What Do You Mean, OCD? I Just Have High Standards.

It’s OCD Awareness Week - and we’re looking at how OCD can show up for high-achievers.

Hours spent checking your work. Replaying that conversation for the tenth time. Texting someone asking if they're mad at you - again. You tell yourself you just have high standards, that you just need to make sure everything's right. But it's taking over, and you're exhausted. Here's the thing - that high-achiever drive can turn into OCD. And it needs a different approach than just ‘calm down’ or ‘stop overthinking’.

How High-Achieving Brains Get Stuck in OCD Loops

You've always been the one who gets things done. But lately your mind won't shut up - intrusive thoughts that feel sticky and won't leave, constant checking, replaying conversations over and over, seeking reassurance just to feel okay for five minutes before it all spirals again.

You brush it off to just needing to make sure everything goes as it should, right? And the anxiety - well, you just need to manage that better. So you try to calm down, get through it, think positively, do breathing exercises, tell yourself to stop being ridiculous... while continuing to prevent anything going wrong.

None of it works.

When Your Brain Tries To 'Achieve' Certainty

Your high-achieving brain craves certainty and control. Because to your high-achiever brain, uncertainty means you might mess up. And messing up means getting found out as inadequate. So it's desperately trying to 'achieve' 100% certainty.

That, my high-achieving friend, is starting to look like OCD.

Signs It Might Be OCD, Not Just High Standards

You spend more time checking your work than actually, you know, doing it. You've read that email 15 times and you're still not sure it sounds right. You ask your partner ‘did I sound rude in that meeting?’ for the third time today, and even when they say no, you're back to replaying it in your head an hour later.

Your brain won't let you rest until you're sure - but you can never quite get there. You're exhausted and stuck.

Here's the thing: high standards, sure they can be motivating and help you move forward the way you want to. OCD, however, keeps you stuck in the same loop, never quite getting to 'done.'

The OCD Loop In High-Achievers

Here's the loop - you get a scary thought (messing something up) that feels urgent and sticky. It means something terrible (you're incompetent). You feel like you HAVE to do everything to make it stop and prevent disaster (overwork, triple-check, seek reassurance, try to push the thought away).

It's not just being thorough - it feels like you don't have a choice.

But you can never be 100% sure. So you're stuck.

Maybe it's work - you've checked that report so many times the words don't make sense anymore, but you can't send it because what if there's a mistake and everyone sees you're a fraud?

Or relationships - you replay conversations on a loop, analysing every word you said for proof you're a terrible person. You text a friend asking if they're mad at you, they say no, you feel better for five minutes, then you're back to needing reassurance.

Or performance - you're preparing for a presentation and you've rehearsed it 20 times, but your brain keeps making you doubt yourself - ‘what if you freeze?’ ‘what if they think you're incompetent?’. So you rehearse again. And again.

Suddenly, it's taking over - hours spent on the thoughts, what they mean, all the things you HAVE to do so it doesn't all come true. So you don’t get ‘found out’.

Why Generic Anxiety Tips Don't Work For OCD

Generic anxiety tips don't work because this isn't about calming down (and ‘failing’ at that makes you feel even worse).

You've tried calming down, pushing through, 'sitting with it', ignoring it - it led you nowhere. And checking once more just to make sure... turns out, you're never sure. So you're stuck in the loop, sticky thoughts being interpreted as signs that things are gonna go tits up and therefore you're a failure, doing everything you can to prevent it until you pass out (or nearly).

It's probably OCD at its finest. And it needs a different approach.

What Actually Helps: Going Deeper Than Compulsions

Your brain isn't broken. It's doing what high-achiever brains do with uncertainty and the threat of being ‘found out’.

The key is to not just reduce the checking, the preparing, the mental rituals. But to go deeper - to the high-achiever beliefs that feed the loop. The ones about mistakes meaning you're inadequate, needing control to be safe, having to prove yourself to be acceptable.

You need to understand when you learned that mistakes mean you're inadequate. What losing control would mean about you. How proving yourself became the only way to feel acceptable. Those beliefs are what fuel the need for certainty in the first place. And that's when the sticky thoughts come up, and the desperate attempts to prevent the worst.

I've seen OCD treated in two main ways: reducing the compulsions systematically, and dissecting meanings until you're blue in the face.

The first, well, it's a plaster over a bullethole, because while outwardly it may LOOK like you're doing better, the inside turmoil is alive and well.

The second, it can turn into a compulsion itself, when you analyse what everything means and get stuck there, without going to the next step.

So, what’s really needed is to blend these, and sprinkle some ways in which you rebuild your relationship to your thoughts and beliefs in a lighter, more sustainable way.

What The Work Looks Like

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for OCD isn't about positive thinking or calming down. It's about changing what you do when the thoughts show up - so instead of checking, reassurance-seeking, or mental reviewing, you practice responding differently. You learn the thoughts are just noise, not facts about who you are or what's going to happen.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) adds another layer - you're not trying to get rid of the thoughts or make them quiet. You're learning to let them be there without needing to solve them. The goal isn't to stop caring about doing well. It's to unhook from the belief that one mistake means you're worthless, that you need total certainty to be safe, that proving yourself is the only way to be acceptable.

So, we do the practical stuff - responding differently when urges hit, relating differently to the feeling of uncertainty.

It's about escaping the loop by learning that having the thought 'what if I mess this up' doesn't mean you will - and that you can let that thought exist without needing to fix it, check it, or make it go away. Understanding why your brain is doing this and actively working to change your relationship with the thoughts and the uncertainty. Not just managing it better.

But maybe most importantly, we also do the deeper work - unpacking when you learned these beliefs, what they mean for how you see yourself, and how to loosen their power. Not just reducing compulsions. Going to the root of why your brain is doing this in the first place.

What Life Looks Like On The Other Side

With some work, you break free from the loop, and can finally feel more settled.

You stop spending hours replaying that one conversation. You make a mistake and move on. The thoughts still show up sometimes, but they don't take over your day.

Then - mental quiet. Slowing down. Trusting yourself (indeed, they say OCD is the ‘doubting disease’ - but please don’t read too much into that word!).

Doing the meaningful stuff instead of preventing the scary stuff. Space. A life about what matters.

Working Together

I'm Carina, a BABCP-accredited CBT therapist specialising in neuro-affirming therapy for high-achieving introverts. An important part of this is breaking OCD loops and getting unstuck.

I offer both weekly therapy sessions and intensive therapy options, all online, so you can show up in a familiar, comfy space, with a hot drink, and get to work with the best therapist for you, while getting the same benefits (research shows online therapy is just as effective as in person).

You deserve to to get unstuck, and I’d love to help you when you’re ready..

If this resonates, you don't have to figure it out alone.

Read more about THERAPY WITH ME, and have a look at INTENSIVE THERAPY too, for an accelerated version - and if you’d like, drop me a line or book a free intro call to see if we're a good fit.