OCD Recovery: 9 Tips for Success

What Does it Mean to Recover From OCD?

Recovering from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) means gaining a sense of control over your symptoms instead of feeling controlled by them. For some, recovery involves a full remission of OCD symptoms, and for others, it means a significant reduction in their symptoms or having no current symptoms.^{1, 4}

Still, even when a person can achieve full remission (1 year without OCD symptoms or impairments), it’s possible for their symptoms to return. OCD is considered a chronic condition. Like most chronic conditions, people with OCD can experience periodic ‘flare-ups,’ which are periods when their OCD symptoms get worse.^{1, 4} These flare-ups are more likely to occur during stressful periods in a person’s life. Because of the chronic nature of OCD, it’s important to view recovery as an ongoing process that requires regular maintenance.⁵

Spectrum of OCD Recovery

Recovery from OCD is not a one-size-fits-all experience and instead exists on a spectrum that begins with mild and occasional symptoms and ends with complete remission of symptoms. It’s normal for people in recovery from OCD to slide around on this spectrum, depending on how well their symptoms are being managed at any given time.^{1, 5}

Defining recovery as a spectrum can help people with the disorder challenge rigid all-or-nothing thoughts that keep them feeling stuck, frustrated, and critical about their progress (or lack thereof). For example, having occasional obsessive or intrusive thoughts or strong urges to engage in compulsive habits is relatively normal for people during OCD recovery.¹

What Does OCD Recovery Look Like?

Early on in recovery, it’s normal for people with OCD to have more severe obsessive thoughts, compulsions, and anxiety.^{1, 4} Through the consistent use of healthy coping skills, people progress in their recovery. Eventually, these skills become more natural, and the person will experience symptom relief.⁶ There isn’t a set timeframe for OCD recovery, but it occurs sooner for people who choose to begin treatment.

When a person with OCD reaches the later stages of recovery and achieves a greater sense of control over their symptoms, the experience is incredibly liberating. They often experience greater self-control, confidence, and emotional stability. Reports of improved relationships, more productive routines, healthier habits, and happier moods are common among people who have recovered from OCD.¹

Factors That Influence OCD Recovery

Because OCD can present in so many different ways (depending on the subtype of OCD a person has), the recovery process can look a little bit different for each individual.^{2, 5} OCD affects the way a person thinks, feels, and behaves, and countless circumstances can influence these processes. Some influences are internal (i.e., memories, stress, expectations, etc.), and others are external (i.e., situations, conflicts, events, etc.).

Common factors that can influence OCD recovery include:^{1, 2, 6}

• OCD subtypes: The specific type of OCD obsessions & compulsions a person has can influence the specific kind of therapy that might work best for them and, therefore, the length of their recovery.
• OCD symptoms: What OCD symptoms a person has, how long they’ve had them, and how frequent and severe they are can influence the length of recovery. Severe symptoms are the hardest and slowest to remit.
• Onset of symptoms: The age of onset and length of time the person was symptomatic before seeking treatment can also factor in the length of recovery, with early onset and late treatment associated with more severe courses of OCD.
• Co-occurring conditions: If an individual has co-morbid conditions with their OCD, the type and severity of their symptoms & how they interact or trigger their OCD can impact the length of recovery.
• Support system: The length of OCD recovery is impacted by whether an individual has strong, close, healthy bonds with people that they can ask for help or count on for support during their recovery.
• Mindset and attitude: Whether a person has an optimistic mindset and is open to new ideas and solutions strongly impacts OCD recovery. Additionally, recovery depends on whether they have a high motivation to recover from their OCD.
• Emotional stability: Whether a person is emotionally stable, able to regulate their mood and stress levels, control impulses, and use healthy outlets and coping skills when distressed all impact the length of recovery.
• Lifestyle and routine: Recovery is also impacted by whether an individual has a healthy and balanced routine with regular habits that keep them physically and emotionally healthy.
• Professional treatment: The length of OCD recovery can be determined by whether a person is willing and able to engage in psychotherapy or other effective OCD treatments with a licensed and experienced specialist.

