Vision board for fighting my OCD

I created a vision board for inspiration in my ongoing efforts to improve my obsessive-compulsive disorder.

I got the idea from Lisa at Two Bears Farm. She created a wonderful board when she was trying to get back into shape after the birth of her twins.

I already had some corkboards, so I used one of them. I covered it with scrap paper and then began taping up words and photos that inspire me.

I didn’t allow myself to be a perfectionist about it. There are uneven edges to the design.

I included photos of my husband and cats and photos representing things that I want to do with my time instead of spending it on obsessions and compulsions.

I also included copies of my fear hierarchies so I can see at a glance what I intend to tackle.

I set it up in the bedroom and look at it mostly in the morning as I’m getting ready for my day. I like having a visual reminder of what I’m working on.

However, I have discovered that the more I look at it, the more it tends to fade into the background—kind of like the chair that’s always there that you don’t notice anymore.

So I will need to add and change things as I go along, to keep it fresh.

What I have is a board to remind me that I’m on a journey to win over OCD, to live with it on my terms.

Have you ever made something like a vision board? Do you have any suggestions on how to make it more effective?

The lights at work: Are they really off?

The lights at work—specifically, the two lamps I use in my office—have been a checking nightmare for me.

My ritual has been to turn off the floor lamp first, then unplug it. I then stare at the lampshade, trying to convince myself that it’s dark, that the light is off.

Then I stare at the electric receptacle, trying to convince myself that there’s nothing plugged in.

Then I turn off the desk lamp and stare at that lampshade, again trying to convince myself that the light is off.

I don’t unplug that lamp, which shows just how inconsistent OCD can be: I feel the need to unplug one lamp but not the other. If it’s dangerous to leave one lamp plugged in, why not the other, you might ask.

I have stayed behind while the others left work, to be alone to check the lamps and make sure they were out.

On my checking fear hierarchy, leaving the office without checking the lamps is a 90. That means that I have extreme anxiety over these lamps.

I’ve been working on this checking dilemma for weeks, with mixed results. I could turn them off and leave fairly quickly, but I was first trying to convince myself that the lamps were off before leaving. I couldn’t figure out how to get past that.

Then I had a talk with my therapist last week about OCD and logic.

He reminded me that there is no logic in OCD and that I can’t use it when trying to combat an obsession or a compulsion.

According to what my therapist told me, when I turn off the lamps, it’s time for me to leave the office and focus on something else.

  I’ll have anxiety, he said. But I need to be actively engaged in whatever I do next, like driving. Don’t engage with the thoughts about the lamps, he said.

  And it’s helping. I turn off the lamps, and though I’m still glancing at them, I’m no longer spending time convincing myself that they’re off. I’m packing up and leaving the office. I feel the anxiety, but it dissipates quickly as I focus on other things.

Now I want to get to the place where I’m not even glancing at the lamps, where I’m not even thinking about them after I turn them off. I hope I can build on the success I’m having.

  If anyone has advice on how to do that, I’m all ears!

I baked a cake

Yes, I baked a cake. A sheet cake, not from scratch, but from a mix, with bought icing. Still, I baked a cake.

And why did I do such a thing? The churches in my area serve a lunch once a week called Second Helpings for those who might not get a good meal at other times, or who just want to socialize with others over a meal.

It was my church’s turn to cook, and my United Methodist Women circle got the dessert assignment. I volunteered to bake one of the cakes. I did so more than a month ago, so it seemed fairly safe at the time. As the time drew nearer to actually do the work, though, I got anxious.



Cake batter in the disposable foil pan I used so I wouldn't have to worry about getting a pan returned to me.



Cooking on the stove is a 98 on my fear hierarchy for checking. But I found out that cooking something in the oven was less anxiety producing than cooking on the stovetop.

I think that may be because the eye on the stovetop seems more dangerous to me than the oven. It’s so hot and so “right there,” and if I don’t turn off the stove properly, my husband could get burned by touching it, or a paper towel or something that rests against it could cause a fire.

Years ago, I let a pot run over and a fire started on the stovetop. I was able to put it out, but it scared me and made me even more anxious about cooking than I already was.

Also, cooking on the stovetop can produce splashes of food. That bothers my contamination OCD.

Cake right out of the oven.

I would put my SUDs score for cooking in the oven at about a 90.

I felt that 90 when it was time to turn off the stove. I turned it off just once, which was a lot better than some incidences in the past when I’ve turned it off and on and off and on over and over.

I did stare at the on/off button, with my reading glasses and without. And I did stop when I got a “right” feeling. But I didn’t ask my husband to check behind me, even though I really wanted to. I knew that I needed to take care of the matter myself.

