50 OCD Quotes for Those with this Difficult Disorder

By Norbert Juma

Master quote curator and editor on a mission to inspire

Published February 24, 2023

OCD quotes are inspirational and motivational, making them an excellent choice for sharing with those suffering from OCD.

We carefully selected the quotes listed in this article to ensure authenticity and relevance.

In fact, you are going to like our OCD quotes collection.

Apart from this, we have also discussed what OCD is and how to deal with it.

So, let’s see what we got here.

What is OCD?

‘Obsessive Compulsive Disorder,’ commonly known as OCD, is a mental health condition.

A person with OCD shows compulsive behavior and obsessive thoughts.

This disorder can affect an individual irrespective of his/her age.

It usually starts with adulthood, yet a few people experience the symptoms too early (around puberty).

Since OCD can interfere with one’s life, it is distressing.

However, with the proper treatment, it’s possible to control this disorder and minimize its detrimental effects.

Symptoms of OCD

Here is a list of the most common OCD symptoms:

Persistent and recurrent thoughts, excessive fears of contamination, harm, or mistakes.
Patients face difficulties when going to work or school.
Attempts to avoid people, objects, or situations which instigate compulsive behaviors or obsessive thoughts.
Excessive hand washing, checking, counting, arranging, etc.
A person suffering from OCD often finds it challenging to be a part of social or family life.
Other symptoms like feeling guilty, ashamed, or depressed.

How to Deal with OCD

Dealing with OCD might be a challenging task.

However, various treatment options can assist patients in managing their symptoms and improving their quality of life.

A few of these include:

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)
Overcome OCD with Self-Care
Proper medication

Cognitive-behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Therapy asks the patient to identify and change negative behaviors and thoughts linked to OCD.

Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) is another form of CBT that has proved effective in treating OCD.

This treatment involves exposing a person to the source of their fears and prevents such a person from exhibiting compulsive behavior.

Overcome OCD with Self-Care

By taking care of yourself emotionally and physically, it’s possible to overcome OCD.

For instance, you must eat a healthy diet, sleep well, and do simple workouts.

So, self-care is not selfish, it is necessary!

Proper Medication

By administering antidepressant medications like Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), it’s possible to reduce the symptoms of OCD.

These medications work by improving the serotonin level in the brain.

Therefore, this helps to reduce anxiety and compulsions.

Top 10 OCD Quotes

These are the top OCD quotes you will want to share.

1. “OCD is not a weakness; it’s a battle.” — Michelle Visage

2. “OCD is like a prison, and my thoughts are the bars.” — Judy Gold

3. “I may have OCD, but it’s also my superpower.” — Amrapali Gupta

4. “Cats are like four-legged poster children for OCD.” — Caroline Knapp

5. “My OCD is like a never-ending cycle of doubt and fear.” — Camila Cabello

6. “My OCD is a speed bump, not a barrier, to happiness.” ― Amelia Diane Coombs

7. “Don’t let OCD control your life. You are in charge, not the disorder.” — Charlize Theron

8. “OCD is not a cute, little thing that makes you particular about things.” — David Neeleman

9. “I think everyone has a bit of OCD in them. It’s just a matter of degree.” — David Beckham

10. “I have OCD mixed with ADD; you try living with that. It’s complicated.” ― Justin Timberlake

Encouraging OCD Quotes

The following OCD quotes are very encouraging and supportive.

11. “The only way to overcome OCD is by facing your fears.” — Jonathan Grayson

12. “At its crux, OCD treatment is about learning to live with the discomfort of uncertainty.” — Jeff Bell

13. “It’s not the thoughts but rather what you do with them that maintains the OCD cycle.” — Katie d’Ath

14. “You don’t have to control your thoughts. You just have to stop letting them control you.” — Dan Millman

15. “You are not your OCD. You are not the thoughts and compulsions that torment you.” — Jeffrey M. Schwartz

16. “You have within you right now everything you need to deal with whatever the world can throw at you.” — Brian Tracy

17. “Recovery from OCD is possible. Keep fighting, keep pushing, and most importantly, keep believing in yourself.” — Sheila Murray Bethel

18. “You are not your illness. You have an individual story to tell. You have a name, a history, a personality. Staying yourself is part of the battle.” — Julian Seifter

19. “Fighting OCD is like boxing. Each time you go against a thought, it’s a punch to its strength. Each time you listen to your OCD, its biceps get bigger, and it becomes a more powerful opponent.” — Allison Britz

20. “Imagine you have an OCD-free twin who is the same as you in every way but free from excessive fears, compulsions, and avoidance. This can be a great reference point when thinking how you could change your behaviour and resist participating with your OCD—ask yourself the question, ‘what would my OCD-free twin do in this situation?’” — Katie d’Ath

Funny OCD Quotes

These OCD quotes have a little humor element inside.

