What Not to Say to Someone with OCD?

Featured Image by Monstera, Pexels

You’ve had a 10-hour shift at work, and all you need is a deep sleep. But as soon as you get comfortable in bed, BAM – violent images of dying in a home invasion flood your mind. You can’t sleep for hours.

Next morning, you’re late to work; you only slept for two hours, so, naturally, you missed your alarm. As soon as you lock the door and walk halfway to your car, BAM – ‘wait… did I lock the door?’.

When you finally get to work, and have no time to prepare for your presentation. Stressed and tired, you feel a headache coming on. As soon as it does, BAM – ‘is this an aneurysm???’.

This is a typical day in the life of someone with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), a mental health disorder characterized by a cycle of anxious obsession and compulsively performing habits to relieve said obsession.

OCD is a form of anxiety disorder, and, as such, can be caused by early childhood trauma and/or hormonal imbalances (low levels of serotonin, for example). Roughly 2.3% of the population suffers from OCD. It can develop at any age, but it often becomes most noticeable in early adulthood.

The hallmark of OCD is intrusive thoughts that revolve around specific themes. These themes might centre on feelings of guilt (‘Am I secretly a sociopath?’) or general anxieties (‘Do I have a brain tumour I don’t know about?’).

A person can have multiple themes at once, or focus predominantly on one theme for years before transitioning to something completely different. Every theme, though, will be defined by uncertainty, the questions they prompt being impossible to answer. Because of this, a person with OCD will resort to repetitive behaviours or thought patterns to alleviate the anxiety this causes.

To informally screen yourself for OCD, try our quick online test for OCD. But to learn what not to say to a friend or loved one with OCD and how you can offer support instead, keep reading.

Things You Should Not Say to Someone with OCD.


Image by Alex Green, Pexels

“It’s Ok, We’re All a Little OCD”.

The insensitivity here is twofold. First, this phrase casually minimizes the lived experience of people with OCD under the guise of reassurance. OCD is not a trait or a universal experience. It is a specific diagnosis that designates a potentially debilitating condition. Everyone may suffer from anxiety and uncertainty, but not everyone has to manage onslaughts of intrusive thoughts and the exhausting terror and shame they can bring on.

Second, the phrase subtly personalizes OCD, turning it from a condition into an aspect of personality by implying that someone ‘can be OCD’. It is important to distinguish the diagnosis from the individual, as defining someone by their OCD can imply that they are defective on some level; this is especially dangerous with a condition that hinges on feelings of guilt and shame.

“You Don’t Look Like Someone with OCD”.

This implies that there is a specific ‘look’ to OCD, as if only a certain type of person can have the condition. In reality, anyone can develop OCD, regardless of how they may look or act on the outside.

Because OCD is fuelled by feelings of shame and doubt, it is common for people to spend their lives questioning the validity of their diagnosis. This makes the above phrase all the more hurtful; it provides relentless self-questioning with ammunition.

What’s more, OCD can present completely invisibly for some. Pure O (Purely Obsessional) OCD is a subtype in which compulsions are primarily mental, unseen. For example, someone with intrusive thoughts about self-harm may repeat ‘I don’t want to hurt myself’ in their mind while seeming to be completely fine to others around them.

“Do You Want to Clean My House?”

Just… no. Whether or not a statement like this is meant as a joke, it’s never ok to say to someone with OCD.

Among all the problems with it, the biggest may be that it is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what OCD is. Many think of OCD as a ‘cleanliness’ disorder, an obsession with tidiness or contamination. This can be how OCD presents for some, but it is by no means the norm; contamination, symmetry, and health concerns are just a few of many obsessive themes.

Some other common OCD themes/subtypes include:

  • Existential OCD: Intrusive thoughts relating to philosophical doubts about life or existence (‘What if I’m not real?’, ‘Am I alone in the universe?’, ‘Does Hell exist?’).
  • Harm OCD: Intrusive thoughts or images about harm being done to yourself or others (thoughts about burning yourself, or attacking a loved one, for example).
  • Sexual Orientation OCD: Intrusive doubts about your sexuality or gender identity (‘What if I’m in denial about my sexuality?’, ‘Could I suddenly turn into a paedophile?’, ‘What if I’m secretly attracted to a family member?’).
  • Relationship OCD: Intrusive doubts about close relationships (‘Do I really love my partner?’, ‘Do my friends secretly hate me?’, ‘Even though I love my spouse, what if I made the wrong choice?’).

“You’re Lucky, I Wish I Could be this Organised”.

This one also makes the mistake of thinking OCD as a ‘hyper-cleanliness’ disorder. But this phrase arguably does more damage than that. Nobody with a mental health condition is ever ‘lucky’. To insinuate that someone should be in any way ‘thankful’ for suffering from intense intrusive thoughts day in day out is a cruelty.

What’s more, it has the effect of nullifying the ways in which our world isn’t built for people with OCD. As we saw in the introduction, OCD can be absolutely exhausting, disrupting sleep and trapping you in time-consuming compulsive rituals. This means that people with OCD are competing in the labour market with less time and less energy than their neurotypical counterparts.

To paint someone with OCD as ‘lucky’ or more ‘organised’ ignores the various ways that they are starting from a disadvantage, taking the onus away from employers to support employees with OCD.

“Just Relax, it’s All in Your Head”.

If only it were that simple. It has taken way too long for mental health conditions to be seen as valid illnesses by wider society. But even though depression and anxiety are better understood by the public nowadays, it’s still common to hear sentiments such as this.

Any Psychology 101 class will tell you that ‘everything psychological is biological’, meaning that our mental states have bases in brain structure, hormone secretion, etc. And anyone with a mental health condition will tell you that this is their lived experience, that their symptoms are as real as any physical illness.

Someone with OCD has no control over their intrusive thoughts – hence the word ‘intrusive’. Telling them to ‘relax’ is the equivalent of telling someone with a broken arm to do push ups.

And once again, this phrase personalizes OCD in a nasty way. Thanks to media stereotyping (think Monica from Friends), OCD individuals often worry about being seen as ‘high strung’ or ‘demanding’. This leads to a tendency to hide or ‘mask’ symptoms of OCD in public, especially in the workplace, feeling the need to ‘act neurotypical’ so as not to be perceived differently by colleagues and bosses.

But, of course, this doesn’t stop OCD; it only forces individuals to suffer in silence.

What to Say to a Loved One with OCD.


Image by Emma Bauso, Pexels

“What Can We Do to Help?”.

Support and a willingness to understand are the most important, helpful things for someone with OCD.

This should be distinguished from excessive reassurance, which can have the adverse effect of exacerbating OCD by turning reassurance-seeking into a compulsion in itself. Reassurance is a natural response when speaking to someone in a bad place – we’ve all told a friend going through a breakup that they made the right decision, there’s plenty more fish in the sea, etc. But OCD is best eased through habituation to uncertainty, and excessive reassurance can act as a temporary salve, becoming addictive but not solving the underlying problem.

The most effective way to help someone with OCD is to agree upon boundaries, offer emotional support, and gently encourage them to challenge their compulsions in any way they feel comfortable. Rather than constantly reassuring, you can casually let your loved one know that you understand they are not their obsessions, and that you’re here to help.

You can also do your own research into OCD by visiting the links below.

What is OCD?
OCD Test

Blog Author

Louis Ricci


Neurodivergent