts or mental acts that people use to try to reduce anxiety, find certainty, or neutralize a fear. They might look like replaying a conversation to make sure nothing offensive was said, mentally praying until it “feels right,” or reviewing memories to confirm that something bad didn’t happen. Sometimes it’s a mental reassurance loop, like telling yourself, “I would never do that. I’m a good person.”
From the outside, everything can look calm. But inside, a person might be caught in an exhausting battle with their thoughts. The relief that comes from a mental ritual doesn’t last long, and soon the doubt returns, restarting the cycle.
Because these compulsions are invisible, they often go unnoticed by others. Someone may appear distracted or distant, when in reality their mind is running in endless circles, trying to feel certain about something that can never be fully certain. This can be incredibly isolating. Many of the clients I work with that experience mental compulsions often wonder, “If no one can see what I’m doing, does it even count as OCD?” The truth is that mental rituals are just as real and draining as visible ones. They can consume hours of a person’s day and leave them feeling mentally and emotionally exhausted.
The good news is that OCD is treatable, including when the compulsions are mental. The most effective treatment is Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) therapy. ERP helps people learn to face their intrusive thoughts without engaging in rituals. Over time, this teaches the brain that the thoughts themselves are not dangerous and that uncertainty is not a threat. As a result, that anxiety naturally fades on its own.
Recovery doesn’t mean eliminating intrusive thoughts. It means learning to recognize them for what they are — just thoughts (thoughts are not facts!) — and continuing to live life in alignment with what matters most to you.
If you or someone you care about struggles with the invisible side of OCD, you are not alone. With the right support, it is possible to quiet the mental noise and find relief.
You can learn more about therapy for anxiety or contact me today!
For further reading, check out the International OCD Foundation.