It’s safe to say that most people prefer to avoid feeling uncomfortable—but for those of us with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), discomfort can throw us into a complete tailspin. When intense emotions like fear, disgust, or anger arise, the discomfort they create can feel like an emergency, driving us to compulsions in an attempt to find relief—even though any relief we might feel is only ever short-lived.
As someone who’s lived with OCD for decades, it’s a familiar struggle for me. I know discomfort can feel like an overwhelming, all-consuming force that dictates your every move. But as surprising as it might sound, discomfort isn’t the enemy that OCD often makes it out to be—and despite what OCD might try to tell you, you’re more than capable of handling it.
Let’s unpack the truth about handling discomfort with OCD, why avoiding it doesn’t work, and how you can learn to deal with any difficult emotion that comes your way.
Why can discomfort feel so overwhelming with OCD?
I often compare living with OCD to having an oversensitive internal alarm system that goes off at the slightest hint of discomfort. When we’re faced with anxiety, distress, or uncertainty, OCD can make it feel absolutely unbearable—like we have to do something right away to make it stop. This sense of discomfort being unbearable is known as distress intolerance.
Distress intolerance isn’t a personal weakness; it’s a widespread experience among those with OCD, which results from OCD teaching our brains that these uncomfortable feelings are emergencies that must be dealt with immediately. This tends to be the reason why people with OCD try so hard to avoid or get rid of uncomfortable feelings, often with compulsions.
To start fighting back against distress intolerance, it can be helpful to remind yourself that anxiety is not necessarily a bad emotion. Can it feel unpleasant? Absolutely. But it still serves an important purpose. Our stress response helps us survive when there is real danger present. The problem is that OCD turns it against us, using it to keep us trapped in its cycle.
How running from discomfort holds us back
When we allow fear and anxiety to dictate what we can and cannot do, we fall right into OCD’s trap. Instead of choosing paths based on what matters most to us—our values—we can end up constantly chasing the elusive feeling of perfect certainty that OCD promises, even though it’s impossible to achieve. It’s an exhausting pursuit that only keeps us from experiencing the full richness of life.
There can be some grief that comes with realizing how much time and energy we spend trying to meet OCD’s impossible standards of “just right,” “safe,” or “certain enough” when we could be out there living instead. Many of us (myself included) know how it feels to miss out on special moments with loved ones, career opportunities, or adventures because OCD convinced us that the discomfort was too much to bear.
Fortunately, our brains have neuroplasticity, which means we can learn new ways of responding to discomfort. Distress intolerance doesn’t have to hold us back forever.
What OCD doesn’t want you to know about discomfort
Avoiding discomfort might feel safer in the moment, but it actually shrinks our worlds, making OCD’s grip even stronger. Every time you choose to “sit with” difficult feelings, allowing them to exist and pass by instead of running from them, you’re building your muscles to push back against OCD.
This is why one of the foundational pieces of OCD treatment is teaching you that you’re capable of tolerating anxiety and distress. Sure, you may not like it, but you can get through it.
What OCD doesn’t want you to know is that anxiety, fear, or any other form of discomfort is just a feeling, like any other emotion. When you find something funny, you don’t laugh forever. You don’t need to “do” something to stop laughing—the feeling simply passes. The same is true for discomfort.
When you start to rebel against OCD by making choices based on what you value rather than what feels comfortable, something amazing can happen: You can start to realize that you’re capable of handling much more than OCD led you to believe. Each time you face discomfort head-on, you also collect evidence that proves OCD wrong.
This is the process of developing distress tolerance. The more of this “evidence” you collect, the stronger you can become, and the easier it can get to put OCD back in its place.
How do I develop distress tolerance?
1. Understand that it takes time and practice.
When you have OCD, learning to handle discomfort can be a bit like learning to swim: At first, even dipping your toe in the water (or facing something you consider to be mildly uncomfortable) might feel terrifying. Your body’s alarm system is working overtime, sending urgent messages that danger is imminent. It can feel so real, like it’ll last forever. But it won’t.
As you gradually break this pattern of avoiding discomfort, starting in the “shallow end” and moving deeper, you can discover that those uncomfortable feelings, while they might be intense sometimes, are ultimately like waves: they will rise, peak, and eventually pass on their own.
2. Seek out evidence-based treatment for OCD.
The reason why exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy is the most effective treatment for OCD is because it guides you through this process step by step, gradually teaching you that you can handle discomfort, as powerful as it might feel in the moment.
ERP is a type of therapy that was designed specifically for OCD. It’s taught thousands of people with OCD how to “sit with” or not respond to the discomfort caused by intrusive thoughts, images, feelings, and urges.
Speaking from personal and professional experience, I can tell you that the more you practice the skills you learn in ERP, the less time compulsions and rituals will take up in your life. ERP was incredibly freeing for me, and during my career as an OCD-specialty therapist, I had the privilege of watching many individuals I worked with have similar life-changing experiences.
3. Work with a specialty-trained therapist.
When you’re looking into ERP therapy for OCD, it’s important to find a therapist with the qualifications that are necessary to provide this highly specialized care. You’ll want to make sure you’re working with a therapist who has extensive training in OCD, and in treating OCD with ERP therapy. This education is crucial, as OCD is highly misunderstood and its symptoms can carry a great deal of stigma.
At NOCD, all of our therapists are specialty-trained by world-renowned experts in OCD. Their extensive training equips them to understand what you’re going through—even the symptoms that are hard to talk about—and know how to help you start reclaiming your life. As they help you confront these feelings in small and manageable steps and you gradually bring the skills you’re learning in therapy into real-life situations, you’ll find yourself becoming more resilient and free to live life on your own terms—not OCD’s.
Book a free 15-minute call with our team to learn more about getting matched with a NOCD Therapist and getting started with effective treatment for OCD.