Checking OCD: Why One More Check Never Feels Like Enough
There is a specific and well-replicated finding here that is worth knowing: checking makes your memory feel less reliable, not more. That is why the tenth check is worse than the first.
Read postCompulsion Delay: Creating a Gap Between the Urge and the Ritual
Never doing the compulsion again is a plan almost nobody can execute. Waiting five minutes is. Here is why delay works and how to use it without turning it into a ritual.
Read postContamination OCD: More Than a Fear of Germs
Everyone thinks they know this one. Most of what they know is the stock photo. Contamination OCD is broader, stranger, and more treatable than the stereotype suggests.
Read postERP vs CBT for OCD: Why the Distinction Matters
People are often told to get CBT for OCD, start generic CBT, and find it does not help. The reason is that the CBT that treats OCD is a specific branch of it called ERP.
Read postHarm OCD: Intrusive Thoughts About Hurting Someone You Love
The thoughts are horrifying, they attach to the people you love most, and the horror you feel about them is the clearest sign of what they actually are.
Read postHow to Build an Exposure Hierarchy (With Worked Examples)
A hierarchy is the plan that makes ERP possible: your triggers, rated and ordered, so there is always a next rung you can actually reach.
Read postOCD vs Anxiety: How to Tell the Difference
Both involve fear and both involve worry. The difference is the compulsion - and it is the reason advice that works for anxiety often makes OCD worse.
Read postPure O: Why "Purely Obsessional" OCD Still Has Compulsions
Pure O is a useful description and a misleading name. The rituals have not gone anywhere. They have moved inside your head, where they are much harder to spot.
Read postReal-Event OCD: When the Obsession Is Something You Actually Did
Most OCD themes are hypothetical. This one is not, which is why people conclude it cannot be OCD - and why they spend years trying to solve it instead of treating it.
Read postReassurance Seeking: The Compulsion That Hides in Plain Sight
Reassurance does not look like a ritual. It looks like coping, or caring, or due diligence. It is the compulsion most people miss for longest.
Read postRelationship OCD (ROCD): When Doubt Attaches to Your Partner
The question feels like the most important one in your life, and answering it is the compulsion. Here is what relationship OCD is and why "just work out if you love them" is the trap.
Read postScrupulosity: Religious and Moral OCD
When OCD attaches to faith or ethics, the compulsions look like devotion and the doubt looks like conscience. That is what makes this one so hard to see from inside.
Read postSexual Orientation OCD (SO-OCD): What It Is and What It Isn't
This theme is about intolerance of uncertainty, not about sexuality. It happens to straight people, gay people, and bisexual people alike, and the mechanism is identical each time.
Read postThe SUDS Scale: Rating Distress from 0 to 10 During Exposures
A single number, rated in the moment, is what turns an exposure from a bad hour into data you can learn from. Here is how to use the SUDS scale properly.
Read postWhat Is ERP? A Plain-English Guide to Exposure and Response Prevention
ERP is the front-line therapy for OCD, and it is far less mysterious than it sounds. Here is what it is, what a session looks like, and why the response prevention half is the part that does the work.
Read postIs Patterns a CBT app? ERP, CBT, and what actually helped me
A question I get a lot: is Patterns a CBT app? The short answer is yes-ish, and the honest answer is more interesting than that.
Read postWhat I actually wanted from an OCD app
Before I built Patterns, I kept downloading apps and deleting them. This is what I was actually looking for in an OCD app, and why it was so hard to find.
Read postThe loop, and how I loosen it
Obsession, distress, compulsion, relief. Then it starts again. Here is how I learned to see the loop instead of living inside it.
Read postWhy I built Patterns
I have OCD. I built Patterns because I kept looking for the tool I needed and never finding it. This is the honest version of why.
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