Wait, I Thought OCD Was Supposed to Keep Me Safe?

One of the biggest lies OCD ever told me was that it was keeping me safe.

For years, I performed rituals because I believed they were protecting me from something bad happening. OCD convinced me that if I followed its rules, I could prevent disaster, bad luck, contamination, curses, or other terrible outcomes.

Then something happened that made me question all of it.

It was around June of last year. I was in the bathroom getting ready for the day and putting on my shorts. My OCD decided I had put them on incorrectly because I had not completed the proper ritual.

So I took them off and put them on again.

Then again.

And again.

I repeated the ritual multiple times until suddenly I felt something painful happen in my back.

It turned out to be a herniated disc.

To be clear, OCD did not cause the disc problem. The injury was likely waiting to happen regardless. But what struck me afterward was this:

If I had not been performing that ritual over and over, the injury would not have happened in that particular moment.

The very thing that was supposed to keep me safe had contributed to the situation.

Twenty-Two Days in Bed

The pain was severe.

I could barely move. Even simple tasks became difficult. The next day my wife realized something was seriously wrong because every attempt to walk caused painful spasms and shocks through my back.

We decided to go to the hospital.

It took several people to help me get down the stairs.

At the hospital, doctors performed an MRI. The scan confirmed a herniated disc.

But they also found something unexpected.

A tumor inside my spine.

I would spend the next 22 days mostly confined to bed while a physical therapist helped me recover.

Lying there day after day, I kept thinking about something.

Where was all the safety OCD had promised me?

The Second Injury

Not long afterward, I suffered another disc injury.

In total, I spent roughly 44 days in bed recovering.

Additional scans eventually revealed that there were actually several tumors present. Thankfully, they were not cancerous.

But once again I found myself asking the same question.

If OCD was really protecting me, why had none of this been prevented?

Where was the safety?

The Lie OCD Tells

OCD wants us to believe that rituals are protecting us.

It says that if we perform enough compulsions, think the right thoughts, avoid the right triggers, or follow enough rules, we can prevent bad things from happening.

The problem is that life does not work that way.

People get injured.

People get sick.

Accidents happen.

None of us have complete control over what happens tomorrow.

What OCD offers is not safety.

It offers the illusion of safety.

What I Remind Myself Today

Whenever I need strength to resist a ritual, I often think back to that injury.

I remind myself that OCD did not protect me.

It did not prevent the herniated disc.

It did not prevent the tumors from being discovered.

It did not prevent weeks of recovery.

In fact, the ritual itself played a role in the event that led to the injury.

That memory helps me challenge one of OCD's most powerful arguments.

The next time OCD tells me that a ritual is necessary for safety, I remember what actually happened.

OCD was never protecting me.

It was only convincing me that it was.