Freedom through Surrender

How releasing resistance brings peace to an anxious mind

Happy Sunday, friends! This weekend I am out of the country visiting family in my hometown, but we’re so lucky to have my fellow therapist / writer Jenna sharing her expertise today!

Jenna Overbaugh is a Licensed Professional Counselor specializing in the treatment of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Her debut book, Making Peace with a Noisy Mind (Avery/Penguin Random House) comes out February 16, 2027. If this might be for you or someone you love, be sure to subscribe to stay tuned for pre-release updates!

I had the privilege of connecting with Jenna to explore her personal and professional experience with OCD, helpful principles you can move toward if you struggle with ruminating or obsessive thoughts, and how influencer culture helps or harms our understanding of and approach to managing OCD. Let’s dive in!

Deborah: Welcome, Jenna! So tell us, what is OCD, and how is it clinically distinct from how it is referenced in popular vernacular or slang use?

Jenna: OCD is a mental health condition involving two core experiences: obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions are unwanted, repetitive, distressing thoughts, images, impulses, feelings, or sensations that show up uninvited and won’t let go. Compulsions are what a person does in response and they aren’t always visible. Yes, compulsions can look like hand washing, checking, or seeking reassurance. But they can also be entirely internal, like ruminating, analyzing, mentally reviewing, or even just paying sustained attention to a thought. All of it functions the same way: temporary relief that keeps the cycle going. Clinically, we’re looking for the presence of these intrusive experiences, attempts to neutralize the distress they cause, and meaningful impairment in daily life.

Where it gets complicated is the gap between what OCD looks like in popular culture versus what it actually looks like in a treatment room. Media tends to show the palatable presentation like fear of germs, needing symmetry, and excessive cleanliness. These are real and can be genuinely debilitating, but they’re the easy-to-talk-about slice of a much bigger picture. What rarely gets airtime are the presentations that carry real shame: ego-dystonic intrusive thoughts about harm, taboo sexual content, or command-style thoughts like “drive your car off the bridge” - thoughts that are completely inconsistent with who the person is and that horrify them. These people aren’t dangerous, research actually shows that those who have these unwanted thoughts are actually less likely to act on them. They’re suffering partially because what they’re experiencing looks nothing like the OCD they’ve seen on TV.

OCD can attach to virtually any theme - contamination, relationships, hit-and-run, false memory, scrupulosity, and dozens more. The content matters far less than the pattern underneath it. And that pattern often goes unrecognized for years because it looks nothing like the stereotype.

Photo by Mélissa Jeanty on Unsplash

Deborah: Thank you for this. It’s so helpful to move beyond stereotypes. What drew you to specializing in the treatment of OCD and anxiety disorders? How has OCD influenced your life?

Jenna: I was always an anxious kid. I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t. Some of my earliest memories involve doing things in threes because I genuinely believed that if I didn’t, something terrible would happen to someone I loved. I avoided stepping on cracks so I wouldn’t hurt my mom’s back. I decided the quality of my handwriting each morning would determine whether the day would be good or bad. I didn’t have language for any of it at the time. What I did have was an instinct that the only thing worse than doing the scary thing was letting the fear win. So when I was afraid to raise my hand in class, I raised it more. When something made me want to avoid, I went toward it. I was doing exposure and response prevention before I knew what it was called.

In college, I finally learned what I had been living with and more importantly, I learned that there was a treatment for it built entirely around the thing I had already figured out on my own: pushing through discomfort rather than accommodating it. I became deeply passionate about ERP and never looked back. That path led me to an internship at Johns Hopkins and eventually to what I’d call my dream job - nearly a decade working on a residential OCD and anxiety recovery unit in Wisconsin, where I worked with some of the most complex and debilitating cases in the world. I helped develop that program and train other clinicians to treat presentations that most therapists never see.

I love this work because I believe in it from both sides. I’ve lived it and I’ve watched it change people’s lives in ways that nothing else could. Watching someone take a leap of faith, push through something that terrified them, and come out the other side, there’s really nothing else like it.

Deborah: It’s such a privilege to engage in work where we see real change happening! As therapists, though, we’re seeing a new lane of influence on the popular understanding of mental health issues. How do you see the popularity of social media and influencer culture shaping our cultural understanding of and conversations around OCD - for better and / or for worse?

Jenna: Social media has done something really valuable for people with OCD: it’s made them feel less alone. So much of what makes this disorder debilitating is the isolation, the belief that what’s happening in your head is uniquely shameful, uniquely broken, uniquely yours. I experienced this myself during postpartum OCD. I was convinced that my specific experiences meant something was fundamentally wrong with me. Finding out that other people had been through the same thing, that there was even a name for it, was the first crack in that shame. Social media has created space for those conversations to happen publicly, which has expanded our collective understanding of how many different forms OCD can actually take. It’s also helped fill a real gap in access. Finding a therapist who genuinely specializes in OCD and actually delivers evidence-based treatment is harder than it should be. The self-help content available online - when it’s good (!) - can function as a meaningful first step in what we call a stepped care model, where people begin helping themselves before they ever get into a formal treatment setting.

