Obsessions are insistent thoughts that we can’t get out of our mind. Compulsions are behaviors that we can’t control. So you can see why they are often mentioned together.

Obsessions and compulsions are habits that a guy latches onto because they help him feel different—if not better—at least in the short run. But the behaviors are also odd, not healthy. They may not be as destructive as smoking pot or overdrinking. In fact there are a number of compulsions that people get praise for—like workaholism, or excercising a lot. But in the long run the difference between a good habit and a compulsion is that a compulsion detracts from your life. Being orderly is good. It helps you. Being a neat freak may look good at first, but eventually it becomes clear that this habit has a down side—for you and the people around you. It is too much of a good thing. Yes, it helps a little. But then it hurts, and you would be better to stop it. Over time it does more harm than good.

Obsessions and compulsions may be less harmful than addictions, but they are not as good as healthy facing and dealing and coping. Obsessions and compulsions are ways that people distract themselves—intensely distract themselves—from thinking or facing or feeling something that is more painful.

If you know you are extreme in one of your habits—if you are pulling out your hair, or biting your fingernails down to the quick or binging on junk food or hoarding junk mail…

You are trying to get away from a strong feeling that bubbles up inside you, aren’t you? You may have an inkling of what you are trying to outrun, or the process of outrunning-by-compulsion may be entirely unconscious to you. The compulsion may be wrecking your life, but you cannot give it up because your compulsion is helping you distance yourself FROM SOMETHING EVEN WORSE. This may not be a deal you are aware you are making with yourself. This whole transaction may be happening in that vast unconscious brain of yours.

Folks with compulsions often realize, especially when they are not in the grip of it, that their extreme habit is hurting them, and they may make a decision to quit. And they really mean it when they decide. But then when the old anxiety starts to push in on them they desperately return to their form of distraction and comfort. This isn’t going to go away easily! There will be lots of decisions, lots of relapses, lots of guilt, lots of meaning well, and lots of times around this whole unhealthy cycle again. There may be a part of you that really wants to be DONE with your compulsion, while another part of you feels panic at the thought of not being able to fall back on it. Talk about mixed feelings!

So let’s make some realistic plans. It is going to take a while for you to replace your compulsion. At first let’s just think about slowing it down, and spreading out the instances when you rely on it. Sound a little easier?

I would like to ask you to try expressing yourself a little more directly. Instead of throwing yourself ferociously into your compulsion, would you be willing to sit down and write about what you are going through—at least some of it? You might grab a notebook and start with something like this:


	“I feel so wired! I have all of this energy and I don’t know what to do with it. I feel such a strong desire to go back to _____my compulsion_____. Usually I would be doing it by now. I feel so pulled, so tempted…Writing about my impulses instead of acting on them is weird, so different for me. Yet in a way, as I continue writing, I am feeling just a little bit calmer, a little more in control…”

Then you may write a little or a lot. Some folks feel relief with no more than a few sentences written. Others go on for pages and pages, on all sorts of subjects. Do it your own way.

What many compulsives report is that they can WRITE OR TALK ABOUT THEIR COMPULSION and feel a lot of the energy subside. Yes, it comes up again later, so they will have to resume writing or talking. But this is a much more healthy alternative and really works to calm the compulsion. So what if they have to go back to writing several times in a day? As long as it works, keep going right back to it.

It’s not unusual for compulsives to need several coping strategies to help them really pull away from their compulsion. It may be that the best they can do is to move in a stair-step way from most toxic to least toxic. Or at first their goal may be to limit their compulsion to once or twice a day. That may actually be good progress, and you may have to accept that as the best they can do for now. It may not feel fast enough if you are the one trying to support a compulsive, but if you come on with a lot of pressure they may retreat into their compulsion even more. Or they may keep doing it and tell you they aren’t.

If possible, you may nudge your beloved compulsive to a healthier outlet like working out or cleaning. Eventually those will show their downside, too, but they may be steps in the right direction. This may be a long haul for the compulsive and everybody who cares about him. A woman who used to cut her own arms with a razor blade was willing to try slicing photos of the arms and legs of perfect models in catalogs instead. Gradually she left all that cutting behind. A little imagination helps.

Please read my article on Eating Disorders at this same site. You will see there are many similarities between bingers, anorexics and other compulsives. They are all running in fear from something they don’t want to face. I think it will be helpful for you to be able to capture a big-picture view of the ways these symptoms overlap. It will give you insight into how to be helpful and what mistakes to avoid.

As practitioners were prescribing antidepressants in the 1980s and 90s, they noticed that the medications helped in ways they had not anticipated. Some depressed folks reported that since they started taking their antidepressants they no longer felt as impulsive or explosive. They felt calmer, more in control of themselves. Others similarly reported that they didn’t tend to act out in reckless sexual adventures after starting to take their meds. Till this day we don’t know why antidepressants tend to damp down impulsive and compulsive behaviors, but they do. Not for everybody, but for lots of folks. So it may be that whether or not you feel depressed, it would be good for you to talk to your doc about using a trial course of antidepressants. If taking them calmed your compulsive behavior—a little or a lot—wouldn’t they be worth it?