Can I Really Trust My Gut With OCD?

⚡⚡Online Recovery Courses⚡⚡
► Master Your OCD From Home (try for free)

💚 Kids Master OCD (try for free)

🎉 Join my patreon - LIVE Q&A, chat rooms, & early video access. Kick OCD to the curb!

► Parents, spouses, and families - How to support someone with OCD

🛒 Shirts, stickers, awesomeness 🛒

► Rise From Depression course (try for free)

► BFRB's (hair pulling, skin picking, nail-biting) (try for free)

⚡⚡Join the OCD support group⚡⚡

⚡⚡LIVE Masterclasses and Q&A⚡⚡

⚡⚡Take an OCD Test⚡⚡
➼ Do I have OCD?
➼ Do I have HOCD?
➼ Do I have Harm OCD?
➼ Relationship OCD
➼ How severe is my OCD?
➼ Do I have hair-pulling disorder?
➼ Do I have skin picking disorder?
➼ Depression severity scale

⚡⚡Connect on social⚡⚡

⚡⚡Video Playlists⚡⚡

When it comes to OCD, it can be challenging to know when to trust your gut instincts, as obsessive thoughts and doubts can often feel overwhelming and confusing. Here are some general guidelines that may help.

– – – Disclaimer – – –
For information purposes only. Does not constitute clinical advice. Consult your local medical authority for advice.

[ocdandanxiety]

Do you ever question if it's your gut or if it's OCD?

[seadragon]

For a while I thought “oh my god I’m a psychopath” and believed it because my OCD told me that I am one. When I’m not, I don’t want to hurt anyone. I’m always terrified that what if I’m helping my mum make dinner and then I snap and then hurt her with a knife or something. That thought terrifies me. I love my mum, I would never ever want to do that to her. But OCD makes me doubt it of course. It’s terrifying

[jasminad]

Perfect video!!! Because my gut is (almost) always telling me to say no, run, give up, don't risk it.. the constant fear of making horrendeus unfixable mistakes, fear of hurting people I care about, them hurting me.. It is like war, neverending war inside our minds and undescribeable guilt, sadness and loneliness all.the.time.

[kevincoudureszenz]

Thanks for addressing this topic! I always heard the advice "trust yourself, trust your gut" but I work everyday to not listen to my OCD fears, so it was really confusing growing up. Another topic that would be great to cover is how to be compassionate with yourself when you are avoiding a check compulsion and the thing you didn't check goes wrong. I don't want it to be a confirmation that I should have checked. Thanks!

[fenyxvalerii]

There is something about you that is ever so soothing and pleasant ❤thank you for all your doing for the OCD community !

[maximefrerichs]

I am really obsessive about being honest it kills my relationship every time but I love these videos because they keep reminding me how to deal with it. So thank you❤

[shadowman]

I don't know if you're going to see this comment or not, but in my experience the hard part about trying to overcome isn't the OCD itself, it's the coincidences that come along with it, growing up my thoughts tell me to do compulsive actions to prevent a certain mishap from happening, but when I do stop doing the compulsive actions that certain mishap ends up happening, I remember at one point, being a bit religious, I told God that I would fight my addiction, but when I end up falling into addiction, I keep seeing coincidences and signs related to me not doing the fighting addiction and been seeing mishaps and up to this day I will never know when it will stop.

[ajeetp]

You are one of the best psychologist in the world. Your videos are so easy to understand and helpful and you understand our problem. Keep it up

[wolvesgirl]

I always doubt myself even if I KNOW the answer to something I still find myself looking for answers and if I find answers that are different I panic cause it makes me think I was wrong and that my OCD was right and it's scary

[stephanieturner]

The most difficult thing for me with this, is trusting my gut about people. I have a really hard time reading people, but every time I felt that off bad feeling about someone I find out later they’re a bad person (I know people are not all good or bad) but for the sake of explaining I’m using that term. Like they lie, make false reports, gossip, intentionally try to cause harm to others. But then I struggle with the OCD telling me I’m misjudging them or thinking if I’m right about them, all these potential bad things could happen. Then I ruminate over every word and interaction I had with them to see if I did or said something they could use to hurt me. Did I give them too much information? Why can’t I just shut up and not talk to people? I’m a nervous talker and I like to be social and I also like to be comedic, but there’s so much risk with that around ill intentioned or prejudice people, sometimes people who are well intentioned but do bad things to others over their judgement that they know better or are better than everyone else. Things like that.