The problem is that not all of it is good. There’s very little quality control on social media, which means lived experience gets presented with the same authority as clinical expertise and those are not the same thing. Personal experience with OCD is valuable. It is not sufficient preparation for telling other people what to do about theirs. I’ve seen creators recommend things that range from unhelpful to genuinely harmful, including - and I wish I were making this up - drinking celery juice to “cure” OCD. When someone is desperate enough, they’ll try anything. That desperation deserves better than ridiculous misinformation.

If you’re using social media to learn about OCD and anxiety, discernment is everything. At minimum, make sure you’re learning from someone who is a licensed professional and who practices evidence-based treatment specifically exposure and response prevention, acceptance and commitment therapy, or inference-based CBT. Personal story is a starting point but clinical expertise is necessary.

Deborah: Absolutely. It’s important to know that you’re not alone, but discernment when it comes to advice is essential, too. Let’s get specific: what are some more examples of harmful advice that people suffering with OCD may receive, whether helpful for other mental health struggles or not?

Jenna: Some of the most well-intentioned advice people receive is also some of the most harmful not because the suggestions are bad in general, but because of the agenda behind them. Telling someone with OCD to breathe through it, go for a walk, journal, or talk to someone about what they’re experiencing seems reasonable on the surface. The problem is that most people do these things with one goal: to get rid of the anxiety. And that get-rid-of mentality is exactly what keeps the OCD cycle going. As long as someone is journaling to neutralize their intrusive thoughts or going for a walk to make the anxiety stop, they’re still playing OCD’s game. The strategy changes but the agenda stays the same.

Other common but harmful recommendations include thought stopping, like snapping a rubber band against your wrist when an intrusive thought shows up, replacing it with a positive affirmation, praying it away, or finding some other way to neutralize it. These approaches might be appropriate in other clinical contexts. For OCD specifically, they can cause serious damage. The reason someone is stuck in the OCD cycle in the first place is because they keep trying to get rid of intrusive thoughts. Giving them more sophisticated tools to do exactly that isn’t treatment, it’s just a more elaborate compulsion.

What actually works is the opposite approach. I actually don’t teach coping strategies. I don’t help clients challenge the content of their thoughts or debate whether their fears are rational. If someone comes to me struggling with relationship OCD, we don’t spend time analyzing whether their relationship is good or bad. We identify the intrusive thought loop, map out every compulsion they’re doing in response to it, and work on reducing those compulsions while building capacity to sit with discomfort. The goal isn’t to feel better, instead the goal is to stop engaging and to let anxiety run its natural course without interference. That skill, practiced consistently, is what actually breaks the cycle.

Deborah: It’s such a counter-intuitive truth that learning to sit with discomfort ironically leads to feeling better. Maybe not feeling “perfect,” but better. What tips or advice would you share with readers who wonder if or know that they are struggling with OCD?

Jenna: The first step is finding solid, trustworthy information. That means learning from licensed professionals who actually practice evidence-based treatment for OCD, not just anyone online with a personal story. The International OCD Foundation (iocdf.org) is also an excellent starting point. Beyond the information itself, I think there’s something therapeutic about learning that you’re not alone in this and that OCD is highly treatable. This knowledge alone can alter something for people who have been suffering and assuming they’re broken.

One thing I’d encourage people to loosen their grip on is the subtype obsession. People either find enormous relief in recognizing themselves in a specific subtype - magical thinking OCD, false memory OCD, harm OCD - or they spiral because they don’t see themselves reflected anywhere and assume their version must be uniquely unsolvable. Both responses miss the point entirely. You can be obsessive and compulsive about anything. The content you’re stuck on matters far less than the pattern underneath it, which is unwanted experiences showing up, followed by attempts to get rid of them, followed by more of the same. That’s the thing to focus on. I don’t want you to focus on the content but the actual pattern underneath it.

It also helps to understand that intrusive thoughts are a universal human experience. Research has shown that if you take the most common intrusive thoughts reported by people with OCD and compare them to those reported by people without OCD, trained professionals cannot reliably tell the lists apart. Everyone is having these thoughts. The difference is what happens next. People with OCD misinterpret the thoughts as meaningful, judge them, try to get rid of them, and build elaborate compulsive responses around them. That’s what makes it a disorder, not the thoughts themselves. The goal of treatment isn’t to eliminate intrusive thoughts or anxiety entirely. Both are normal human experiences! The goal is to build enough capacity to let them exist without derailing your life and to get good enough at not engaging that they lose their grip entirely.

