My Game Plan for Getting Through an OCD Flare-Up

And Why I'd Encourage You to Develop Your Own, Too

Like a last second comeback in a soccer match, the OCD flare-up seemed to come out of nowhere.

It was December 2025. After feeling clear-headed for weeks—so clear-headed, in fact, that I’d almost forgotten I had OCD—the obsessions found me again late one night while I was dog sitting for my brother. I spent the next day or two alternating between working on my novel, taking the dog for walks, and listening to the Marco Polo messages my friend had left me. All the while, I could feel the steady thrum of obsessions humming between every thought, their toxic edges bleeding into my mind like a slow poison.

Gradually, I found myself worrying about topics that I hadn’t been bothered by for months. My brain happily raced down these old thought patterns, following the familiar grooves as if they were water replenishing a long-dried riverbed. I thought I had been doing better after weeks of medication and I-CBT training had quelled the worst of my summer and fall obsessions, but I felt like I’d been dragged right back to where I had started.

Was this the beginning of another months-long cycle of obsessions and mood swings? Was my brain going to return to what I had thought was the “new normal,” or was I doomed to ride the rollercoaster of emotional instability forever?

After several days passed and I had returned to my normal routine, I found that my brain had settled back into a mostly obsession-free state. There were still little peaks of anxiety throughout the day, but it was nothing like the several days of frequent obsessions I had while I was dog sitting.

But that, unfortunately, was not the last OCD flare-up that I experienced. And I can say with almost near certainty (and a fair amount of chagrin) that I have many more flare-ups to walk through on this side of Heaven.

Photo by Marcel L. on Unsplash. It’s a flare going up…get it?

According to NOCD, “any uptick in OCD symptoms can be referred to as a flare-up. When symptoms spike, you may notice an increase in intrusive thoughts, an increase in the distress they cause, and an increased urge to engage in compulsions.”¹

OCD is a chronic condition that is known to fluctuate throughout life. Sometimes a flare-up can happen for seemingly no reason at all, but other times, spikes in intensity are linked to triggers like major events, lifestyle changes, or trauma.¹

In the instance of the flare-up I described, I was dog sitting because my sister-in-law was in the hospital delivering my very first nephew into the world! That life transition into being an aunt, combined with the extra alone time I had at their house, is possibly what invited the influx of intrusive thoughts.

While my flare-ups have been less intense now that I’m on a higher dose of Zoloft, I can still feel the ebb and flow of my OCD’s intensity. At the lower dose that I was on for several months (from December through March), I grew an acute understanding of how letting in just one obsession could crack open the door for OCD to come storming through.

Each flare-up I’ve had has been painful to walk through, even if it just lasted for an hour during my lunch break (which has been a common pattern). But as I prayed (slash internally complained to God) my way through each one, I began to develop a strategy for enduring these unpleasant spikes in obsessions.

The guide below is a detailed version of how I recognize and deal with flare-ups. Before actually putting together these steps, I had a couple protocols in various places that helped me remember how to respond to my obsessions. The collated “game plan” I’m presenting here is not a researched methodology—it’s just something I crafted using tools I learned in I-CBT² and my own lived experience.

You don’t need to follow all these steps, but I hope that this guide gives you some ideas for how to manage your obsessions. However, I strongly encourage you to develop your own game plan for dealing with flare-ups. Though you and I both have OCD, our brains aren’t exactly the same. Something that helps ground my thoughts during an obsessive spike might be different from what’s helpful for you.

I also want to note that if you do develop your own guide, it’ll be helpful to think of it more as a living document rather than rules carved into a stone tablet. The more often you practice your skills when obsessions come, the more you’ll learn more about your OCD and what’s helpful in managing it. As you learn, you can change or expand your guide as needed (which is what I did!).

Without further ado, here we go!

Rachael’s Game Plan for Getting Through an OCD Flare-Up

1. Be Aware

   1. Recognize that you’re having an obsessive thought.

   2. Evaluate if there is any “sense data” that grounds the thought in reality. (Example: You see smoke coming from the oven and think: What if my food is on fire? The sensory data of seeing smoke is grounded in reality, making the thought an every day, legitimate doubt. If you think What if my food is on fire? and don’t see any smoke or smell anything burning, then the thought is based in the imagination, not reality.)

   3. If the thought is not based in reality, it’s probably OCD! Recognize it as such, and then move to step 2.

2. Practice Your Skills

   1. Identify the “primary obsessional doubt” beneath the obsession you’re having. Do you know what’s at the core of this fear? If not, it may be something to explore by working with a therapist or I-CBT workbook. (For me, many of my scrupulosity-based fears whittle down to If I do the wrong thing, I’ll lose God’s love. Some people worry about losing their salvation, messing up God’s plan, being seen as a failure, etc.)

