Embracing the grey

Like many people who find their way here, I overthink, worry, create and follow rigid rules, and sometimes get trapped in faulty reasoning.

When I’m feeling ill, my brain says, “You might never fully recover from this.” When I’m petting my dog lovingly, my brain says, “If you love her too much, something bad might happen to her.” Funnily enough, it also tells me that if I don’t tell her I love her enough, something bad might happen to her. Imagine that! What often follows these distressing thoughts, and many others like them, is a series of compulsive behaviors aimed at reducing the anxiety, which, spoiler alert, is a trap.

As mentally unhealthy as all of that may sound, I didn't even recognize or label these patterns until several years into providing therapy.

I entered the mental health field with a passion for addressing the broader issue of health disparities, particularly for stigmatized groups, by providing nonjudgmental, individualized care. It was about being a resource for those who are under-resourced, even in the smallest capacity. Recognizing that certain groups were under-resourced because they were misunderstood, judged, shamed, overlooked, isolated, or actively marginalized, I wanted to be the kind of counselor who could sit with the parts of someone's story that others might struggle to understand or empathize with, and provide quality care nonetheless. I didn’t necessarily want to help others because I shared, or fully understood, their experiences. I wanted to help because I knew that, most of the time, I didn’t, and I believed providing care and compassion anyway could be even more meaningful because of that.

In an effort to meet my lofty goal of solving all the world's problems, I dove headfirst (and heartfirst) into my work. Productivity was slowed by perfectionism but compensated for with longer, unpaid hours. I invested everything I had in my clients, despite reminders from other professionals that I needed more balance and stronger emotional boundaries if I wanted to avoid burning out. I chose, in my willful ignorance, to ignore them. I believed that my approach was the right one. It was for the greater good! The knowledge that other professionals choose a different, more balanced path somehow became further evidence that I needed to keep forging ahead on mine.

Unsurprisingly, I continued down my stubborn savior path to the point of “burnout,” as they say, and even stopped working for some time. So much for making a big impact, right?

More time on my hands gave my mind more freedom to take over. During what was supposed to be an intentional period of rest, my mental inventory of tasks that “needed” to be completed grew longer. I felt worse than before, yet believed I was doing what I was supposed to do to feel better. What use were all those constant reminders about self-care in my graduate program if they didn't actually work? I thought. 

I had some recovering to do.

It took time, and continues to. It turns out chronic stress, sleep disturbance, and isolation really aren't good for your health. I understood all of this intellectually, of course, but knowledge doesn't always translate neatly into healthy behaviors.  Sometimes counselors don’t practice what they preach, believe it or not.

Looking back, I can see how closely my strengths and vulnerabilities were intertwined. I probably should have listened to my very first supervisor in grad school, who seemed to recognize both. While we were working together at an intensive addiction treatment center, he looked me dead in the eye and said, “You are going to get swept away.” Thanks, Hank. You were onto something.

Noticing subtle shifts in facial expressions, changes in tone, and small details in conversations allowed for some really meaningful therapeutic relationships, but taking in so much, all the time, also completely flooded a nervous system already primed to detect danger. The problem was that I was noticing everything—and increasingly struggling to distinguish what deserved my attention from what I could let pass.

I was checking everything, too, like underneath my car for an attacker or the internal temperature of my chicken even though it had already been cooking 15 minutes longer than the recipe called for. I had fallen into what we call emotional reasoning: if something felt real or true, then, in my mind, it was. Because I viewed my perceptiveness as such an asset, I also began to over-rely on my “gut feeling.” If I had a feeling that I might get sick from the chicken, maybe that meant it wasn't cooked enough. Better check the temperature again!

It didn't occur to me that there might be a point at which noticing everything stopped being helpful. In my mind, I was being observant, careful, conscientious, and responsible, all qualities I believed made me a better person and therapist. I trusted my ability to detect danger without realizing that my threshold for what counted as danger had quietly changed. And if something might be dangerous, I believed it was my responsibility to address it.

Cracks had already formed in the foundation by the time I started viewing some of my behaviors as over the top rather than “what needed to be done.” Counterintuitively, I responded to that stress-inducing realization by assuming even more responsibility, particularly for things that were never even within my control. I felt responsible for protecting myself from illness, for example, so I disinfected my clothes and shoes when I entered my apartment. Before putting those clothes into the washing machine, I sprayed them with Lysol, just in case the washer wasn't thorough enough. Did I still get sick that Winter? Take a guess.

To be certain I wouldn’t contract salmonella, I wore gloves while making dinner, often switching them out three or four times during the cooking process. I kept track of every surface each finger had touched so I could remember where contamination might have spread and what I needed to disinfect. For extra protection, I washed my hands afterward. Several times.

Despite being exhausted by these worries and behaviors, I remained convinced that they were responsible, perhaps even necessary, and wondered why others weren't doing the same. If there was something more I could do to prevent something bad from happening, why wouldn't I do it?

At some point, calling what I was doing “recovery” started to feel a little dishonest. All I wanted was for things to feel easier.

Yet, things got harder. And my world got smaller.

It wasn't until another mental health professional asked me why I had to vacuum before our telehealth appointments, a “rule” that somehow slipped out in conversation, that someone began to question whether stress alone really explained what was going on—or whether something that had been there much longer was finally becoming easier to see. I was tasked with writing down all of the personal “rules” I followed every day. About halfway through reading my list, my counselor stopped me and said, “I think we may have missed something this whole time.”

I was formally diagnosed with OCD.

