Faulty Smoke Alarms: Living With OCD
Living with OCD feels like having a smoke alarm in your brain — one that goes off not just when there’s a fire, but when someone burns toast, lights a candle, or sometimes, for no reason at all.
It’s loud. It’s jarring. And even though you know there’s no real danger, your body still reacts like there is. Your heart speeds up. Your thoughts race. You can’t relax until you do something: open the window, wave a towel, unplug the toaster, check the stove again.
The alarm wants certainty. It wants control. It wants you to take action, even when the rational part of you knows everything’s fine.
And the hardest part? You can’t just rip the alarm off the ceiling. It’s built into your wiring.
Sometimes, you learn to live around it. You get used to the beeping, you try to explain it to other people, you build routines to keep it quiet. Other times, it wears you out; the constant checking, the doubt, the mental gymnastics it takes just to get through a normal day.
But over time, you learn how to manage it. You figure out which alarms are false and which ones deserve attention. You find support, tools, and people who don’t mind sitting with you while the beeping fades.
OCD doesn’t go away — but it doesn’t have to control everything, either. And learning that is its own kind of peace.
When I try to explain OCD, I often use the smoke alarm metaphor. It's like having one in your brain that goes off too easily — when nothing’s wrong, when no one else hears it, when the room is perfectly calm.
And the response I sometimes get is well-meaning but frustrating:
"Can’t you just turn it off?"
"Have you tried distracting yourself?"
"Just remind yourself it's fine."
As if the whole thing could be solved by flipping a switch or replacing a battery.
But OCD doesn’t work like that. It’s not a faulty smoke alarm you can fix with a screwdriver. It’s wired into your system, connected to thoughts, habits, emotions, fears — and you can’t just silence it on command.
There was a time I thought the only way to live with OCD was to find a way to shut it off completely — to somehow fix the alarm. I kept waiting for the day it would go quiet for good. When I could walk through my house, my head, my life, and not hear that constant mental beep.
But I’ve learned something harder, and more freeing: sometimes the work isn’t about turning the alarm off — it’s about learning to sit with the sound.
At first, that idea felt impossible. But slowly, with help and practice, I started to give myself a little space. A few seconds between the thought and the action. A few moments where I could acknowledge the alarm without obeying it.
And over time, something shifted. The sound didn’t go away, but it got quieter. Or maybe I just got stronger. Either way, I stopped letting it run the whole show.
That’s what people don’t always understand — that living with OCD isn’t always about finding a cure. Sometimes it’s about building tolerance. About reminding yourself that anxiety can exist without meaning something is wrong. That the urge to act doesn't mean you have to act. You are so much bigger and brighter than a thought that doesn’t belong in your headspace.