• Module 3: Mapping Your Monster
  • The Mission: Uncover every single hidden escape route you are using to feed Dee.
  • Your Tool: Worksheet 2.5 – The Compulsion Audit

The Core Shift

A compulsion is anything you do to reduce distress or gain certainty after an obsession. The problem is that compulsions aren’t always obvious. Many compulsions are subtle. If you want to break the cycle, you have to get honest about what you are actively doing to try and stay safe.

Key Takeaways

The Two Faces of Compulsions

To stop feeding the loop, you need to recognize how your escape behaviors present themselves:

  • Overt Compulsions (Visible): These are physical actions that someone watching you could see. Washing your hands, checking the stove, tapping, arranging things, asking someone for reassurance, or physically avoiding certain objects or places.
  • Covert Compulsions (Hidden): These happen entirely inside your head. Mental reviewing (playing past events over and over to check your guilt), arguing with the thought, praying rigidly, mentally neutralizing a “bad” thought with a “good” one, or constantly checking your body to see how anxious you feel. 

The Blueprint: Two Questions to Unmask Any Compulsion

If you aren’t sure whether an action is a healthy choice or an OCD compulsion, just pass it through these two diagnostic questions:

  1. What is it that my OCD wants me to start doing or increase that I should not be doing?(Examples: Googling symptoms, re-reading texts, over-washing, asking “Are we good?”, mentally debating).
  2. What is it that my OCD wants me to stop doing or decrease that I should not be doing?(Examples: Avoiding driving, stopping cooking, decreasing social time, avoiding specific movies, refusing to touch certain doorknobs).

What Dee will say to freak you out right now:

Dee will try to defend its safety behaviors so you don’t take them away:

  • “That’s not a compulsion, you’re just being responsible and careful.”
  • “If you don’t do this mental review right now, how will you know for sure that you didn’t do something wrong?”
  • “Avoiding that situation isn’t an OCD choice, it’s just common sense.”

The Trap: Turning the act of finding compulsions into a compulsion itself. Spending hours micro-analyzing every single movement you make during the day to see if it’s “pure” or “OCD” is just Dee hijacking the tool. Use the two questions, note the big ones, and move forward.

Your Homework for Today

Today, you are going to shine a flashlight on Dee’s favorite defense mechanisms.

  1. Open Worksheet 2.5 (The Compulsion Audit).
  2. Apply the two questions: Write down at least three things Dee is forcing you to start/increase (overt or covert), and three things Dee is forcing you to stop/decrease (avoidance).
  3. Catch it in the wild: The next time you feel the urge to run an item on your list, pause and say: “I see you, Dee. This is an increase/decrease behavior. This is a compulsion.”
  4. The Goal: Stripping the masks off these behaviors leaves Dee with nowhere left to hide. Once you see the compulsion for what it is, you have the option to respond to it differently. Even delaying a compulsion by a minute is a step toward recovery.

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