It was, somewhat embarrassingly, a glass-shattering moment for me. Obviously, I questioned how I could have missed it in myself. I am a counselor, after all, and I thought I was perceptive enough to have noticed what was going on. I worried about so many things. Why hadn't I worried that I had OCD?

There was an irony in realizing that I had entered this profession wanting to understand people whose experiences were misunderstood, judged, or overlooked, only to discover that there was an entire part of my own experience I had failed to understand. I cared deeply about creating a space where other people could exist without shame or judgment, yet I judged myself relentlessly without even recognizing it as such. I cared about reaching people who felt isolated, while the patterns I had developed to protect myself were quietly isolating me.

I started to process, through headaches that seemed lodged right in the “thinking” part of my brain, just how much of my life had become organized around OCD. I concluded it was worth calling it what it was, even though, in perhaps the most OCD way possible, I still sometimes doubt whether I really have it.

More importantly, I decided it was worth addressing.

I wanted my life back. 

From Black & White to Grey

Many of the techniques I now use with clients were first introduced to me by my own counselor. My earliest assignments were deceptively simple: identify one of the rigid “rules” organizing my day, deliberately loosen it, and tolerate the discomfort that followed without immediately trying to make it go away. Uncomfortable? Absolutely. But as I began experiencing what happened when I stopped obeying every alarm my brain sounded, I became increasingly committed to doing more of this work.

I was fascinated by how tangible and measurable the change could be and began digging much deeper into the world of OCD and its treatment, which had received surprisingly little attention throughout my formal education. What began as a deeply personal effort to understand myself quickly became a professional one, too.

For a long time, I believed peace was waiting on the other side of figuring everything out. Black and white seemed as though it should be clearer: there was a right answer and a wrong one, a safe choice and a dangerous one, a responsible thing to do and an irresponsible one. If I could think hard enough, follow the right rules, eliminate enough risk, or consider every possibility, surely I would eventually arrive at “the answer” and finally feel settled.

But it’s really between the black and white that things are most clear.

That grey middle space is where living happens. Once I began to experience the freedom that existed there, I decided it was worth practicing my way back whenever I found myself pulled toward the extremes. The grey doesn't promise to always feel better, nor is it some magic pill. It doesn't tell me exactly what will happen, guarantee that I've made the “right” choice, or remove every reason I could have to worry. What it offers instead is space: room for rest, compassion, flexibility, balance, and non-doing. It still allows me to notice, as I always have, but without requiring me to act on what I perceive. I can slow down, recognize what actually matters to me, make choices with the information I actually have in the context I am actually in, and continue living without first requiring myself to know how everything will turn out.

My “recovery” continues, but how I conceptualize it has changed considerably along the way. I no longer think of it as a final destination or another problem to solve. I've come to see it as a practice: noticing when I’m pulled toward the “black” or the “white,” the do-or-die, and gently finding my way back toward the center, where there is a little less do and a little more be.

This practice is what inspired me to start my practice.

What I learned firsthand was just how determined an OCD mind can be. You can reason with it, reassure it, challenge it, explain something to it ten different ways, and it may still find an eleventh reason to doubt. Some counseling interventions that are helpful in other circumstances aren't sufficient for OCD—and when we don't recognize what we're working with, they can inadvertently strengthen the very cycle we're trying to interrupt. Repeated reassurance, reasoning to reduce uncertainty, or problem-solving every perceived threat may provide temporary relief while giving OCD another reason to come back for more.

That realization changed the kind of work I wanted to do. I pursued additional training in OCD treatment and became increasingly interested in helping people recognize when the pursuit of certainty, perfection, safety, productivity, or responsibility has begun costing more than it gives back. We can slow down enough to notice the rules that have quietly taken hold, become more discerning about which alarms actually require a response, build tolerance for what cannot be known or controlled, and make choices based on what matters rather than what temporarily quiets the fear.

That work requires curiosity, because OCD rarely confines itself to the stereotypes people recognize. It can be remarkably complex, convincing, and isolating. People can spend years questioning themselves and their intentions, concealing thoughts or behaviors because they fear being seen as dangerous, immoral, “crazy,” or fundamentally different, possibly never realizing that the patterns consuming so much of their lives have a name in a big psychology book.

I want my practice to have room for those experiences: the confusing parts, the contradictory parts, the ones that feel terrifying one moment and so spectacularly absurd the next that all we can do is laugh about them together. I want there to be room for what is harder to share: the thoughts people are ashamed of, the patterns they wouldn't describe to just anyone, and the pieces of themselves they've learned to conceal for fear of what someone else might think if they were fully known.

Providing that kind of care also requires me to practice some of what I ask of my clients. My imagination, perceptiveness, attention to detail, and instinct to solve problems can indeed be assets in the therapy room; though, unchecked, some of those very same qualities can pull me toward my own extremes. I intentionally keep my caseload small, so I have the balance and mental space to use those strengths deliberately. I want to notice without becoming flooded, think deeply without overthinking, care deeply without carrying everything, and help without assuming that everything needs to be fixed.

“Embrace the Grey” is more than a tagline to me.

It reflects both how I try to live and the kind of therapy I want to provide, allowing space for uncertainty, flexibility, mistakes, rest, joy, growth, and self-compassion.

And when you see it that way, the grey area is actually pretty vibrant.‍ ‍

If you've read this far, thank you for letting me share one piece of my life. My hope is simply that something in it reminds you that you don't have to have everything figured out right now. You don't have to eliminate uncertainty before you start living. You don't have to do any of it perfectly.

And you don't have to find your way to the grey alone.