Connecting Chronic Illness and OCD

Some chronic illnesses come out of nowhere and wreak havoc on the body and the nervous system. What was once a potentially safe and predictable body becoming unpredictable and untrustworthy. This dynamic switch of feeling confident in your capabilities to questioning every choice you make starts to make uncertainty feel unbearable.

People with chronic illnesses need to be diligent in their decision-making and how they spend their energy or they may run out of spoons. If you go out for a day without a plan, you may run out of energy and end up in a flare up that makes it impossible to do necessary tasks. This heightened sense of responsibility and the scanning for threats are known triggers for OCD.

Certain physical health conditions and brain inflammation correlate with an OCD diagnosis. The cycle with increased anxiety and stress from chronic illness can also exacerbate OCD symptoms. In my experience, some people don’t discover they have OCD until becoming chronically ill.

What does this mean? Many folks with chronic illness experience flare ups with their OCD symptoms that align with flare ups from their physical health conditions. The brain-body connection is not something we can ignore when treating OCD. A brain that is constantly analyzing the environment and body for threats is not going to ignore an active threat like a high pain day.

Understanding this connection is vital to developing acceptance for managing OCD symptoms. People with OCD have to know their triggers in order to navigate their responses to them. Awareness is the first step of changing, and we cannot accept what we aren’t aware of.