Tip: Backdoor Spikes are OCD’s Response to Your Success

So let’s say you have been doing well with your therapy and are dealing with less and less OCD anxiety each day (which is great). But then suppose that out of nowhere, you are hit by a huge OCD panic stemming from a worry or fear that hasn’t bothered you in months and that you thought you had moved past entirely. Or instead imagine that you are faced with an OCD fear that has always troubled you, but you find that you are surprisingly unfazed by it. Your OCD will then try to convince you that this new development means that you are ok with acting on said fear, which is an anxiety-provoking idea as you know you still hate that OCD fear and never want to act on it. Both of these thought processes I mentioned are examples of backdoor spikes. I like to think of backdoor spikes as OCD’s version of the movie villain who knows he is going to be defeated and thus attempts to blow up his lair with themself and the hero inside in order to take the hero down with them. Because you have been doing well in your treatment and recovery, OCD is forced to lash out with these last-ditch efforts in order to try to trip you up as you near the finish line. For me, these backdoor spikes happened a lot when I was watching a movie with a distressing scene and I would notice that I just wasn’t perturbed by that scene at all (whereas a couple months prior, it would have caused my anxiety to jump). This actually meant that I had been doing well with my therapy and was desensitizing myself to unimportant OCD thoughts, but OCD tried to jump in and claim that I now supported the terrible actions in the movie scene and wanted to do them myself. So my advice here would just be to be aware that OCD will attempt to ruin your progress with a backdoor spike and that if you are faced with one, simply treat it the same way you that you would any other OCD thought–as insignificant and not worthy of your time or attention.