What is OCDland? Learning about and Invalidating the OCD narrative
OCDland or the Land of Doubt is a magical world that exists in our brains that hijacks reality and replaces it with a fully different narrative about the world. This narrative is one where uncertainty is replaced by a negative certainty, simply to squash the uncomfortable doubt.
As a client relates their OCDland outlook to me, they often interject “But I know this is silly…” or “This sounds crazy but…” We don’t ever fully inhabit our OCDland but there are days when it feels more real.
In OCDland, we follow the rules set out by the OCD. These rules can be nitpicky, annoying or even counter-intuitive. We obey these rules to keep the peace.
For example, we do our morning routine in a certain order because in OCDland we must be exact and meticulous or something bad might happen. Or we may pack extra vegetables in a lunch box (which they know their child won’t eat) because otherwise we will have that “feeling” that we are not a good parent.
In OCDland, we make arbitrary and unreasonable concessions to the OCD voice, just to quiet it for a short while.
In the Land of Doubt, we must double and triple check things even when we have vivid memories of the last time we looked. We accommodate these nonsense actions because the OCD can get so loud in this world that we cannot focus on anything else.
In OCDland there is almost always an alarm blaring, scaring us into compliance and putting us on alert.
When we receive Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for OCD, we study the rules, alarms, and voices of OCDland in order to disrupt them. Once we are able to have a more concrete understanding of what this Land of Doubt causes us to do, we are more able to combat this hijack.
Speaking about, writing down, and debating the content of OCDland often exposes that this is not a world that we want to keep inhabiting. We don’t have to accept that narrative; we can rewrite our own story.
Contact Kairos Wellness Collective today to learn more about OCD.