   2. If you can, recognize when your mind is trying to cross the bridge into “the OCD bubble,” the place where obsessions hijack your rational thinking. If you’re not already in too deep, try to coax your mind to stop following that train of thought, bringing yourself out of your imagination and back into reality. But if you’re already in the bubble, then proceed to the next step.

   3. Notice the obsessions when they come, but don’t fight them with reassurance. Practice what you’ve been trained to do, even if your brain wants to do the exact opposite.

   4. Label the thoughts as irrelevant. They are coming from the voice of OCD, not the voice of God. We don’t listen to the voice of OCD.

   5. Acknowledge the feeling of discomfort the thoughts stir up without trying to squirm out of its reach.

   6. Every time the thoughts come up, practice these skills (but know you won’t do it perfectly!)

3. Walk Through the Valley with God and Others

   1. Pray. Tell God that you’re going through a flare-up and that you need His help to get through it.

   2. Choose to trust that God still loves you, even if it is impossible to feel in the moment.

   3. Find a friend or family member that you can be honest with. Make a plan with them so that when you tell them you are in this OCD flare-up land, they can remind you that it won’t last forever and that you need to not trust what your brain is telling you in these moments.

   4. If reassurance-seeking is one of your compulsions, ask your support system to encourage you to sit with the uncertainty if they notice you asking for reassurance.

4. Reduce Shame

   1. Remind yourself that flare-ups are a part of living with OCD and aren’t always in our control.

   2. Listen to a comforting playlist that reminds you how loved you are by God, even in the moments where you feel the weakest.

   3. Remember that your brain could be extra sensitive while this flare-up is occurring. Give yourself some extra grace if you feel more easily triggered than normal.

   4. Remind yourself that you haven’t “failed” or lost all of your progress just because you’re going through a flare-up. You’re still making progress, even if this feels like a setback. As the NOCD article puts it, “A flare-up is not a step backward; it is just another opportunity to strengthen your defenses against OCD.”¹

5. Weather the Storm

   1. These feelings and thoughts will eventually depart, just like a passing thunderstorm. Remind yourself that God is going to lead you through this just like all the other times before.

   2. Remind yourself that you cannot make decisions or think about things clearly in your obsessive state. Make the choice that you will wait to figure your thoughts / fears / decisions out until you return to your clear-headed state of mind.

   3. Find something to do to get your mind off the thoughts, whether that’s talking with a friend, praying, working, exercising, etc. Choose to put your focus on that activity (as best as you can!).

   4. Remind yourself of your values. Why do you do what you do? What kind of life are you hoping to live? What (or who) is the reason you want to learn to manage your OCD better?

   5. Remember that you can make the choice to live toward these values even when you’re in mental pain.

6. Reflect

   1. When you eventually come out of the flare-up and reach a place of mental clarity, think back on the experience. What helped you get through this flare-up? What might you try differently next time?

So there you have it! Like I said, I put together this game plan based on I-CBT training and personal experience. If you’re someone who benefits from ERP or ACT, then you could develop a strategy that incorporates more of those techniques.

However you put it together, I believe that having a plan is helpful when you have a disorder like OCD. I went through a two-month stretch this spring where I didn’t have many obsessions at all. When a flare-up popped up out of nowhere one day, it was helpful to go back to the steps I had written back in the fall to help me remember what to do. From there, I was able to expand my “protocol” into the guide you just read.

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution for dealing with OCD, and I think even our own strategies will fluctuate as we grow and change. Your game plan is simply an instruction manual that reminds you of all the tools you have in your toolbox, and sometimes we have to throw out old tools to replace them with ones that work better.

I hope you found this post encouraging, but since I just gave you like twenty bullet points to read through, I imagine it could be a little overwhelming if you’re someone who obsesses about doing the right thing all the time. If that’s you, take a couple of deep breaths.

That’s right.

In, out.

In, out.

It’s going to be okay.

Our God is a God of grace, and He is more patient than you and I could ever fathom. He knows it’s going to take us time to figure out this whole OCD thing, but He is walking alongside us, offering a comforting touch and a word of encouragement all the while.

If you think of your OCD healing process as if you’re playing a soccer match, Jesus is not on the opposing team (even if it feels like it sometimes). He’s also not the sneering coach watching from the sidelines with a permanent scowl that deepens every time you trip on your shoelaces.

No, that’s not who Jesus is at all. Jesus is the one who sat beside you as you developed your game plan for how to approach this match. He’s the one who knows everything there is to know about the other team’s strategy, and He’s more than willing to coach you through it. He’s both in the bleachers cheering your name and on the field beside you—your biggest fan and your most trustworthy teammate.

And no matter how tough it gets, He’ll never give up on you.

—

References

1. https://www.treatmyocd.com/blog/what-to-do-when-ocd-is-triggered

2. I learned about OCD from reading Resolving OCD by Frederick Aardema and taking Carrie Bock’s Empowered Mind course