9 Tips for How to Succeed in OCD Recovery

There isn’t a set of specific steps that will help everyone struggling with OCD reach their recovery goals, but there are some general tips that most people with OCD find helpful. Some of these involve seeking help from a licensed treatment provider, and others are things a person can do on their own to further their progress.

Here are nine tips for how to succeed in OCD recovery:

1. Confirm Your OCD Diagnosis

A formal diagnosis of OCD can only be made by a licensed professional (i.e., therapist or doctor), and getting an official diagnosis is an important first step towards OCD recovery.^{1, 5} An official diagnosis of OCD is especially important for people who are considering professional treatment since most insurance companies require this step before covering the costs of treatment.

While stereotypes make certain subtypes easier to spot (i.e., contamination OCD or checking OCD), people with less common subtypes (i.e., harm OCD or ROCD) are often misdiagnosed. For this reason, it’s critically important to seek out a licensed counselor or mental health clinician who specializes in OCD treatment. This provides the best protection against misdiagnosis and makes it more likely that you will receive the specialized treatment you need to jumpstart your recovery.^{2, 5}

2. Learn About Effective OCD Treatments

After you have a licensed and qualified professional confirm that you have a diagnosis of OCD, it’s a good idea to learn more about treatment options. If you see a licensed professional to receive a diagnosis, they may also be the best source of information about the best available treatment options.¹

They might even have helpful inside knowledge about treatment costs, insurance coverage, wait lists, or clinics with the best reputations if they are located near you. This information can save you a lot of time, energy, and research, so it’s a good idea to ask these questions in your initial appointment.

Effective therapy and OCD medication options to achieve OCD recovery include:^{1, 2, 5, 7}

• Exposure and response prevention (ERP): ERP is a specialized type of exposure therapy that helps people with OCD face their fears, learn healthy coping skills, and break the OCD cycle of behaviors.
• Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT): CBT for OCD can help people identify, track, and change unhelpful obsessive thoughts that contribute to their symptoms while also using behaviorism and habit-reversal training to break compulsive habits.
• Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT): ACT for OCD can help people learn how to use mindfulness and emotional acceptance skills to cope in healthier ways while also encouraging people to identify and align their actions with their core values.
• SNRI or SSRI medications: SSRI and SNRI antidepressant medications, such as Zoloft for OCD, work on serotonin receptors in the brain. They are commonly prescribed to people with OCD who have co-occurring mood or anxiety disorders.
• Antipsychotic medications: Antipsychotic medications block dopamine receptors in the brain, which can help reduce intrusive thoughts related to OCD

3. Identify & Rank Your OCD Triggers

Many people with OCD find it helpful to identify the people, places, and situations that trigger their OCD thoughts and urges. This can help them become more aware of their triggers and allows them to make a plan for times they encounter them. After making a list of your OCD triggers, it is also helpful to rank them according to how much distress or anxiety they cause.

This step is especially important for people who try to cope with their OCD symptoms by avoiding their triggers, which brings temporary relief but worsens OCD in the long run. After ranking triggers, you can plan to face them gradually, starting with the least distressing and working up. This will help you desensitize yourself to your triggers, practice OCD coping skills, and gain more control over your symptoms.^{1, 6}

4. Spend Less Time in Your Head

OCD obsessions are intrusive thoughts that pull your attention into rumination cycles, almost like a strong magnet attracts metal. This is why it’s so difficult for people with OCD to pull their attention away from their obsessive thoughts, even when it means distracting them from other things they need or want to focus on.

The good news is that people with OCD can refocus their attention away from OCD thoughts, and this gets much easier with regular practice. Dedicating 15-20 minutes per day to one of these exercises can help you strengthen your refocusing muscles, making it easier to break free from OCD rumination cycles.

