Did I Lock the Door? How OCD Takes Over Your Morning

Peterson Family Therapy treats obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) in Salt Lake City, Utah. Candace and I do a lot of work with OCD clients.

These clients are very interesting. They suffer greatly. Let me break down what OCD is, and then I’ll talk about how we treat it.

What Is OCD?

The O in OCD stands for obsessive, the C for compulsive, and the D for disorder.

The first part, the obsession, is a mental experience. Really, it’s an anxiety experience of unwanted thoughts that hit.

Let me give an example. I had a client who would get very anxious every time he left the house to go to work. He lived by himself. He would get maybe half a block away, and then the thought would come: “Maybe I forgot to lock the front door.” So he would have to turn around, go home, and check the front door. It was locked. Then he would start driving to work again.

After a mile or so, he might have the same thought: “When I was checking it, and turning it to check it, maybe I left it unlocked.” And he would turn around and go check it again.

That’s one example. Here’s a second. I had a client who was afraid she would leave the oven on and her house would catch fire or burn down. She would leave for work, especially on mornings when she had cooked something in the oven, and get two, three, four blocks away. Then the intrusive thoughts would come. Again, the behavior was, “I’ve got to go back and check.” So she’d go back and check. The oven was off. And it would go back and forth.

Unfortunately, people with OCD can lose jobs over this. What is usually a 20 minute drive to work can turn into an hour.

So OCD really is about anxiety. The obsessions are the thoughts that come in, and they’re usually full of fear. The compulsions, like checking the lock or the oven, give the person a little bit of relief. But OCD can destroy a person’s life.

How We Treat OCD

At Peterson Family Therapy, the first thing we do is help people better understand their anxiety and fear, especially what they’re feeling in their body. We do a lot of mindfulness. We talk through what OCD is so they understand it cognitively, and then we look at the steps they can take to start addressing it. OCD treatment is part of the individual therapy in Salt Lake City that Candace and I provide.

Exposure Therapy

The main thing is exposure therapy. That’s the most effective approach. We help the client experience some of the anxiety, sit with it, and then not go back and fix it. Maybe they check half as much the first day. Then they build on that a little bit more, and a little bit more.

We’ll also teach them some tricks. For example, when they lock the door correctly at home, they put a little mark on their finger with a Sharpie. That mark reminds them the door was locked when they left. Same thing for the oven.

CBT and the Attachment Lens

Along with exposure therapy, we use cognitive behavioral therapy. We also look at OCD through an attachment lens. People with OCD need to learn to get better attached to themselves, so they trust themselves and don’t give in to the obsessions and compulsions.

That’s how we treat obsessive compulsive disorder at Peterson Family Therapy. If OCD is taking over your mornings, your drive, or your work, reach out to us at (801) 809-7990.