Halloween: Fun or an OCD Nightmare?

If you're one of the American who loves Halloween, it's not just you, and it's not just kids who get excited about collecting candy. Halloween is morphing into an adult holiday. In fact, this year, Americans will spend over $10,000,000,000 celebrating this holiday.

We'll explore 3 questions:
1. Why is Halloween so much fun for so many people?
2. Why is Halloween not so fun for people with OCD?
3. How can people manage OCD during this season of ghouls and ghosts and goblins?

I was speaking with somebody with OCD who told me, hey. A friend invited me to celebrate Halloween at a haunted house that had been in the news. I thought to myself, pay good money to go to a haunted house? I should just rent out space in my brain.

I dread Halloween. It's like a collection of triggers for my obsessions and compulsions. Well, if you walk around my neighborhood, you'd think that Halloween is a national holiday. Most houses are decorated.

Why do we make such a big deal about Halloween?

Well, Halloween is associated with fun. You get to carve pumpkins and decorate your house. There are opportunities to interact with others. I remember the first Halloween after the pandemic started, and I was thrilled to welcome the kids who rang my doorbell. You get to explore taboo topics like death and blood and gore, the supernatural, and expressions of your sexuality.

Halloween is social. You might be invited to a party. You might play fun games. You have permission to eat unhealthy things. For some people, though, the best part of Halloween is the costume.

For a day, you can be anything you want, and you can even do it anonymously with a mask. I remember going to a party in which the host invited all of his guests to come as the part of ourselves we like to keep hidden. This was an amazing experience. It was so fun and so liberating. There's more to the Halloween story.

Why, for example, do so many people love watching horror movies? So I got curious and went poking around the Internet. I came across a great article in the Harvard Business Review: The Psychology Behind Why We Love (or Hate) Horror. Two professors of business were trying to understand why the horror movie business is booming, and what they reported offers some insights about the Halloween thrill.

So here are their ideas:

1st, why do people watch horror movies? Well, it's the same reason that people ride roller coasters and eat hot hot peppers. It offers both mental and physical stimulation.

And as we all know, the line between pleasure and pain is highly individual. 2nd, people watch horror movies to have a novel experience in an environment in which they are safe. 3rd, people watch horror movies to safely satisfy curiosity about the dark side of the human psyche. We can't meet Hannibal Lecter in real life, but we can watch and see how he thinks and asks. Now these three reasons also offer insights about why Halloween isn't as fun for people with OCD.

While some people might watch a horror movie and experience excitement and joy, for other people, like people with OCD. The stimulation often elicits fear and anxiety. Someone with OCD wants certainty, not novelty. The authors do point out the benefits of watching horror movies. 1st, it's a catalyst for falling in love.

If you watch The Bachelorette, you see that the dates often involve dangerous activities like bungee jumping. The excitement about the experience transfers to the excitement you feel about that other person. 2nd, it's a conduit for social bonding. A group of friends feel closer after they share an experience like watching a horror movie together. This is modulated by the hormone oxytocin.

Then 3rd, there's the post terror relaxation modulated by endorphins. Alright. Well, who likes horror movies the most? There appear to be trends based on age and gender and financial security. Younger people are more attracted to horror movies than older people.

Men want intensely terrifying experience, while women want the bad guy dead at the end. These two researchers studied 82 countries and found that the higher the GDP of the country, the higher consumption of horror movies. And this is a trend not seen in other movie genres like romcoms. The authors suggest that you must have a financial foundation of safety to want to consume horror. It makes me wonder.

Maybe somebody with OCD who does not have that foundation of safety, but for different reasons, might not find horror movies as fun. The next benefits offer insight into why Halloween is not fun for people with OCD. People who enjoy horror movies have a higher sensation-seeking trait. People with OCD on the other hand tend to have nervous systems that are prone to dysregulation. People who enjoy horror movies have a higher openness to new experiences.

Well, as we mentioned before, somebody with OCD likes control and generally doesn't like new things because it's uncertain and potentially dangerous.

So what is Halloween like for somebody with OCD?

Well, I don't have OCD, but I can tell you that I was walking around my neighborhood, and I came to a house of neighbors, and they went all out. There were spider webs and shrouded ghosts and rest in peace headstones.

Then they had a collection of skeletons. There was a spider and a bat and a human and even a snake. But there was a skeleton of a cat, and my heart hurt when I saw that because my own cat had recently died. My own experience of this Halloween decoration was shaped by my own life experience. So it's very easy for me to understand how and why the traditional celebration of Halloween can be such a nightmare for people with OCD.

So no matter what OCD theme you're managing, Halloween offers opportunity for triggering obsessions and compulsions, which also means that it's an opportunity for exposure and response prevention. So are you struggling with a contamination theme? Well, there are lots of scary stories about drug-laced candy or razor blades. Do you struggle with themes about taboo topics that might involve harm or sexual identities? Well, Halloween offers something for you.

Do you deal with scrupulosity or moral or religious themes? Well, Halloween is associated with a cult and spirit and the unknown. These aspects of the holiday may intensify intrusive thoughts around ideas of sin or morality. Halloween can also be associated with the occult or spirits or superstition. These aspects of the holiday may intensify intrusive thoughts about sin or morality or being punished by God.

So if either you or somebody you love has OCD, you can easily understand why this is such a hard day.

So how does somebody with OCD make Halloween more manageable?

Well, first, recognize that there might be triggers all around you that make this day more challenging. And the better you understand your triggers, the better you are able to manage what comes in. 2nd, understand that you get to decide how much you want to immerse yourself into the celebration.

Maybe you just wanna skip it. Maybe you wanna take a one day holiday and check into your favorite Airbnb and just avoid it altogether. But third, please know that each of these triggers is potentially an opportunity for exposure and response prevention. So talk with your therapist and make a plan for Halloween so you can make smart choices about the best exposures for you. Remember, the goal of managing OCD is to create a life that works for you.

So happy Halloween. I hope it's fun. And if nobody has told you yet today, I honor you.

Managing OCD is probably the single most challenging I've ever done in my life, and here you are making an investment to do it. You've got this.