When you’re dealing with OCD on your own, it can feel overwhelming. It makes sense to begin by asking yourself “What makes OCD worse?”
To help you through this difficult process, we have compiled a list of seven possible triggers that may or may not apply to your experience with OCD.
Keep in mind, as you go through the list of explanations behind each trigger, that effective treatment will always be easier to achieve and longer-lasting if you get help from a health care provider.
You already deal with so much, from repetitive behaviors to obsessive thoughts, that you deserve to get help from a trained clinician. However, if that is not accessible, then you can begin here and ask yourself how each of the following triggers plays a role in your OCD.
This post is all about what makes OCD worse.
What is Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is marked by symptoms such as obsessions and compulsions (refer to the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders for specific criteria).
It falls under anxiety disorders due to the intense feelings of anxiety that accompany OCD episodes. If you have OCD, you may often experience unwanted thoughts, known as obsessions or obsessive thoughts.
These obsessive fears lead to compulsive behaviors, which are actions you feel compelled to perform in response to these unreasonable thoughts. For those with OCD, these compulsive acts aim to alleviate the anxiety and distress caused by obsessions and intrusive thoughts.
Interestingly, compulsive rituals often have no logical connection to the common obsessions and rarely impact them. This disconnect is a common characteristic of OCD and contributes to its debilitating nature.
For example, you might obsess about harming your family with a kitchen knife, even if you live far away from them, and consequently feel compelled to lock and unlock your door thirty times each morning.
Symptoms of OCD include persistent, intrusive thoughts and mental compulsions intended to reduce the anxiety they provoke. These compulsive behaviors are usually time-consuming and significantly interfere with everyday life.
WHAT MAKES OCD WORSE:
1. You experience traumatic events
While researchers don’t know the exact cause of OCD, it is helpful to note when the severity of OCD symptoms increases.
By tracking patterns during difficult moments, you can begin predicting when your OCD will become easier or more challenging, aiding your mental health, and developing a sense of an OCD cycle.
Your OCD is closely linked to the anxiety you already feel since it’s classified as an anxiety disorder. Anxiety is one of the most common mental health issues today, and its prevalence, combined with frequent traumatic events, increases the risk of anxiety transforming into OCD.
If you struggle with OCD, you also struggle with anxiety, which causes OCD and shapes your OCD experience. In other words, you likely experience anxiety frequently due to living in a stressful, anxiety-inducing world that comes with lots of ways to experience trauma.
For people with OCD, it is natural for OCD to manifest during these traumatic moments. It’s important to take trauma seriously and recognize that it doesn’t have to be loud or debilitating to still be trauma.
Trauma plays a major, uncomfortable role in the OCD struggle. The first step in working through that discomfort is recognizing your areas of trauma.
2. You go through hormonal changes
Hormonal changes impact women more than men because women’s bodies undergo numerous hormonal fluctuations throughout the month. Consequently, what a woman feels capable of handling today may change tomorrow as she enters a different phase of her menstrual cycle.
It’s frustrating and it can be a struggle. When we think we’ve gotten a handle on how our bodies operate, our bodies change and we have to re-evaluate. When women go through puberty, they may also notice the onset of OCD symptoms in alignment with their body’s hormonal changes.
In other words, women need to consider how hormonal shifts in their bodies can increase or decrease anxiety levels, which correlate with the appearance of OCD obsessions.
For example, estrogen is known to influence anxiety levels and fluctuate with the menstrual cycle, regulating the thickness of the uterine lining and determining when a fertilized egg can implant and when the uterine lining will be shed during menstruation.
Given that estrogen can affect anxiety and plays a central role in the menstrual cycle, it is clear how deeply connected OCD and anxiety symptoms are with hormonal shifts throughout a woman’s menstrual cycle.
3. You experience stressful life events
Trauma and hormones have undeniable impacts on the body, which may be why people respect them as understandable causes behind an OCD episode. However, everyday stressors can be just as reasonable of a cause.
Stress is normalized as something almost everyone experiences to varying degrees on a daily basis. Therefore, we are expected to handle stress better. It’s okay to admit that chronic stress can hurt us physically no matter how “strong” we claim to be.
When our mental health condition or general mental experience affects our bodies, we have to take note even if we believe we should be able to handle it. Thus, keep in mind that stressful life events can trigger your OCD.
This is probably pretty scary to admit since we all endure stress frequently. Keep in mind that our brains often struggle to differentiate between perceived “life or death” situations and actual ones, leading to increased anxiety by overreacting or reacting accurately to trauma.
While we strive for professional help when it comes to managing OCD symptoms and OCD treatment, we also believe that there are small ways we can impact the worsening of OCD symptoms right now.