Here are some effective ways to stop ruminating:^{1, 6}

• Meditation: There are many great guided meditations for OCD for free online or on meditation apps, and these can help you learn skills and techniques to refocus attention away from your thoughts and toward the present moment
• Mindfulness: Mindfulness is the practice of paying attention to the here and now in a nonjudgmental way and can be practiced by redirecting your attention away from the thoughts and commentary in your mind and to your body, breath, or surroundings
• Grounding: Grounding is a mindfulness skill that involves using one or more of your five senses to become more aware of your surroundings and the present moment (i.e., finding three things you can see, touch, taste, smell, or feel)
• Single-tasking: Single-tasking is the practice of devoting your full, undivided attention to a task or project you’re doing, which offers a convenient and practical mindfulness skill you can practice while working, cleaning, or doing any other part of your normal routine

5. Resist OCD Urges With Urge Surfing

OCD compulsions are driven by strong, intensely uncomfortable urges. Learning how to resist these urges is essential to OCD recovery.^{4, 6} A simple strategy called urge surfing is one of the best and most effective ways to gain more control over the urges that drive your OCD compulsions.

Here is how to practice urge surfing:

• Visualize the urge (to do a compulsion) as a wave that’s rising up inside of you
• Use this mental image to track the urge as it rises, crests, and subsides, staying focused on the sensations in your body (vs the thoughts in your mind)
• Avoid doing or saying anything until the urge has passed and you are feeling more stable, centered, and calm

6. Leave Your Comfort Zone Frequently

Becoming willing to venture outside of the boundaries of your comfort zone is another way to succeed at OCD recovery. While it might feel counterintuitive, challenging yourself to go to new places and try new things is one of the best things you can do for your OCD. This may trigger an initial uptick in your symptoms, but over time, it can help you become desensitized to them.⁶

7. Keep Your Routines Flexible

If you’re like most people with OCD, you tend to prefer routines that are predictable and familiar, but a routine that’s too rigid and strict can work against your OCD recovery efforts. To avoid this, try to make your schedule more flexible by making small changes to switch up what, how, and when you complete different parts of your routine from day to day.⁶

Here are some ways to add more flexibility to your daily routine:

• Do things 30 minutes earlier or later than you normally do
• Take a detour or new route to or from work once a week
• Challenge yourself to cook a new recipe or try a new food once a week
• Look up and try a different method for a routine task you do daily
• Allow yourself to occasionally skip one normal daily routine (i.e., gym, T.V., etc.)

8. Build Up Your Self-Trust

A common theme in people with OCD is that they tend to doubt and question themselves excessively. This self-doubt can lead to hours and hours of rumination, worry, self-criticism, and anxiety and can also worsen compulsive habits related to OCD perfectionism, OCD-induced reassurance-seeking, and checking. If these are issues for you, working to build up your self-trust could be a key part of your recovery.

Here are some things to STOP doing because they undermine self-trust:

• Double & triple checking your work
• Seeking reassurance from other people
• Self-diagnosing with information found online
• Replaying the blooper reel of past mistakes
• Playing ‘shoulda-woulda-coulda’ in your mind
• Compulsive online research for purchases
• Rehearsing simple conversations in advance
• Excessive planning & preparation
• Hypervigilance for signs of disapproval in people
• Ruthless self-criticism after a mistake

Here are some things to START Doing because they build self-trust:

• Relying on your competence & work ethic
• Valuing your opinions as much as others
• Choosing quickly & returning items if needed
• Limiting time on Web MD & similar sites
• Using mindfulness to focus on the present
• Identifying gifts & lessons from past mistakes
• Identifying the main goal/topic beforehand
• Going in unprepared & improvising on the fly
• Looking for things in common with people
• Improved self-care & self-compassion

9. Surrender to Things Beyond Your Control

The last tip for successfully recovering from OCD is to stop trying to rigidly predict, analyze, or fix things that are beyond your power to change. Examples include other people’s thoughts and actions, past mistakes, how and when future events unfold, and even upsetting thoughts and feelings you have.

