What If You’re Wrong About What’s Possible with OCD?

You have ideas about what is and what is not possible. Maybe your child with OCD has said something like, I can't do this because of my OCD. Or you might say, my adult child with OCD will never have opportunities open to my other children.

But what if you were wrong about what is and is not possible?

So let's kick this off with a story. One of my coaching clients reached out to me in crisis. Now she herself was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult once her child was worked up for the same condition. So over 20 years ago, she went on medication that she credits with facilitating her major life transformation. However, recently, her doctor told her that he wanted her to go off this life altering medication because of her high blood pressure.

Now she worried that her life would return to the state she was in before she had the diagnosis of ADHD. She said to me, without this medication, I wonder if my life will be worth living. So this woman, Brenda, believes she knows what is true. She believes that this medication provided the transformation to her current level of functioning. And without this medication, she's gonna go back to where she was before she was even diagnosed.

As far as she is concerned, this is the truth. She is telling me the facts. So Brenda has this belief that the medication gave her her life, and if the medication were taken away, her functioning life would be in shambles.

So she has beliefs about what is and is not possible. And these beliefs have an uncanny way of proving themselves to be true.

However, as a coach, I didn't hear Brenda telling the truth. I saw somebody in pain expressing a belief and not a fact, and this belief was not going to serve her. So I personally know people with ADHD who did not respond to the medication, but they learned life skills and brain management skills to go on and live great lives. So when Brenda was ready, I asked if she would be open to some coaching around this issue, and she agreed.

So I asked her, Brenda, what changes did you make in your life once you got the diagnosis of ADHD?

She told me, well, I read tons of books, and I went to some life management skills for people with ADHD. And I did a whole bunch of therapy, sort of retelling the story of why things were as they were in my childhood and early adult life. I asked her what it would have been like if when she got the diagnosis, all that happened is that she went on medication. Would she really have seen this life transformation? After reflexively saying, no.

It's all due to the medication. She thought about it for a minute and said, you know, you might have a point here. Like, especially the life skills really made a huge difference in my life. My ability to treat myself with more compassion instead of just asking, what's wrong with me? Why am I broken like this?

I guess those might have made an impact too. Then I asked Brenda, is there the tiniest bit of possibility that you, in fact, could have a successful life without the medication that you have been using? And she grudgingly agreed. Yes. It was a possibility.

Now we all have ideas about what is and is not possible. Like, I'm probably never gonna be a professional basketball player. Right? I mean, if you look at my size, my age, my height, it's just not gonna happen. We all have beliefs about what is possible.

And from our perspective, these beliefs often read like facts. Like, we know 2 + 2 equals 4. That is a fact. There are some things that can be proven in courts of law. These are facts.

However, beliefs are a little different. Right? You can have 2 intelligent people with 2 different sets of beliefs. So as you look at anything that you know to be true, it can fall into several categories.

There are things that you know you know, and there are things that you know you don't know.

Then there are other things you don't know, or you know you know, but you were wrong, or you know you know, but ignore them. So we can take any one piece of information that we believe to be true, and they can go from one category to another. However, it takes some work to have the consciousness that, wow, maybe this is not a fact, maybe this is a belief. And be open to the possibility that maybe something else could be true. Maybe it's the exact opposite about what you think.

And we've seen this happen throughout history. We've seen the Copernican revolution. When my mother was in a car accident in her twenties, her doctors prescribed smoking because they thought that that was gonna help her lose weight, that was gonna help with the back pain. So a doctor prescribing smoking. They did what they thought was best with the information that they had back then, but as they learned different things, doctors do better now.

So you might have beliefs about limitations that come with a diagnosis of OCD for either yourself or for somebody that you love. What if those limitations were not true? What if it's equally true that we're gonna have a breakthrough understanding about what OCD is or what happens in the brain of somebody with OCD or a new and different way to manage OCD? 

What happens if we had beliefs about limitations that we thought were placed in our lives that were in fact surmountable?

You know, maybe Brenda could have a perfectly great life even if she can't take her medication.

So what I do on a regular basis is I get out my notebook, and I do daily downloads. So I will just take sentences from my brain and put them onto a piece of paper. Then I have some distance, and I can look at it. I can say, is this a fact? Would everyone agree with this?

Or is this just a thought? Is it a belief? And what if another belief were equally true? Do I wanna hang on to the belief that's gonna limit my possibilities, or would I like to practice a different belief, a different thought that gives me a better chance of getting what I want? So your beliefs might be around what's possible with your circumstances.

Like, what can I change in my life? Your beliefs might be about what you can impact in your inner world to see your circumstances differently and have a different experience. Both of those things are possible, but it begins with really an exploration about your beliefs, about what is and is not possible, and your willingness to challenge those beliefs.

So as an exercise, I would recommend doing these daily downloads. Then just take a look sentence by sentence.

Are you dealing with a circumstance that everyone can agree on, or is this a belief that you hold? And what is the evidence that this belief is true? Could the opposite of this belief be equally true? And what would happen if you just adopted the belief like I encourage Brenda? I'm gonna have a great life off of medication.

You always want to think consciously about your thinking, about what thoughts that you are gonna entertain and act upon because they make a huge difference in your life. And that's what I've got for you today. I hope that you found value in this.

And look, if nobody has told you yet today, I just wanna let you know how much I admire your courage.

Managing OCD may be the single most challenging thing I have faced, but you can do it. You can be freed from OCD whether you're an OCD warrior or you're an OCD caregiver champion. You've got this.