OCD, Compulsive Experiences & Altered States

OCD and compulsive experiences are not neat, tidy rituals of washing hands or organizing shelves. They are visceral, bodily (somatic), and often terrifying negotiations with your own nervous system. When your brain and body produce intense compulsions, physical imperatives, or altered perceptual states, standard psychology rushes to label you broken, delusional, or defective.

I drop the clinical condescension completely. If your body and nervous system are experiencing a sensation, that experience is real to you. I do not dismiss your lived reality as "fake" or "irrational" simply because someone else cannot see or feel it.

Compulsions frequently show up as intense, bodily imperatives. It can feel like a physical tether attached to your back pulling you back to your bed, an invisible mark across your skin, a sudden command to clench, run, or feel pain, or a relentless obsession with hunger. I have had all of those myself. 

For those navigating Tourette's and tic disorders, forced tic suppression can produce unbearable bodily anxiety. Stopping a physical tic makes my surrounding environment feel like a thousand buzzing flies crawling across my body. In addressing Tourettic OCD, physical pain, and sensorimotor compulsions, I do not force compliance or painful suppression. I recognize what your body is actually feeling and work directly with your nervous system rather than fighting it. For me, I suppress the tics I don't want because the bodily experience is my choice of the two. 

When severe compulsions, relentless intrusive loops, or intense sensory inputs flood your brain all at once, emotional regulation can break down completely. This level of sensory and emotional overwhelm is not a personal failure or emotional instability. It is the natural response of an overloaded nervous system trying to protect itself when total input exceeds processing capacity.

Together, we address emotional regulation through practical, body-centered approaches. We focus on reducing environmental and internal demands, managing intense emotional waves without self-judgment, and building grounding strategies that honor your nervous system when acute overwhelm hits.

Compulsive experiences often bleed into altered states of perception, sensory hallucinations, and intense paranoia. Hearing the yowling of dying cats that others cannot hear, seeing shadow dogs in the periphery, or carrying the overwhelming sense that you are being watched or that people are living under your subfloor are deep, bodily experiences. I have had all of these. 

Rather than treating altered states as punchlines or immediate justifications for psychiatric containment, I draw on Schizoanalysis and the radical frameworks of Deleuze and Guattari. I view altered perception, intense mental states, and non-ordinary reality not as individual pathology, but as complex flows of desire, energy, and nervous system survival under systemic strain. Hallucinations and altered perceptions are real sensory events occurring within your nervous system, and they deserve to be met with grounded, non-shaming exploration.

Living with severe compulsions, relentless intrusive loops, physical pain, or altered perceptual states is deeply exhausting. OCD can produce terrifying intrusive thoughts about suicide or self-harm that go completely against your core values. Other times, the sheer physical and mental exhaustion of fighting your own nervous system every second of the day leads to deep suicidal despair, where dying feels like the only way to make the noise stop.

I offer a safe, calm container for suicidal thoughts and acute distress. We distinguish between intrusive, fear-based thoughts of harm and real suicidal despair, meeting both with clear-eyed support rather than panic, shame, or immediate institutional intervention. You do not have to hide the intensity of what you are going through to receive help.

Dominant Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) therapy operates on rigid dogma, declaring that asking for reassurance is an absolute clinical failure that must be eradicated. I explicitly reject this dogmatic cruelty.

When you are living in a state of terror, sensory overload, or perceptual disorientation, leaning on a trusted human being to help dispel your terror is not wrong. Seeking co-regulation, relational safety, and honest feedback from someone you trust is a natural, healthy human response to unbearable fear. Together, we build tools that help you trust yourself without cutting you off from the relational safety nets that keep you grounded.

Compulsions also intersect deeply with sexuality, intense desire, and intrusive sexual themes. Sexuality is an embodied force of nature. It can be raw, intense, and terrifying when intrusive loops latch onto sexual taboo, harm, or bodily urges.

Traditional religious and clinical institutions weaponize these experiences to install profound moral shame, treating intense desire or intrusive thoughts as inherent sin or moral corruption. I view these dynamics through a lens of bodily autonomy and human sovereignty. Much like Adam and Eve's choice in the garden, rejecting external commands and choosing knowledge over forced obedience was humanity's first act of self-determination and autonomous judgment. I do not meet your desires, sexual compulsions, or intrusive thoughts with moral panic. I hold space for unvarnished authenticity, embodied desire, and personal sovereignty outside institutional shame. It is okay to have an experience you do not want. 

Explore related focus areas across this practice:

• Tourette's / Tic Disorders (navigating premonitory urges, movement disorders, and sensorimotor states)

• Neurodivergence (understanding sensory regulation, hyper fixation, and non-normative nervous systems)

• Suicide Prevention & Intervention (accessing calm, non-carceral support during acute suicidal despair)

• Narrative Therapy (examining the narratives built around life events and locating yourself within your external environment)

• Philosophical Therapy (exploring schizoanalysis, existential reality, and meaning outside clinical boxes)

• Sex & Sexuality (unlearning moralistic shame, purity culture, and intrusive sexual panic)

• Crisis Intervention & Navigation (accessing calm, non-carceral support during acute terror or altered states)

• Ego-Dystonic Experiences (navigating intrusive thoughts, loops, and urges that directly clash with your core values and soul)

• Pain (relationship with pain and what pain means for you)

• Relational Conflict (building authentic co-regulation and trust without rigid behavioral policing)

• Emotional Regulation & Overwhelm (fostering co-regulation, somatic grounding, and reducing demand overload)