The "Noise" of OCD

Mark Twain: “Noise proves nothing—often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid"
I was thinking about this quote today and I found two lessons to be had from it in regard to OCD. The first thing that came to my mind was how one person’s obsessional theme will be hugely disturbing to them but another person with OCD might view it as being absurd and wonder how the anyone could possibly be upset by it. The lesson being, that although the obsession seems to be merely an “egg” to you, because it’s not your particular obsession, it still FEELS like an asteroid to the person who is suffering with it. It’s important to understand that it’s really not the content of the obsession that makes it so painful as much as it is the anxiety response that the person experiences in relation to it. This intensely excruciating anxiety is the thing which makes it seem huge to them and they really have no control over that, so it’s important not to invalidate how they are feeling.
The second lesson is about the “noise” of OCD. The noise of OCD is twofold. A. The noise of the exaggerated anxiety response which can be compared to what it might feel like if your head were about to be chopped off by a guillotine and B. the constant droning “noise” of the obsession which plays over and over in your brain every waking minute. It’s all this “noise” that causes the sufferer to feel like the obsession surely must have a huge measure of validity. (It’s an asteroid!) Therefore, with OCD although the “noise” doesn’t really equal truth it surely feels as though the obsession might be valid.
Managing OCD means learning to tolerate the “noise” without treating the obsession as if it’s worthy of a response. It takes more grit than you can imagine to do this, because the noise of OCD is very compelling and pushes the sufferer into attending to the obsession.
So to sum up: A. All OCD obsessions create intense anxiety no matter what theme. And, B. The anxiety that the sufferer feels isn’t tantamount to truth even though if feels very threatening.

Medication certainly can provide the evidence that it's OCD bc when the anxiety is dealt a big blow the thoughts seem a lot less threatening. It also aids a lot of people when first learning how to do ERP. I don't like the idea of completely eliminating the anxiety but taking the edge off so you don't feel so incapacitated is certainly something that has been very beneficial to me also. I appreciate your input Dabro. You've learned a lot about OCD and it's great that you are passing along that knowledge with the aim of helping others. Mitzi

dabro said:

Yes this is why klonopin has destroyed my obsession. Take away the anxiety, take away the obsession.....I have also been in situations where I did not take my klonopin and it is as if I have learned how to just keep it in the background. Now IDK if I totally went off all my meds would i relapse but klonopin not only helped the anxiety but it also trained me into how to not to respond to the obsession in a manner that would give me extreme anxiety......They say I have GAD, But I don't see that.....OCD has got to be the worst disorder because it's anxiety is compared to standing before God at your judgment and your conscience condemns you cause you do not have Christ next to you. That extreme anxiety is what make the obsession feel worthy to ruminate over which in turn will just cause you to go deeper down into the obsession. Great Post Mitzi!

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Hi Fifigirl, Is all of this a symptom of OCD? Yes, Yes, Yes!! But more importantly what symptom is it? It's really important for those of us with OCD to learn to discern and categorize the components of an episode of OCD. In the example you gave this is how I'd do that:
a. O = Obsession or "spike": "What if you're not really saved..... etc...
b. Anxiety Response: This is that very uncomfortable feeling that attends the obsession. Sometimes it's just a nagging inner anxious feeling of doubt, fear and uncertainty and sometimes it's full blown linear panic.
What is important here is to acknowledge that with OCD you have no control over a. and b. They happen w/o you choosing them and therefore it's really pointless to blame yourself for their occurrence.
c. C = compulsion. When you experience a. and then b. your brain is over reacting to the content of the obsession and will then push or compel you to attend to it - to try and sort it all out, undo it, seek reassurance in response to it etc.. But here's the problem with attending to it. When you do that your brain is being taught a lesson over and over and over again. And this is the lesson: "This thought, doubt, fear is clearly an urgent thing. It must be an emergency!" Then the brain marks the thought as having an inordinate level of weight and validity and this is why the thoughts get "stuck" in our minds. The compulsive activity of OCD is the very thing that drives the disorder and causes a particular theme to dominate our thought life.
The key to managing OCD lies in being able to allow the thoughts, the "what if's" so to speak to blab on and on in our minds w/o engaging in the compulsive side of the disorder by answering the thoughts via attending to them. In this form of OCD this is referred to as "rumination".
It takes practice to learn to allow and and even to purposely expose our mind to the thoughts w/o attending to them. Exposure is two fold; a. just allowing the thoughts/questions and choosing to completely ignore them and b. Sitting with the thoughts by inviting them in to do their worse w/o attending to them. This is called flooding or habituation. It's very helpful toward retraining the brain to just accept the presence of the obsession w/o over reacting to it. There's too much to say about that form of exposure in this post but there's lots of info. available on that via OCDOnline.com in the "Pure O" OCD articles. Oh, and one more thing; managing OCD does not mean you will never think or hear these thoughts in your mind again. What it means is that over time the thoughts will bother you less and less and this in turn will eventually cause them to occur less frequently but that's over the long haul. Even many years later those thoughts might crop up unexpectedly but if you know to expect and accept this, then you are able to turn away from attending to them more easily and the episode will typically be brief.
Hope this helps a bit. Mitzi

fifigirl said:

Hi Mitzi, I have a question, Is this a sympom of OCD? Constantly feeling the urge to talk to someone about my doubts about my salvation in hopes that maybe "this time" i can get it settled? I can go for a while without too many problems and then all of a sudden I may start having anxious thoughts and doubts that say "what if" you're not really saved and you have analyzed this to the point of not being able to truly repent because you've spent so many years questioning and going over it with a fine tooth comb, and now you are unable to repent because you just don't care anymore.. you don't have the capacity to repent over your sins and receive Christ." I get numerous thoughts of this nature that just bug me to no end!

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