My anxiety level stayed up for probably about an hour after turning off the stove, slowly ebbing away to about a 40. And I was able to forget about whether or not the stove was off.

I think I was helped by all my recent work on my checking compulsions.

Cake with icing.

I also had some contamination OCD anxiety with the whole cooking thing, more than I thought I would.

One reason was because I had to use eggs, and I am weird about eggs. I’m so afraid of spreading salmonella or some other disease if I don’t clean up after the egg use.

In other words, I worried about the spot in the sink where I set the eggshells once I cracked the eggs, and I worried about any splashes from the mixing bowl on the counter.

So I cleaned with soap and water and with disinfectant cleaner after I had the cake in the oven.

The funny thing is, I have no qualms about eating cake batter, which has uncooked eggs in it. I’m not afraid of getting salmonella—just afraid of spreading it to others.

Then I thought about the quality of the cake. I worried aloud about what if the cake didn’t taste good.

My husband replied, “Well, you’ll never know.”

And I won’t. I wasn’t present when it was eaten, so I won’t ever know people’s reactions to it. That reminder from my husband helped that worry to dissolve.

  The next morning, as I prepared to take the cake to the drop-off site, my husband said, “That cake sure looked good.”

  He sighed.

“But I didn’t get to eat any.”

  So it looks like I’ll be making another cake soon. For my husband.

  Do you have any anxieties about cooking?

My fear hierarchies

In last Friday’s post about my obsessions and compulsions, I mentioned the fear hierarchy.

In his Freedom from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: A Personalized Recovery Program for Living with Uncertainty, Dr. Jonathan Grayson defines what that is: “A fear hierarchy is a ranked order of the situations that cause you anxiety, ranked from most to least anxiety-provoking. This hierarchy will be the blueprint for your exposure and response prevention program, guiding your decisions about what to expose yourself to and when” (p. 67-68).

He suggests using a rating of subjective units of discomfort (SUDs) to rank the anxieties (p. 68). Sunny at 71 & Sunny wrote an excellent post about SUDs, and I urge you to check it out.

I’m using a SUDs scale of 1 to 100, with 100 being the worst anxiety, 1 being the least.

I created a fear hierarchy for every type of OCD I experience. The hierarchies help me organize what I want to work on. I am trying to work on exposures from more than one hierarchy each day.

Grayson suggests starting with the lower ranked items, the ones with the lower SUDs (p. 68).

Here are some of my fear hierarchies, which reflect what I'm working on:

Contamination Hierarchy

Toilet in public bathroom 95

Shower walls and floor 90

Rinsing dishes 90

Washing dishes 80

Home bathroom door open 80

Rinsing recyclables 80

Cleaning off stove 80

Floor in public bathroom 70

Toilet seat in own bathroom 70

Sticky substances 70

Greasy substances 70

Kitchen floor 70

Walking in house with no shoes or socks 70

Walking in house with just socks 70

Cleaning off kitchen counter 60

Eating utensils in restaurants 60

Water faucets in public bathroom 50

Brushing teeth 50

Door handles in public places 40

Checking Hierarchy

Cooking on stove 98

Leaving office without checking lamps 90

Leaving home bathroom without checking lights 90

Checking for sharp objects, contaminated objects on floor at home 90

Checking coffeemaker after using 90

Writing without checking/reviewing 90

Reading without going back and rereading 80

Making sure others know of potential dangers 80

Going upstairs without checking basement lights 80

Checking area around dryer for lint 80

Using bath soap/shampoo bottles without rinsing them afterwards 80

Checking dryer vent 80

Checking between washer and dryer 70

Water taps in laundry room 70

Paperwork 70

Checking to be sure razor is on medicine cabinet shelf 70

Making sure others know of recalls 60

Driving 70

Checking food bags to make sure properly sealed 60

Car brake set 50

Mail slot at post office 50

Car doors locked 40

Perfection, Movement and Magic Hierarchy

Nodding my head 90

Being perfectly understood in written words 85

Saying things perfectly 80

Being perfectly understood in spoken words 80

Rewriting words or letters to make them perfect 50

Only buying items that are perfect 40

Counting steps 30

Mental Compulsions Hierarchy

Praying 90

Knowing or learning everything about a subject 80

Checking memory to determine if harmed in past 80

Doubting religious beliefs 80

Analyzing thoughts for appropriateness 70

Past actions, possible sins 70

  Do you think using something like the fear hierarchy would help you make changes?  Have you ever used anything like this before?