One important way is to remember that stress is your body’s way of preparing you to endure what it thinks is a stressful life event.
Rather than feeling like the racing heart and fast thoughts are working against your attempts to calm down, remember that your body is preparing you to do well in its own effective way. Avoid fighting the natural inclinations of your body and work on finding ways to be grateful instead.
4. You attend social events that cause social anxiety
Social anxiety is a separate condition from OCD. You may struggle with social anxiety, characterized by a persistent fear of social events due to potential humiliation or embarrassment.
In this case, your anxiety can easily influence your OCD like other forms of anxiety you may experience. When left unchecked, social anxiety can trigger OCD in social settings and even in anticipation of them.
For instance, if you are nervous about attending a work party, you might have an intrusive thought about saying something inappropriate or acting awkwardly in front of your coworkers.
In response, you might repeatedly change your outfit until you feel confident that your choice will prevent the feared outcome or the way you put it on feels satisfying.
Everyone experiences OCD differently, so generalizing about what OCD sufferers go through isn’t fair and often inaccurate. Additionally, providing examples of OCD obsessions and repetitive actions can be challenging because individual experiences vary widely.
However, the important point, in this case, is to identify connections between your OCD struggles and anything that worsens your symptoms. This awareness can help you recognize personal triggers, even without the guidance of mental health professionals or an OCD therapist.
Rather than dismissing your OCD episodes around social events as typical, explore potential triggers like social anxiety that can exacerbate your OCD.
5. You’re figuring out early adulthood
Young adulthood brings many new, unforeseen stressors. When you’re younger, you have someone else in charge of the stressors you’ll soon understand as a part of the adult experience.
As you begin to navigate this stage and find your place, you may feel overwhelmed by way more problems than it seems like there are solutions. This can worsen your OCD, adding to the stress and anxiety of adulthood on top of the OCD symptoms you already face in daily life.
For some, OCD offers a sense of control in a chaotic world. Your brain convinces you that those distressing thoughts might come true unless you perform a ritual or compulsion to reduce the anxiety.
You may not be able to control rude clients or your professor’s grading. But, your anxiety might lead you to believe that engaging in a compulsive act can help you regain some control.
It’s tempting to believe this, especially when the thoughts are frightening enough that you’d do anything to prevent them from coming true. OCD can become a vicious cycle: you feel anxious about something and experience an intrusive thought related to it.
Then, you perform a compulsion to prevent the thought from coming true, even though it was likely unrealistic from the start. Becoming an adult presents the perfect storm for your OCD to get worse because of the new problems that cause you anxiety.
6. You use substances, which might become substance abuse
It’s common for individuals with mental health disorders to turn to substance use as a way to cope with overwhelming thoughts. Sometimes, it feels like substance use is the only way to manage these thoughts.
That, then, leads to the desire to stop dealing with emotions that come up when you experience them. Unfortunately, when someone starts using substances to avoid dealing with their emotions, the use can become more harmful than beneficial.
It can shift from occasional recreational use to something you feel you need to get through the day, leading to the possibility of substance abuse.
Here, we’re not specifically discussing addiction, which can be more complex than merely trying to numb feelings, though that is a common cause. Instead, we want to highlight how substance use can unintentionally worsen OCD symptoms.
One factor to consider is the type of substance being used, as some are more likely to induce anxiety rather than alleviate it. Another factor is how you feel once the effects of the substance wear off. Increased anxiety from actions taken while under the influence can trigger OCD.
The relationship between mental illness and substance use is complex, meaning it’s not always harmful to use a substance to cope.
However, it’s crucial to continuously evaluate how this relationship benefits you and how it impacts your daily functioning. As exhausting as it may seem to always be on the lookout for signs of substance abuse, the time and effort it takes are worthwhile.
7. You argue with your family members or get involved in family conflict
The term “family conflict” encompasses a wide range of issues, so you likely have a specific situation in mind when you hear it. It could be an argument with a parent, your child getting upset with you, or your partner forgetting to wash the dishes as they promised the night before.
Family issues, whether big or small, can affect you because your family likely plays a significant role in your life. Many therapists advocate for feeling like an individual within your family.
This way, when problems arise, they don’t impact you as if you’re experiencing them directly, especially when you’re not. However, this is challenging and not always feasible.
This is especially true when dealing with OCD triggers while trying to maintain individuality within both your family of origin and the new family you are building. You may experience anxiety due to a lack of communication within your family.
Then, you feel uncertain about when you might unknowingly trigger someone. Arguments with your partner can also trigger compulsions.
Most people have complicated, difficult emotions and triggers related to their family. OCD adds an extra layer of stress and complexity to managing these dynamics.