Your article describes exactly what I do. I wake up in the morning and my brain starts to scan/check for things. I worry that I have done something and might not remember and thus not be able to remedy it. Or will suffer in hell because I overlooked someting that is sinful and will cause me to go to hell.

I began CBT/ERP therapy three weeks ago and my therapist pointed out that I was mentally checking and that it was a compulsion not necessarily an obsession and since then I have been able to accept the urge to check and not do it. It is amazing how many times the anxiety leaves and rational thinkiong often takes its place without checking.

I soo apreciate your insight and have made a copy of the article to keep as I feel it describes me perfectly.–Thank You!!

Before I was getting help for my OCD, I used to wake up every morning and check to see if the obsessions were still there. I had no idea that this was a mental compulsion or even that it had a name. Of course, they always were there to some degree or another and the anxiety came with them and set the course of my day.

Just the other day I experienced the first time that I was able to catch myself doing mental checking. I said to myself “this is mental checking, it is not necessary to continue.” I still felt like I should continue but I decided to act on what I believed to be true (that it was just a useless compulsion) instead of what my feelings were saying. I still felt worn out and frustrated that the OCD had come, but after sharing it with a friend, I realized that I should be proud that I am starting to be able to recognize the compulsions and resist them.

Anyway, thanks for the great article.

I think a useful rule when living with OCD is to automatically tag any question starting with the words “what” and “if” as an OCD trap that should intentionally go unanswered. The right answer is, “I’ll deal with it somehow.” Everything else is likely to involve the cognitive distortion of catastrophizing.

I agree there are not many reading materials out there that focus on mental compulsions. The two that come immediately to mind are Imp of the Mind by Baer and Overcoming Obsessive Thoughts by Clark and Purdon. If you are looking for online support with other “pure o” sufferers, you might like to contribute to the following yahoo group: http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/pure_o_ocd/

Thank you for writing this.

Hypochondriacal checking is quite common and responds well to both traditional Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Mindfulness-Based CBT. With mindfulness, the goal is to accept that you have urges to over-attend to thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations that you believe are related to illnesses. But remember, just because these thoughts, feelings, sensations, and urges exist does not mean that they are important, or that they need to be acted on. Once you get the hang of thinking this way, it becomes easier to catch yourself earlier in the checking process. Best of luck in your continued treatment.

Jon