Navigating the Maze: My Journey with Obsessions and OCD

My Personal Story with Obsessions and OCD

As a child, I grew up in the 1980s in a small village in the centre of Italy, with no internet connection, no psychotherapist, and no mental health support.

I vividly remember having compulsions of the pious type, mostly connected to my religious upbringing.

My greatest obsession was being claimed by the devil and brought into hell when I was not being a “good boy”. This fear was instilled in me by the teachings of the Catholic Church.

The compulsion consisted of repeating the sign of the cross in multiples of three — 3, 9, 12, 21 or more times — in the hope that the devil would not get me.

These pious compulsions took different forms: kissing religious images, genuflecting in front of the tabernacle, reciting prayers until I got them right, all following the magic rule of “3 and its multiples”.

Sometimes I had to start the counting all over again if I did not get the compulsion right.

It was tiring and time-consuming. I felt anxious and guilty. But all I wanted was to avoid hell, and I was up for the job.

I still vividly remember this prayer:

“Confesso a Dio onnipotente e a voi, fratelli e sorelle, che ho molto peccato in pensieri, parole, opere e omissioni, per mia colpa, mia colpa, mia grandissima colpa.”

In English:

“I confess to almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.”

The graceful Catholic Church was teaching me that the obsessions were my fault, my most grievous fault.

If I had bad thoughts — and I am telling you, I had some disturbing ones for a kid of my age — it was all on me.

As an adult, I now recognise how devoid of love and care those prayers were.

Just the production of some controlling freaks!

What are obsessions?

If you are suffering from OCD, you might not realise that obsessions are just thoughts. They are normal, and everybody has them.

What makes obsessions different from “normal” thoughts are their qualities.

Obsessions are weird, sticky, and anxiety-provoking. They are often ego-dystonic thoughts, meaning they are largely misaligned with your values, with what you believe is right, or with who you believe you are.

The weirdness of a thought is also highly subjective. A thought that becomes an obsession for you may not be an obsession for someone else.

What makes a thought an obsession is not only the content of the thought.

It is the relationship that you have with it.

This is one of the most important things to understand about OCD. The key to working with OCD is not fighting obsessions, which is pretty much a lost war, but changing the relationship with your mind.

Have you ever succeeded in getting rid of your obsessions completely?

By dropping the fight and focusing your attention on changing the way you relate to them, you can begin to make significant changes.

This is also why approaches such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy can be useful for OCD. Instead of trying to prove, solve, or eliminate every intrusive thought, the work becomes learning how to notice thoughts as thoughts, make space for discomfort, and choose your actions based on your values.

How obsessions change over time

Obsessions are also frequent, sticky, and dynamic.

They are thoughts that tend to come over and over again. They can linger for a long time. They change over time, and so do the compulsions.

As I grew older, there was a period when I believed some of my relatives would die if I did not perform the compulsion.

At another time in my life, it was all about contamination.

There is no limit to the creativity of the mind, or to its harshness.

This is part of what makes OCD so exhausting. The theme may change, but the pattern can remain the same: a thought appears, anxiety rises, the mind demands certainty, and the compulsion promises relief.

The relief may come for a moment.

But the loop usually returns.

[LINK: How OCD Develops: Understanding and Disrupting the Cycle]

You are not alone in working with OCD

Today, you are not alone in working with OCD.

There has been plenty of research into ways of helping people regain control of their lives and stop letting obsessions rule everything.

Overcoming OCD is teamwork. Bring on board people who care about you, and ask for help from a professional.

As a therapist in Paris offering therapy in English and Italian, I work with people who experience anxiety, intrusive thoughts, obsessive loops, reassurance seeking, avoidance, and the exhausting need to feel certain before they can move on.

OCD can feel deeply isolating, partly because many people feel ashamed of the content of their thoughts.

But having an intrusive thought does not mean you want it, agree with it, or need to solve it.

Therapy can offer a structured space to understand the OCD cycle, notice the patterns that keep it alive, and build more flexible ways of responding.

Changing your relationship with your mind

Remember, it is the relationship with your mind that matters.

Obsessions are just a bundle of words. Fighting them is very tiring. They consume you.

You do not have control over every thought that appears in your mind, but you can build more control over your attitude, your actions, and how you lead your life.

This is where psychological flexibility becomes important.

Psychological flexibility is the ability to notice difficult thoughts, feelings, and urges without automatically letting them decide your behaviour. It does not mean the thoughts disappear. It means they no longer have to lead.

I would like to close this post with this quote from Viktor E. Frankl:

“The last of the human freedoms: to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Source: Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning

Picture: https://unsplash.com/@danasaki

If you are struggling with obsessions, intrusive thoughts, or compulsive patterns, you can start with an introductory call to explore whether working together might be a good fit.