Have you ever wondered where OCD thoughts come from?
When an OCD thought shows up, it can feel like it came out of nowhere. You’re going about your day, living your life, and the next minute you’re flooded with anxiety and stuck in a loop, questioning, reviewing, checking, cleaning. It can feel like your brain is just thinking scary or uncomfortable thoughts for no reason.
But it’s really important to understand that these thoughts are not actually random and they’re not coming out of nowhere. The thoughts are actually a result of a reasoning process.This process happens very quickly and most of the time we don’t even notice it.
But it’s still happening.
In this post I’ll explain where OCD thoughts come from using an ICBT perspective. You can learn more about ICBT here.
Why OCD Thought Feels So Real
To show you what’s happening, we’re going to use some examples.
Let’s start with something more familiar. Imagine I show you a photo and ask you what you think is happening.
It’s dark outside. There’s a long line of people wrapped around a building. They’re wearing coats and scarves. You look at it and say, “Black Friday.”
You didn’t see a sign that said Black Friday. No one told you that’s what it was. But your brain filled in the blanks based on what you saw. People in line, cold weather, nighttime. All of that matched something you’ve seen before or know from your experience or knowledge. Your brain pulled those pieces together and came up with a guess.
That’s an inference. You didn’t know for sure, but you had enough information to come to a conclusion.
What if I showed you a photo of a family sitting around a table? There’s a turkey, maybe a pumpkin, and everyone’s wearing sweaters. Most people would say, “Thanksgiving.”
Again, you don’t actually know it’s Thanksgiving but it looks familiar. Your brain pulls different pieces of evidence together, like facts, personal experience, and other pieces of information, and it reaches a conclusion without you even trying.
These kinds of inferences happen all the time. We take pieces of information and come to a conclusion. And we do it fast, and it’s so fast that it feels automatic.
OCD Works the Same Way
People are often curious about where OCD thoughts come from because it feels like the thoughts are just popping in. But those thoughts still come from somewhere. OCD uses the same kind of reasoning that we just discussed. It grabs onto small bits of information and quickly pulls them into a conclusion. That conclusion is your intrusive thought or obsessional doubt.
Here’s an example.
You walk past a public trash can and suddenly think, What if I touched something dangerous and didn’t realize it?
It feels like that thought just appeared. But underneath, there’s a process happening. Your brain has linked trash with germs. Germs with danger. Getting sick with feeling awful. Missing work. Letting others down. Losing control. That whole chain happened in the background. You didn’t choose it. But it still got you to the conclusion.
Or maybe you’re replaying a conversation from earlier. You think, What if I said something wrong? What if I came off as rude?
Again, it feels automatic. But underneath, your brain is pulling from your values. You care about being kind. You don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. You’ve had times when you felt misunderstood. You imagine how bad it would feel if your friend pulled away or seemed upset. You didn’t plan that out step by step, but the reasoning is there.
But I Didn’t Choose to Think It!
This is one of the hardest parts. A lot of people with OCD feel ashamed or confused. If I had this thought, does that mean I believe it? Or want it?
No. These thoughts are automatic, but they’re still constructed. Your brain is using patterns, past learning, values, and fears. It’s doing what brains do which is to think thoughts and to make hypotheses about things. You didn’t decide to think this way. And you’re not choosing the story. But you are seeing the result of a process.
That’s why it feels so real. The thought didn’t come out of nowhere. It came from somewhere, even if you weren’t aware of every step of the process.
Using the Iceberg Metaphor to Understand Where OCD Thoughts Come From
A helpful way to think about where OCD thoughts come from is to imagine an iceberg.
Above the surface is the thought you noticed. These thoughts might be something like What if I got contaminated? What if I said something awful? What if I forgot something important?
Below the surface is everything that supports that thought and makes it feel real. Facts, rules, past experiences, what matters to you, what you’ve learned, and all the associations your brain has made over time. Even though you didn’t see it happening, it was all there.
Understanding how OCD thoughts form doesn’t make the doubts or worries go away, but it helps you step back from it and that’s a really important first step.
A Way to Start Noticing Where Your OCD Thoughts Come From
If you want to try this out, here’s one thing you can do.
Next time you have an intrusive thought, pause and ask yourself, What might have led to this? What pieces of information did my brain use? Why did I come to this conclusion?
You don’t need to analyze it for an hour. Just see if you can notice what was going on around you. What you were feeling. What you might have been reminded of. What your brain could have picked up on.
You might start to see that the thought wasn’t random and once you can see that, it gets easier to respond with curiosity instead of fear.
That’s what we work on in ICBT. You learn how to slow the process down and you start to notice the story your brain is building. And over time, you get better at stepping out of the loop and back into the present moment so you can live your life.
Want to Go Deeper?
If this post helped you understand where OCD thoughts come from, I think you’ll find my free guide helpful too. It’s called “The Real Reason Your OCD Thoughts Feel So Convincing” and it walks you through the mental loop that keeps OCD going and what you can start doing about it.
You can download it here!
It’s free, and it’s a great next step if you’re trying to make sense of what’s happening in your mind and how to get some distance from it.