Peace for OCD’s Anxious Mind at Christmas

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Christmas was my favorite holiday when I was a little kid because Christmas was the only day of the year that the universe made sense. It’s not just that magic was real on Christmas: it’s that magic was reliable and fair. If you were good (and I promise, I self-flagellated like a medieval monk to make sure I was good), you were handsomely rewarded. One day a year, my repression, scrupulosity, and motivational self-loathing were acknowledged and celebrated by the powers.

Holidays Can Provide Positive Distractions

It helped that when you were a little kid with OCD, there was nothing like a stack of new toys and games to distract you from your disorder. The rest of the calendar year was filled with classes, tiresome errands, and music lessons, and whenever I was bored, my mind would go to terrible places. On Christmas, though, it felt like the universe recognized my suffering and rewarded me with an all-too-brief break from my mental illness.

But They Can Also Trigger Symptoms

But as you grow older, Christmas gets more complicated. Maybe you start to notice the tensions between your parents and your extended family, or you realize your grandparents are getting visibly aged. You learn that magic isn’t as real as you were led to believe–that adults you trust are capable of lying to you. And every Catholic kid can tell you that Christmas morning mass is the longest, most boring of the year. But as I hit puberty, as my mind awakened to religious doubt and too intrusive thoughts about sex and violence, that service became something personally horrifying. The tedium of the nativity play was shooed offstage to make room for the torments of St. Augustine.

Mental illness spikes around the holidays–A Charlie Brown Christmas figured that out decades ago. Any deviation from your everyday routine, even a pleasant one, will cause at least a modest degree of stress. We stress out about shopping and parties and making a good impression on visiting friends and family. Winter really gets going, and SAD kicks in. Treasured memories are tainted by grief for places and people we’ve lost. High expectations, reinforced by nostalgia, are inevitably disappointed when confronted with reality. Your therapist, or other members of your treatment team, might not be available to help.

And if you suffer from certain kinds of OCD, these issues are perversely optimized to exacerbate your symptoms. Obsessions related to cleanliness and perfectionism might surge while preparing for guests or putting up decorations. Anxieties about the disease, especially COVID, will be heightened during large gatherings in enclosed spaces. If you struggle with scrupulosity–OCD related to religious faith and practice– then holiday services might be a trigger. And, more generally, it’s inevitable that at some point during the holidays, you are going to be incredibly bored–while traveling, at church, at dinner with a relative–and OCD wreaks havoc on an unoccupied mind.

Accept the Inevitable and Plan Your Management Strategies

You already know whether or not your OCD is going to be a problem. Instead of trying to deny or ignore that, think about which symptoms are most likely to spike and what situations are going to trigger them. Plan out your management strategies in advance. Maybe your doctor has prescribed some situational medication, or you have a favorite show or a game on your phone you can use as a distraction while taking a break, or there’s a particular friend or loved one attending the festivities who you know you can rely on for support.

Personally, what helps me the most in a triggering environment is having an “escape button” ready–a preplanned strategy for quietly, politely excusing myself from an overwhelming situation, and getting to a safe space where I can manage my symptoms. That might mean traveling with an ally who can help with transportation, preparing an excuse for leaving a social obligation early, or asking your host in advance if there’s a room you could use to lie down if needed. You won’t always need these tactics, but they can be a huge help–sometimes, just knowing that there’s an escape hatch is enough to make a stressful situation tolerable.

OCD can strike in various ways during the holidays, but there’s also good news: you know your own symptoms better than anyone, which means you are uniquely equipped to prepare for and confront your personal challenges. If you can accept that some parts of the upcoming holidays are going to be stressful or upsetting, you can plan ahead to mitigate those problems and better position yourself to appreciate the people and events you genuinely enjoy.

For now, I wish you peace of mind and goodwill to all.

Copyright Fletcher Wortmann, 2022. Please credit the original author, Fletcher Wortmann, and Psychology Today.