21. “I’m OCD beyond comparison.” — Fred Durst

22. “I do not have OCD OCD OCD.” — Emilie Autumn

23. “People have this impression that I’m a little kooky, but I’m actually very OCD.” — Kate Spade

24. “My doctor said I had OCD. I couldn’t believe it. I had to call him nine times to make sure.” — Judy Gold

25. “Oh, I’m crazy, all right. I do have plenty of psychoses. Multiple personality, delusional dementia, OCD. I’ve got them all, but most of all, I’m crazy about you.” — Eoin Colfer

26. “However much rational argument you provide, you still won’t feel 100 percent convinced. The OCD likes to have the last word, so you could keep arguing with it forever.” — Rob Willson

27. “The OCD mind focuses on possible future calamities. The predictions almost never come true. Yet, the obsessive thoughts keep coming and demanding attention, very naughty.” — Unknown

28. “I actually have OCD really bad, and it’s getting a bit worse at the moment. I have to check taps… before I leave the house, to make sure I’ve checked everything in case it floods.” — Sam Smith

29. “Running in Central Park is my favorite thing to wake up and do. I have my own specific path that I have to run every single time. There’s a little bit of OCD involved, but I love it.” — Nate Ruess

30. “OCD, we discovered, is a lot of different things-it’s not just washing your hands; it’s whatever you’re obsessed with. It can be just the way you hold a pen, and you always have to have it a certain way, or you have to eat your food; it depends.” — Antoine Fuqua

OCD Quotes about Struggles

OCD quotes to illuminate people’s struggles.

31. “OCD is not a disease that bothers; it is a disease that tortures.” ― J.J. Keeler

32. “OCD is not something you can just ‘get over.’ It’s a lifelong battle.” — Justin Timberlake

33. “People with OCD often wear a mask. On the outside, they appear so put together, but on the inside, they are falling apart.” — Marisa T. Mazza

34. “People with OCD, including myself, realize that their seemingly uncontrollable behavior is irrational, but they feel unable to stop it.” ― Abhijit Naskar

35. “Telling someone with OCD to stop obsessing about something is like telling someone who’s having an asthma attack to just breathe normally.” ― Tamara Ireland Stone

36. “The problem with OCD isn’t that you think too much. It’s that you confuse the intensity, volume, or visibility of your thoughts with their importance.” ― Jon Hershfield

37. “Rationally, you may know that what the OCD is saying is unlikely, maybe even untrue; however, there is always the chance that something you’re afraid of might happen.” ― Marisa T. Mazza

38. “People who live with OCD drag a metal sea anchor around. Obsession is a break, a source of drag, not a badge of creativity, a mark of genius or an inconvenient side effect of some greater function.” ― David Adam

39. “A lot of people assume that having OCD means liking things organized or hating germs. It tends to be treated like a quirk or an endearing trait. But it’s so much more than that.” ― Whitney Amazeen

40. “Not having to control or fight OCD can lead to a sense of freedom or lightness. Your energy can then be spent on things that you find meaningful. I often hear people say, ‘My OCD is exhausting.’” — Marisa T. Mazza

Some More OCD Quotes

These are some more OCD quotes so you can get the maximum benefit from these wonderful sayings.

41. “OCD is like a monster living inside my head that I can’t escape from.” — Unknown

42. “OCD is not something you can ignore or push away. It’s a part of who I am.” — Unknown

43. “In OCD, not getting things we believe we have a responsibility for ‘just right’ turns out to be at the centre of things.” ― Fiona Challacombe

44. “I have sporadic OCD cleaning moments around the house. But then I get lazy, and I’m cured. It’s a very inconsistent personality trait.” — Chris Hemsworth

45. “At times, seeing your way out of OCD through the forest of intolerance of uncertainty, fear, excessive responsibility and so on can be hard.” ― Katie d’Ath

OCD quotes to offer perspective

46. “I’m too measured and controlling – about everything. That’s why I take Lexapro. It’s for OCD. I don’t feel like I’m struggling with it. I think OCD is a part of me that protects me. It’s also the part of me that I use in my job in a positive way.” — Amanda Seyfried

47. “Perfection I’ve lived with the pretense of perfection for seventeen years. Give my room a cursory inspection; you’d think I have OCD. But it’s only habit and not an obsession that keeps it all orderly. Of course, I don’t want to give the impression that it’s all up to me.” Ellen Hopkins

48. “The whole aesthetics of computers very much feeds into my OCD. They fill my head with obsessionalities and my actions become very repetitive. It seems quite inimical to the dreamy state out of which fiction comes, which seems so much less causally repetitive than the way one works on computers.” — Will Self

49. “ A lot of mental disorders are initially things that are adaptive. Like even OCD, it’s good to sort of have structure and have certain rituals, but when it gets to be extreme, then it becomes problematic.” — H. A. Berlin

50. “There is no doubt that OCD is a problem of thinking and how the sufferer reacts to their thoughts. We all have ‘silent’ beliefs about ourselves, how the world works, and our future; these are general attitudes which are based on our understanding of our place in the world and are linked to the values by which we live our lives.” ― Fiona Challacombe