Deborah: Our thought loops can become such traps - thank you for your guidance out of the cycle. What can readers do to help themselves at home, and what benefit does treatment (such as therapy or medication) add?

Jenna: Research shows that exposure and response prevention - ERP - is actually extremely effective. That’s remarkable given how debilitating OCD can be, and it means we’re not guessing about what works. At its core, ERP comes down to three things: pushing yourself outside your comfort zone, reducing compulsions, and reducing avoidance. It’s easy to get lost in the nuances and complexities of treatment, but if you can keep coming back to those three things, you’re probably on the right track.

In practical terms, this means asking yourself honestly: where am I avoiding things because of anxiety? What compulsions am I doing, like reassurance seeking, replaying conversations, Googling, ruminating that are keeping the loop going? And where can I push myself to sit with discomfort instead of immediately trying to escape it? Every time you avoid, you’re reinforcing the message that the thing was actually dangerous and that you can’t handle it. Every time you push through without compulsing, you’re building evidence to the contrary. That evidence accumulates and that’s how you eventually get your life back.

As far as medication goes, research supports that SSRIs combined with treatment produce the best outcomes, but medication alone will only take you so far. I’ve worked with hundreds of people who recovered without it entirely. The medication is meant to make the work more manageable, not to replace it. If someone is taking an SSRI but none of their behaviors are changing, meaning they’re still seeking reassurance, still avoiding, still giving OCD exactly what it wants, they’re likely still going to be stuck. One additional note, and I want to be clear that I’m not a physician so please consult your prescribing doctor: historically, benzodiazepines like Xanax or Valium have been considered counterproductive alongside OCD recovery. So much of this work requires experiencing anxiety in slow, manageable doses in order to build capacity for it. A medication that immediately eliminates that anxiety also eliminates the opportunity to build that capacity - and can function as a compulsion in its own right. It’s worth having that conversation with your doctor if it’s relevant to your situation.

Deborah: You’ve answered this question in different ways, but to conclude, I want to ask you bluntly and directly: is there hope for people with OCD? Or will it always be such a difficult battle?

Jenna: There is so much hope for people with OCD and anxiety! And a lot of it comes from understanding that the battle itself is optional.

In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, there’s a concept called dropping the rope. So much of the exhaustion that comes with OCD is the result of constantly playing tug of war with it, i.e pulling away from anxiety and intrusive thoughts, only to get pulled right back. There’s a paradoxical quality to it: the harder you fight to get rid of these experiences, the more stuck you become. The moment you drop the rope, the game changes entirely.

A metaphor I come back to often is the telemarketer. OCD and anxiety are like a relentless telemarketer who calls at the worst possible times and says genuinely awful things. But you keep picking up the phone. You stop what you’re doing, you engage with the call, you argue, you try to get them to stop. We can’t guarantee the telemarketer will never call again. What we can do is stop picking up. Because as long as you’re participating in that conversation, that’s where the real difficulty lives. The goal is to get to a place where an intrusive thought can show up and carry the same emotional weight as a reminder to pick up peanut butter at the store. Just a thought, nothing more. I know that sounds like a far cry for many people, but it’s possible for anyone with time and guidance.

What I want people to understand is that their brain is not broken. The same brain that generates terrifying what-if scenarios is also capable of enormous creativity, love, and thoughtfulness. I tell my clients all the time, it’s not a broken brain, it’s just misdirected. And when you stop pouring energy into shrinking yourself, avoiding discomfort, and fighting experiences that are fundamentally part of being human - and instead build capacity to let those things exist while you keep living your life, the battle dissolves on its own. You’re no longer a player in the game. You’re the one deciding how it goes. That’s what recovery and freedom from OCD actually looks like. And it is absolutely within reach.

Deborah: Thank you so much, Jenna! This is so encouraging and I know there are many readers here who will find new hope and courage through your words.

Readers - what other questions do you have? I will be hosting Jenna for a LIVE chat in September (be sure you are subscribed here to be notified!) and we will answer any questions you share in the comments here plus any you type into the Live chat. We’ll also go more in depth with the ideas discussed here and explore the intersection of OCD with trauma and neurodivergence. We’d love to have you join us!

With so much love and appreciation,

Deborah and Jenna.

I’m Deborah Vinall, PsyD, LMFT, a trauma therapist and author exploring trauma, relationships, belonging, and the complicated work of being human.

My books—including Gaslighting: A Step-by-Step Recovery Guide and Trauma Recovery Workbook for Teens—have helped readers around the world understand and heal from relational and other forms of trauma and find their way back to themselves.

Here on Mental Health Musings, I explore those themes more personally, blending clinical insight with reflection, and occasionally sharing guided meditations and resources for healing.

If this kind of work speaks to you, I invite you to subscribe to receive future reflections and guided resources.