OCD’s Favorite Tricks

The Faulty Smoke Detector: 

Your brain is beautifully designed to keep you safe. For example, we’re wired to react quickly when something might harm us. If I see someone in their car looking down at their phone while I’m crossing the street, my brain immediately yells, “Get out of the way! Danger!” and my body kicks into action. I get a burst of energy, my muscles tense, and I’m ready to run. This automatic response—often called the fight or flight response—exists to protect us when real danger is present.

The tricky thing about OCD? It sets off false alarms.

It’s like having an overly sensitive smoke detector in your brain—constantly detecting “smoke” and shouting “FIRE!” even when there’s no fire at all. And because your body is built to respond to danger, it reacts just as if the threat were real.

OCD’s Possibility vs. Probability Trick

We usually make decisions based on what’s likely, not just what’s possible.

It’s possible that Drake is standing outside your house right now, but… probably not. You don’t check for him before opening the door. You don’t scan your driveway before getting in the car. In fact, you’re probably not thinking about Drake at all.

But OCD? It loves to hijack your brain with absurd, intrusive thoughts:

❓ What if Drake saw all those Instagram posts you liked about Kendrick Lamar?
❓ What if he’s furious and thinks you disrespected him?
❓ What if he’s here to serve you court documents for misusing his name and music?
❓ What if this ruins you financially?
❓ What if you end up losing everything and living on the street with your family?

SCARY, RIGHT? WHO WANTS TO GET SUED BY DRAKE?!

Then, OCD throws in a solution: “To keep yourself safe, you need to check your Ring camera every time you leave the house. Oh, and maybe stop using music on your reels altogether.”

Suddenly, every time you go to the grocery store or pick up your kids, you have to check for Drake first. You have to make sure you didn’t accidentally post anything that could get you in trouble. It eats up your time, makes you late, and sometimes, it keeps you from leaving the house at all.

That’s OCD’s Maybe Game. It keeps you stuck in an endless loop of what-ifs, convincing you that even the most unlikely scenario is worth obsessing over—and that you must do something to protect yourself, just in case.

OCD tricks

OCD’s Just Right Trick

Most of the time, we don’t notice how our socks feel on our toes or the way the space between our eyebrows feels. We don’t think about how it feels to walk into a room or sit in a chair. But sometimes, OCD makes that comfortable, automatic feeling disappear—like a cruel magic trick. Suddenly, nothing feels just right, and we’re left scrambling for ways to fix it.

This might look like:
✔️ Doing things in a specific order
✔️ Tapping something three times
✔️ Adjusting your sleeves until they feel even
✔️ Rewriting words over and over because they don’t feel right
✔️ Arranging objects until they sit in perfect symmetry
✔️ Walking in a way that makes both feet land evenly
✔️ Re-reading text messages multiple times
✔️ Repeating words aloud until they sound just right
✔️ Adjusting how you breathe, blink, or swallow to restore balance
✔️ Syncing your arm swings with your footsteps
✔️ Chewing each bite a set number of times

What once felt natural now feels impossible. Instead of moving through life with ease, you’re stuck—chasing a sense of rightness that, no matter how hard you try, never lasts.

The Real Trick? It’s Not Even About Fear.

Unlike other OCD tricks, Just Right OCD isn’t always about fear—it’s about doubt. OCD makes you question everything, even the tiniest sensations that feel off. It takes things that most people wouldn’t even notice and elevates them to the level of a crisis.

And once it convinces you something’s wrong? It demands that you fix it.

But here’s the thing: there is no real “fix.” The more you try to chase that “just right” feeling, the more OCD moves the goalpost. The only way out? Learning to sit with discomfort, resisting the urge to play OCD’s game, and recognizing its tricks for what they are—false alarms.

Here’s How You Trick a Trickster

When OCD screams danger, our brain instantly starts thinking about being in danger. The wild part? Your mind doesn’t actually know the difference between thinking about danger and actually being in danger. That means your body reacts the same way—heart pounding, muscles tensing, panic rising—making you feel like you have to do something to stay safe and get rid of the discomfort.

But here’s a trick that OCD doesn’t want you to know…

That fight-or-flight response? It fizzles out on its own. You don’t need to do anything. Seriously—nothing at all. That’s the hard part, actually doing nothing. But when you don’t engage, those nervous feelings rise and fade faster than you’d expect—so long as you don’t feed them with more thinking. The feelings pass, nothing bad happens, and the brain starts learning that the alarm was false.

Now, let’s talk about what happens if you do listen to OCD.

Remember that overly sensitive smoke detector? When we do what OCD demands—checking, repeating, avoiding—it’s like setting off a fog machine in the same room. And here’s something we learned the hard way… smoke detectors hate fog. The alarm keeps blaring, and no matter how many times we hit the reset button, it’ll just go off again unless we let the fog dissipate.