OCD can compel you to overanalyze situations to look for a way to counteract or control them, but this usually leads to more frequent and severe obsessions and compulsions.⁶ When you become willing to relinquish this control, you free up a huge amount of your time, attention, and energy, which can then be reallocated to areas of life that you can change or control.

Here are some things that are beyond your control:

• Emotions and thoughts: Emotions and thoughts will come and go. Not all of them are relevant, important, or require urgent action, but it’s easy to waste a lot of mental energy on them.
• Personal flaws or weaknesses: Zooming in on flaws makes you feel worse about yourself. The “root cause” analysis can make you feel like something is wrong/broken with you.
• Past mistakes or things that already happened: Zooming in on mistakes or past occurrences tends to make you feel worse, worsen self-criticism, and waste time and energy because you can’t change the past.
• Things that could happen in the future: You cannot predict or control what will happen in the future, so this is a waste of time and energy and tends to worsen anxiety and stress.
• What others think, feel, and do: You cannot know for sure what someone else is thinking or feeling or control what they do. Focusing on this will make you more frustrated and self-conscious.
• What you don’t have: Noticing things you do not have or haven’t accomplished won’t make it appear, but it will make you feel worse about yourself and your life.
• External circumstances: You are not in control of your external circumstances, but fixating on them can make you frustrated and exhausted
• Unmet expectations: expectations can keep you from being able to accept reality and adapt to changing circumstances. Holding on to them can just be upsetting.

Here are some things that are within your control:

• Your response to emotions and thoughts: You can always control what you say or do in response to an emotion, and your response can make things better or worse.
• How you use strengths/weaknesses: Your traits and tendencies can be used as strengths or weaknesses depending on when, how, and what you use them.
• Options for what to do now or next: You cannot change the past but can usually find a way to apologize or make things better and figure out the best way forward.
• What can help get the outcome you want: You can often do something productive to make the outcome you want more likely, but you can’t be too focused on the outcome.
• How you treat and interact with others: Focusing on what you want to say is more productive than focusing on what you want someone else to say or how you want them to respond.
• What you are working towards: Goals give you a sense of direction and purpose, help you be more confident, and preserve a hopeful version of the future.
• Response to current circumstances: Your mental energy is best spent identifying and weighing options for how to respond to the current circumstances.
• Reality of current situation: You may not like your current circumstances, but this won’t change them. Accepting them helps you focus on the solution.

How to Find Professional Support

Therapy is a frontline treatment for OCD and may be combined with psychiatric medication in some instances. Because OCD is a specialized area of mental health, finding a therapist with training and experience in OCD treatments like ERP, ACT, or CBT is recommended.^{2, 3, 7} Many people begin their search by using an online therapist directory that allows them to filter their search by location, insurance type, and specialty. An online therapy platform may be a good option if you are finding it difficult to fit therapy into your busy schedule or if OCD makes it difficult to leave home.

Relapses During OCD Recovery

It’s common for people in recovery to experience a relapse (return of OCD obsessions and compulsions), even after long stretches of remission.⁵ Knowing this in advance can help you set realistic expectations for your recovery and can also help you remain vigilant for early signs of a relapse. Sometimes, monitoring for these early warning signs prepares you to intervene quickly when there’s a problem, possibly even preventing a full-blown OCD relapse.¹

Triggers for relapses during OCD recovery include:

• Undergoing a major life transition or adjustment
• Being under a lot of emotional stress
• Giving birth to a child and/or experiencing post-partum depression
• Having symptoms of another physical or mental illness flare-up
• Experiencing hardship or emotional trauma

The best thing to do if you experience a relapse is to re-establish the routines and habits that helped you achieve remission. This might involve contacting an old therapist to make an appointment, consulting a doctor to assess your medications, or adjusting your routine or schedule to make more time for self-care. Generally, it’s easiest to correct a relapse early on, before the OCD thought and behavior patterns have time to solidify back into habits.⁵