[lokpikr]

I think you nailed it with respect to what differentiates an obsessive thought from agenuine gut feelings. That being, that the former is infused with an intense feeling of anxiety, whereas the latter is more of a mental advisory, so to speak, with little to no emotional component.

[DrCalogiuri]

You have no idea how much your videos helped me. Way more than years and thousands of dollars in therapy. I wish there were better trained doctors like you. Keep going you are awesome!

[d_izzyy]

So whenever I think about this term”gut feeling”..it really sends my intrusive thoughts to my stomach and makes me think that I’am getting the sensation of this feeling for the wrong reason when I’am not and I only get it when I think about the exact term my thoughts say to me”Yes u will have this feeling or ur having this..”and it really makes me think that “am I one of them..””..and I have hocd..

[bier]

The gut instinct tells me I am going to act out my intrusive thoughts because it 'feels' like I 'want' to do it. My gut says I am 'interested in it'. Even though every time I do a compulsion I am -almost- sure I don't want to. I am choosing to disregard my OCD. This afternoon I am going to be extremely productive for school.

[wajihaahmed]

I thank God i found your channel. You are such a positive vibe
I just recently discovered your channel and you have cleared my doubts about myself

[trick]

This video described exactly what is happening to me everytime my ocd will start to attack my thoughts that it seems I can't resist, so what is happen is to abide the intrusive thoughts just to reassuring nothings bad gonna happen for me, to my family and friends, once i reach the peak of certain, if follows relaxation to my mind and then it goes to continue my work, Sometimes this disorder can trigger anytime once a related things suddenly appeared, i want to register in my mind that those thoughts is not real but my mind often continue to react with those thoughts, It's really hard to reprogram your mind instantly but I do believe that God is with Us to overcome this, I really appreciate and huge thanks to this video you created Sir Nat, more powers and God Bless us🙏

[specificsoup]

I'm struggling with this one. I have been dxed with Generalized Anxiety for a long time (also ADHD), but recently seriously considering if I have OCD). I think mine may be closer to "Pure O" but I do have impulsive spending tendencies that I'm never sure what's contributing to them... :P Anyway, I've always been confused about when to trust my "gut" and what is my gut. I asked my therapist about this as well. She said if the feeling comes with a lot of anxiety it probably isn't "just your gut, " vs. if you just have a feeling but it's not super anxious, it probably is intuition. But I really can't recall a time that I just had some kind of intuition without anxiety along with it. There are a few things recently that I realized I had been "right" about, but at the time I was having feelings that you could easily just call anxiety or OCD ruminating on something. So at the time I told myself I was being too extreme and this wasn't my intuition. But I find that years down the line I am often seeing myself going oh I was right about that thing.... that I was also anxious about, and thinking about a lot. I guess in part because they're things that greatly affected my life. So I guess that's the big question. If I'm having a gut feeling about something.... like say, when you have a negative gut feeling about a person .... if it's something that if I'm right, it would negatively affect my life, how would that gut feeling not be accompanied with anxiety?

[zachyoutube]

What is your opinion on "The Gun Test"? Basically forcing yourself to answer the question "Is this OCD?" whether or not you're certain, and you have to get the answer correct...OR ELSE. A softer version of this would be using a "best guess" to give yourself some uncertain reassurance. Ex: "Even though I'll never know for certain, my best guess is this is OCD and it isn't going to make me sick, regardless of how I feel right now"

These both include reassurance, but also force someone to make a decision despite doubt. So I'm curious if you use these strategies to encourage engagement or if you strictly stick to maybe, maybe not. Thanks for all you do!

[mcj]

Thank you so much for this valuable content, it has been incredibly helpful.

I have some trouble with the idea of having an "I don't care response" because then I get repetitive with it and it becomes my new compulsion (so the thought keeps coming), so yeah, definitely for me what works is just to do/think nothing, just to tolerate the awful feeling until it's gone.

Just wanted to share this 😅 God bless you, thank you so much again, you content has been truly truly truly helpful 🥹

[__MPires__]

I didnt trust mu gut once, my "actual" gut. I got what I feared, and i feel like it ruined my progress with ocd. I was certain i shoukd NOT do it, but maybe itd help my ocd if i did it.
Like you said, this gut feeling didnt cause anxiety, it was trying to help me. I didnt listen.