How to settle anxiety in the heart and mind of someone with OCD

On a spectrum from discomfort to the loudest of alarm bells, OCD longs, sometimes shouts, for more.  It always wants, needs, more.  More proof, more evidence, more certainty, more clarity, more reassurance, more attention, more time.

This can be the ache, or even the agony, of OCD — it promises peace through control, but delivers only exhaustion.

There’s a Jewish prayer, often recited during Passover, called Dayenu. The word means, “It would have been enough.”

I didn’t know about this prayer until I watched season five of The Chosen. The prayer lists moments from salvation history — the exodus from Egypt, the parting of the Red sea, the gift of the Sabbath — and after each one, it declares: “Dayenu.”

Even if God had stopped there, it would have been enough.

It was so moving to see Jesus’ followers share with Him the gratitude for their personal experiences with Him, and the declaration that even if He had not said or done that particular thing, it would have been enough.

When the OCD parts of me cry out for more, more, more —
More clarity, more confession, more assurance —
This prayer gently redirects me:

What if I don’t need more right now? What if what I already have — what God has already done, but most of all who He is — is enough?

He Himself is enough for us.  

No one likes the unknown.  I once heard a Sister of Life say she thinks we have an allergy to it.  However, OCD can make the unknown feel intolerable, like something we have to fix or solve or conquer.   Even though someone with OCD can intellectually understand that it is impossible to eliminate all unknowns in life, anxiety can try to convince us otherwise.  While there is inevitable mystery when it comes to God, ourselves (made in His image), and life, it doesn’t mean that we can’t know some things.  

Most importantly, we can know that God is a good Father that loves us, and has made us good.  Herein lies our ultimate safety.  

When OCD (with the best but misguided of intentions) fearfully threatens doom if we don’t figure it out, get the answer, or check one more time, we can learn to respond to these parts of ourselves with confidence that we can be safe, even when we don’t know.  Nothing about us as humans, or life in general, is really in the extremes, all or nothing, black or white.  We are people of the both/and.  It’s true that not one of us is perfectly safe or good, but it doesn’t mean that we can’t be safe or good enough. The Lord, though – He is perfectly good and loving and ever present and all powerful and all knowing.  He knows, so we don’t have to.  

OCD involves some of the most counterintuitive seemingly backward ways of healing. It can feel cruel for all parties involved to not just provide the reassurance, see that the stove is off, receive Absolution, just in case.  But it is the way of childlike trust in our good Father, who never leaves us or forsakes us.  When we permit ourselves to be exposed to the unknown, to not let the OCD take the wheel and drive us to grasp at the illusion of control that we can grow in tolerance of the uncertainty.  And He doesn’t ask us to do this alone.

I grew up in Protestant churches where structured prayer was almost nonexistent. But over time, I came to love communal, recited prayers—even before I ever considered becoming Catholic. In college, a professor once told me that in times when prayer feels hard, we can lean on the prayers of others—we can borrow their words when we can’t find our own. This is especially important when OCD demands more from us than we can give. We need prayers like the Dayenu, and we need trusted people—mentors, family, or close friends—who know our story and will stay with us through the uncertainty. We’re not meant to either collapse into despair or power through on our own. We’re meant to grow in hope. We can ask for grace. And we can remember: God has done mighty things—throughout salvation history, and in our own lives too.

It could mean writing your own Dayenu.  Here’s my own, OCD themed version:

If You had permitted me to understand that I was suffering from anxiety, but never learned the name for my obsessions and compulsions, it would have been enough.

If You had let me come to know that my crippling fears of making tragic mistakes were because of OCD, but not given me the books and friends that could help me understand this better, it would have been enough. 

If You had given me the resources and relationships to shed more light on what was happening for me in moments when I had to know, but not given me an education and training in psychology with supervisors to skillfully sit with me in the unknown, unafraid of my anxiety, it would have been enough.

If You had provided the relief that came from understanding that I was experiencing OCD, and compassionate caring relationships, without an official diagnosis,  it would have been enough.

If You had provided the psychiatrist with a sense of humor to help me see that I really have diagnosable OCD, without prescribing the medication that would make every day easier, it would have been enough.

If You had provided the medication that radically changed my life, and not given me the opportunity to help others with the same sufferings, it would have been enough.  

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While anxiety can cause us to fear that the unknown can only mean the worst is in store for us, the reality is that we don’t yet know the good things He has in store for us.

What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard,

and what has not entered the human heart,

what God has prepared for those who love him