Money Worries but is it OCD?

Is there such a thing as FinancialOCD? I think there must be as I have been writing lists with how much money I have / don't have / will have / hoping to have  for the best part of 30 years in an attempt to keep myself safe! I've had a little time to kill this month as work has dropped off a bit and thought it was a good time to reflect on my ROCD and realise that it may well have morphed into Financial OCD (if it does exist) as I have been terribly anxious about how I'm going to survive through each month.

Well anyway as I say I have a bit of time to kill and whilst I would say that I keep the ROCD 95 percent in check, that doesn't mean to say that the OCD doesn't morph into another distressing disability for me at certain times. And as you know the problem is, that it often has some elements of truth in it. For example, I have a lot of debts that I'm struggling to pay off, so far so rubbish. But I also work as a freelancer which means that if I go through a famine spell (and no matter how much work I get, that always happens at least once if not twice a year) then not only do I not have enough money to pay the mortgage and the bills, but I don't have enough money to pay for the debt. What do I do? 

Do I brush up my CV, get emailing all my clients and generally do all the things that you're supposed to do in these situations?

No of course not, I generally just go into complete panic mode and essentially enter the 'freeze' bit of 'fight, flight or freeze'. I metaphorically start closing down being unable to do the things that would actually help me drum up work or help my situation because I am pretending NOT to be prey. That is, I am very quiet and still in case a big sabre toothed tiger thinks it can see me for dinner and I'm pretending to be a small gnome made of plaster and wouldn't make much off a dinner!  I freeze, and I panic and more than that, I begin the torturous back and forth in my head, arguing away with myself the night, coming up with new ways of forever borrowing money (which is always my preferred choice as its much easier and makes the problem go away instantly I find! ....until it comes back worse in the future! So I eventually start making myself ill with obsessive thoughts that try as I might I can't shake. I am aware of what I am doing to a large extent but find it almost impossible to stop the compulsion is that strong! Pure O in ever decreasing circles until even my eyes feel twisted.

Anyway, quick take home is that OCD can change from one form to another and whilst its entirely possible to get stuck on one form or other for life, it can also give you the slip as it is quite insidious and so be on your guard for similar behaviors that feel similar to previous iterations of OCD! 

ROCD makes you feel like you are in an episode of Black Mirror at the best of times but whilst there is a lot of information out there it's still very much understudied in the field of science. I honestly believe that is down to the fact that people are not always aware of what might be going on with them. It took me years to accept that what I was going through was OCD and I was desperately devoting every single second to working out what was wrong with me! 

Well remember, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), particularly Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), is the go-to approach for tackling ROCD. In simple terms, it involves retraining your brain to stop treating every fleeting doubt like a five-alarm fire. Turns out, you can learn to sit with uncertainty without spiraling into existential despair. I have spoken about it before on here, but really worth mentioning again: ERP scripts. They were certainly extremely helpful, actually life transformative for me, so if you are looking for pointers on how they work drop me a line or contact a therapist. I am a trained counsellor by the way, which I did over lockdown so will either be able to help you or signpost you to someone that can.  

Coda

By the way, the stats go through the roof every January for the past 5 years. Interesting that that is probably the most depressing month anyway. I remember being very unhappy in one of my earliest relationships and it was always around Christmas that was the worst because I had to spend more time with my then girlfriend. Crazy that I stayed in it. Even crazier was that I didn't have ROCD then but more of a terrible health anxiety, well actually hypochondriasis, which actually is a type of health OCD. I remember thinking for about 2 weeks solid about the fact that I felt like I had swallowed a marble. It was horrific and didn't let up once. Every second of every day for 2 weeks, I have a marble in my stomach, I have a marble in my stomach, I have a marble in my stomach ... and ... well you get the idea!  That kept on until I got back to work and out of her influence!