OCD and Trauma – What was once thought of as a neuropathology of the brain, OCD is now being recognized as a symptom of trauma. I believe it is one of the deepest.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is not a disorder at all. It is the nervous system stuck in dysregulation, trying to protect the person from feeling the intense wounds of trauma. These wounds are often primal and flood the body and mind, and the psyche creates rituals to try and control it.

Obsessions and compulsions are attempts to manage what seems unmanageable. Focusing on specific ideas and behaviours keeps us occupied with present-day stresses (true or false) instead of the original wound. Beyond the loop of repetition is the fragility of a body on the verge of breaking down or perhaps already has.

The DSM view of OCD

This blog doesn’t discuss the psychiatric view of OCD. If you’d like to learn more about it, check out these links:

International OCD Foundation

Mayo Clinic

I do not believe these are accurate resources on OCD. They focus on the pathology of the client rather than the cause of OCD. Without acknowledgement of the trauma, treatment cannot occur; only life-long coping mechanisms can further suppress the problems. These will always show themselves in other ways, typically auto-immune and chronic pain.

I’d like to talk about why OCD happens.

OCD as a protector

The psyche has an incredible ability to dissociate us from our wounds. If we continuously spin our minds into whirlwinds, we cannot feel what is happening in our bodies. This helps us survive our day, as it is easier to deal with the overwhelm of the mind than to collapse into the abyss of a trauma wound.

The act is subconscious. Obsessions and compulsions keep the mind busy from witnessing the underlying pain of trauma.

OCD protects us from feeling worse than we already do.

It is a double bind for those of us who have it. We are already incredibly exhausted and frustrated with managing OCD, and yet, we cannot let it go. I have spent my entire life in this place. It became my default day-to-day functioning. It still is without my conscious effort to unravel it.

But I am doing so ever so slowly.

OCD and Trauma Symptoms

What are the symptoms beneath OCD behaviours? You may find these :

• Feeling of a vast void that will take you away from yourself.
• Intense emotions that you cannot regulate and process.
• Shame so deep, you feel wrong for being alive.
• An inner critic that works like a tyrant to keep you down.
• Incredible body tension that feels like a straight jacket.
• Breath-holding to the point of choking.
• Body pains that hurt like you were brutally beaten.
• Feeling so sick and weak, you feel useless and broken.
• Lost. You are lost with no sense of who you are and what feels real.
• Grief that drowns you.
• Depression that collapses you.
• Fear. Fear to the point of paranoia. It will swallow you whole and tear you apart.

There may be more I haven’t described, or you may find a spectrum of what I have listed above. Everyone has their own symptoms, but the underlying narrative that runs through us all is:

• It is existential.
• It is all-consuming.
• It is scary as fuck.

People with sensorimotor OCD are experiencing a level of trauma even deeper than other OCD behaviours as they have internalized their pain to the point of questioning their own natural bodily functions. There is no trust in ourselves. Whatever our focus is, whether it is our breath, tics, thoughts, or body sensations, we question whether it is all wrong all day long. This is the kind of OCD I have.

Me and OCD

I discovered it was a result of a trauma that was existential. I was born to a mother who hated me and a father who thought nothing of me because I was a girl. Both parents told me often I was a mistake, and I received abuse (mental, emotional, physical, and sexual) that made me feel I was wrong in every possible way.

After all, if I couldn’t be alive right for my parents to love me, I must be deeply flawed. So I developed all of the beliefs and feelings listed above, and my sensorimotor OCD took hold in many shapes, from whether I could swallow my food to tingles in my arms and legs being multiple sclerosis to whether or not I was sleeping when I didn’t feel like I was.

I internalized my parent’s belief that I was a mistake and developed an inner tyrant that did the job for me.

Children who are born to abusers don’t stop seeking their parent’s approval. They start questioning their own worth.

With little capacity to deal with the trauma, my mind created “what if” scenarios to prevent me from:

• Feeling the terror in my stomach.
• The rage that made my nerves feel like they were on fire.
• Grief in my lungs that chocked my own breath.
• Relentless back and neck pain from being beaten both emotionally and physically.
• Weakness that dropped me to my knees and unsure if I would get up.
• Panic so bad, I thought I would have a seizure or lose my sanity.
• All my immune problems, from undiagnosed PANS to leaky gut syndrome.
• Hormonal disorders – endometriosis and PCOS.
• A lack of self. I didn’t feel any center to myself and anything could rip me apart to fly away from my own body and mind.

It has taken me many years to build internal safety enough to start feeling the suppressed pain and suffering my body is holding. The great news is that it is slowly unravelling, layer by layer. I spend more time in my body and environment than in my head. I have to tell you the feeling is more peaceful and powerful than I have ever experienced. It is as strong as the earth herself.

I am a work in progress, and I relapse. But I am moving forward and healing, too.

But what about Neurology and OCD?

Theories include genetics, chemical imbalances, brain damage, and illness. All of these are valid, but only part of the solution is presented without examining the experiences that created these outcomes. None of these exist in isolation. OCD and other mental illnesses are not simply pure faulty wiring. Something must occur for the wiring to become dysfunctional.

healing OCD

In part two of this blog, I will discuss the journey of healing OCD from trauma and how our nervous system becomes dysfunctional to create OCD. Subscribe to receive it when it is released.

The journey includes:

• Education on the breakdown of OCD
• Nervous system regulation
• Proper therapy tools
• Physiological interventions
• Removing yourself from toxic environments
• Restoring core values and beliefs
• Inspirational resources
• Rewiring the overwhelm/neglect feedback loop of OCD behaviours

Healing OCD and trauma is slow, but it does happen.

Trauma Peer support and store

I offer peer support for people wanting to heal from OCD. My store provides worksheets for regulating the nervous system. Check them out for more information.