Why Traditional Talk Therapy Falls Short

Many traditional talk therapy approaches focus on teaching people how to reset the smoke detector—waving a towel under it, pressing the button, trying to get it to quiet down. The problem? That doesn’t actually stop the alarm from going off again. It just keeps us stuck, reacting every time OCD decides to make noise.

What we actually need are skills that teach us how to keep moving even while the alarm is blaring. Instead of trying to force it to turn off, we learn to tolerate the sound, to let it be background noise instead of an emergency siren ruling our lives.

This is where both the habituation model and the inhibitory learning model come into play.

• Habituation says: The more you sit with discomfort, the less intense it feels over time—kind of like how a loud noise stops feeling as loud the longer you’re around it.
• Inhibitory learning says: Your brain isn’t just getting used to the noise—it’s actually learning new information: This alarm doesn’t mean what I thought it did.

So, instead of spending all our energy trying to shut the alarm up, the real trick is to meet discomfort head-on, resist compulsions, and bravely choose not to listen to OCD’s demands. That means stepping outside even if our brain says we have to check the Ring camera first, sending the text once instead of rereading it ten times, and walking away from uncertainty without “fixing” it.

When we stop obeying OCD’s alarm, something incredible happens. We start reclaiming our lives—not just from anxiety, but from all the time, energy, and freedom OCD has stolen. And eventually, the alarm? It stops sounding so urgent after all.

OCD’s Opposite Action Trick

OCD loves to boss you around. It screams at you to check, avoid, confess, or fix—convincing you that if you just obey, you’ll finally feel safe. But here’s the truth: every time you listen to OCD, it tightens its grip. It promises relief but delivers more doubt, more rules, more fear.

So how do we break free? We do the opposite of what OCD wants.

This is called Opposite Action—a skill used in therapy to help people act based on what’s effective and value congruent, rather than what fear demands. And it’s one of the best ways to outsmart OCD.

The Setup: OCD Says, “Do This!”

OCD says, “You need to check your hands again—what if you missed a germ?”
OCD says, “You can’t let your baby out of your sight—what if something terrible happens?”
OCD says, “You have to reread that message one more time—what if you accidentally offended someone?”

And that anxiety? It surges through your body like a shockwave. Your brain yells, DO THE THING!—because it’s convinced that relief only comes through action.

The Trick: Do the Opposite

But instead of obeying OCD’s demand, you pull a move it never expects. You do the opposite.

🚫 Instead of checking, you walk away.
🚫 Instead of avoiding, you lean in.
🚫 Instead of fixing, you let the fear sit.

You leave the germs on your hands. You let your baby nap in another room without compulsively checking. You send the text once and refuse to reread it. And yes, it feels uncomfortable at first—like stepping onto a roller coaster with no seatbelt. But guess what? That discomfort isn’t a sign of danger—it’s a sign of learning.

Why This Works

OCD operates on fear and compulsion—like a bad habit loop that strengthens every time we give in. Opposite Action interrupts that loop. It teaches your brain:

🧠 I don’t actually have to do this to be safe.
🧠 Anxiety can rise and fall on its own.
🧠 Not acting on OCD’s demands doesn’t bring disaster—it brings freedom.

The more you practice Opposite Action, the more your brain rewires itself. OCD’s alarms stop feeling so urgent. The fear fades. And the things that once controlled you? They start to lose their grip.

The Hardest Part? Starting.

OCD will beg, bargain, and scream to keep control. It’ll tell you Opposite Action is reckless, dangerous, and impossible. But here’s the truth: OCD is a liar.

And you? You’re stronger than it.

Ready to Take Back Your Life?

If you’re tired of OCD calling the shots and need help getting started, you don’t have to do this alone. We offer a group just for moms and women—a space designed to help you conquer OCD and anxiety for good. No cheap tricks, no band-aid solutions—just real, long-term strategies to help you live the life you want, no matter what OCD says.

📲 Want more info? Text us through our homepage—we’re here to help.

Helping Your Child Conquer OCD

OCD doesn’t just impact us—it affects our kids too. If your child is struggling with intrusive thoughts, compulsions, or anxiety, we can help. In our upcoming class, we’re diving into Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions—a research-backed approach that helps parents break the cycle of anxiety and OCD in their children. 🚀 The best part? Your child doesn’t have to attend the sessions—because the power to help them starts with you.

You’ll learn:
✔️ How to stop anxiety from running your home
✔️ Why reducing accommodations helps kids thrive
✔️ How to respond supportively while building resilience

💡 Based on the groundbreaking work of Dr. Eli Lebowitz at Yale, SPACE is proven to help children feel less anxious and function better. Join us and start the journey toward breaking free from anxiety. 🌿💙