Reimagining Your OCD What-Ifs

Reclaiming The Gifts of Your Hidden Sensitivity

If you have OCD, it’s the dreaded phrase. What if? What if my loved one dies if I don’t properly turn off the stove? What if I’m condemned to hell for thinking that taboo thought? What if I’m truly a pedophile or a psychopath?

The what if list goes on, and on, and on…

But what if the sensibility hidden inside your OCD is a gift and not a curse? What if this gift was noticed, supported, and encouraged instead of questioned?

Hard to imagine. A bit crazy. Wild. That can’t be the truth. It’s certainly not ‘evidence-based.’

Are you starting to doubt yourself again?

Have you ever considered that those doubts are seeded by a culture that can’t truly see you, one that can’t fathom how much you’re picking up?

I bet you’ve felt this before, but didn’t dare say it.

It’s not easy being a nuance-noticer, tuning into the frequencies of feeling that most others don’t hear or blithely pass by.

Maybe if you were supported, all the daggers of your doubt would turn into lotus blossoms like they did for the Buddha under the bodhi tree.

About to attain enlightenment, Mara, the malignant king of death and the embodiment of greed, hate, and delusions, tries to stop him from Awakening.

Are you being prevented from your own awakening too?

OCD will show you in a most ungraceful way the areas you are holding back in, instincts you aren’t trusting, or rigid beliefs that need loosening. OCD can sniff these things out from a mile away because it holds all the knowledge you haven’t yet integrated (like how wonderful you are!).

The sensitivity within OCD watches from above as you go about your day. It silently cheers you on when you lean into its messages and allow its gifts to shine through, but you might not recognize it yet.

This sensitivity shows up in your ability to detect the subtle shift in a friend’s voice and offer her much needed comfort. It is the driving force behind that beautiful flower arrangement you put together and responsible for that brilliant sixth sense you have, your keen awareness of beauty and pain.

WHEN you are in tune with and accepting its messages and gifts, you might not even notice its presence. Because much like everything and everyone else in this world, this sensitivity does not need to scream when it’s being listened to.

But when you fall into traps of self-doubt or overthinking, you stop listening to its messages. It doesn’t appreciate its gifts being rejected.

It bows its head in sadness watching you hold back from sharing that wonderfully witty remark. It sheds a tear when you erase the part of your paper filled with its “gift that can’t be taught” insight in favor of regurgitated research. It pains its heart to watch you back out of a talent show, afraid you’ll embarrass yourself. And it's a punch in the gut to watch you turn away from the depth of your sensitivity, afraid of being rejected by others.

As the volume on your sensitivity dial goes all the way down and its messages go unreceived, it gets frantic. Remember, it’s working for you and on your team. But with no outlet for its creative energy, it hijacks the control board and turns the dial up to 10, hoping you’ll hear its message.

Hardly anyone talks about this. At least not in public. It’s too subversive, but recently in a group I was running the topic came up.

Stay tuned for the conclusion of this story in a special collaboration with therapist and OCD specialist Megan Szymanek.

Megan Szymanek,MA, LPC is a therapist specializing in OCD, anxiety, and eating disorders who walks the healing path alongside clients. She helps clients untangle fears, make meaning out of "madness", and release shame- guiding them back to their most authentic selves.

Michael Alcee, PhD is a clinical psychologist and the author of The Upside of OCD: Flip the Script to Reclaim Your Life.