I have often sat across from my clients with OCD in this very room and thought,
I wish you could meet some of my other clients because they are feeling just as lonely and isolated as you are.
And if you could just meet each other,
You may just realize that you have more in common than you thought.
Now,
Of course,
That cannot happen.
I have ethical and professional obligations and boundaries around confidentiality,
It has made me think a lot about loneliness and the experience of OCD.
I'm Dr Liz White,
A consultant clinical psychologist.
Let me ask you this question.
Have you ever had thoughts like,
Nobody else has thoughts like this,
Or nobody else would understand what I'm going through,
Or if people really knew what was going on in my head,
People wouldn't want to know me.
Have you had thoughts like that?
Let me know in the comments.
Now I'm asking you that because those kind of thoughts are actually really,
Really common and it can be incredibly isolating feeling and thinking that way because so much of OCD is completely invisible.
You can be sitting at work,
Having lunch with a friend,
Picking up your kids from school and look absolutely fine on the outside.
Meanwhile,
Inside your head,
You're going over an old memory,
Trying to figure out if you did something wrong.
Maybe you're checking how you really feel about someone,
Or trying to figure out whether a thought actually meant something about you or your character.
Maybe you're arguing with the thoughts backwards and forwards.
Trying desperately to get to the point where you feel okay or feel not so anxious.
And nobody around you knows that this is happening.
But the loneliness of OCD can come from many different places.
Sometimes it's the content of the thoughts themselves.
If your OCD latches on to harm,
Sex,
Morality,
Taboo thoughts.
Or something that feels completely at odds with who you are.
You may feel as though you just can't tell anyone what's going on in your own head.
And thoughts like these feel so alien,
They feel so disturbing,
That the thought of saying them out loud to someone just It doesn't even enter your mind.
Sometimes the loneliness comes from compulsions.
You may know that what you're doing may look strange to someone else who doesn't experience OCD.
Like if you're washing your hands over and over again or maybe you're flicking the light switch a certain number of times.
Maybe you're asking the same questions when you're seeking reassurance or avoiding something that seems completely harmless to someone else.
And you are painfully aware of how it looks while also feeling completely unable to stop it.
Now for other people,
It can be the self-criticism that's tough.
Why am I like this?
Why can't I just stop?
Why does this bother me when everyone else can just move on?
And that could make you withdraw even further because now you're not only struggling with OCD,
You're judging yourself for struggling with it.
Sometimes the loneliness is just simply knowing how difficult it is to explain to someone who doesn't experience it.
Because OCD doesn't often make sense from the outside.
You may even know that yourself.
You know that the fear is unlikely,
You know that the compulsions don't help,
And yet it still feels urgent.
And trying to explain all that to someone who has never experienced it is just so difficult.
They might say things like,
But you know that's not going to happen.
Or,
Why can't you just stop thinking about it?
Or,
That just doesn't sound like you.
You would never do that.
And of course,
This is often exactly the point.
It doesn't feel like you.
It doesn't fit with who you are.
It doesn't fit with who you know yourself to be.
And yet your mind keeps dragging you back to it.
And that gap between who you know yourself to be and what OCD keeps questioning can be a very lonely place to sit.
And I think this is one of the things that people often underestimate about OCD.
It isn't only exhausting because of the thoughts and the compulsions.
It's exhausting because you are carrying so much of it privately.
I think this is also one of the reasons why I've always been struck by what happens when people with OCD actually do get to meet and talk to each other.
There can be a moment of recognition,
Not reassurance,
Not somebody telling you that your particular fear or doubt isn't true.
Just that knowing,
Oh,
You experienced this too.
You know what that can feel like.
And you sometimes see this happen online.
Someone writes in a Reddit post what they are experiencing.
Replies I do this too or someone leaves a comment on one of my YouTube videos and actually this is one of the main reasons why I started thinking about starting an online membership for people with OCD because over the years I've witnessed people experiencing OCD in this very lonely and isolated way when in fact a lot of what people experience is a shared experience.
And therapy can be incredibly important,
But it's only,
What,
50 minutes a week.
The rest of the week,
You're living your life.
And I wanted to create that sense of connection outside of the therapy hour,
Somewhere where people can learn and practice skills,
And importantly,
Realize that they are not the only person finding this hard.
Without it becoming a place where you just get reassurance,
Because connection and reassurance are not the same thing.
And maybe we can create a little bit of a sense of that connection here.
If any part of this video resonated with you,
Let me know in the comments,
Because someone else reading the comments might really need to see that too.
I'll see you in the next video.
