Self-Care for People with OCD: 100+ Activities to Build a Life You Actually Want
OCD takes up a lot of space. It makes demands, shrinks your world, and has a way of convincing you that caring for yourself is a luxury you can't afford right now. When your brain is sounding every alarm at once, a self-care book can feel like a cruel joke.
But self-care isn't about bubble baths and ignoring the hard stuff. It's about building the kind of resilience that keeps you going — and the kind of life that's actually worth going toward.
Self-Care for People with OCD is a practical, neurodiversity-affirming guide with over 100 activities designed to help you do exactly that. Not by fighting your brain, but by learning to work with it.
What this book is (and what it isn't):
This isn't another OCD book that calls your brain a bully. It doesn't promise to fix you or hand you a rigid program to follow. It meets you where you are — whether you're ready to take big, bold leaps or you just need something gentle to hold onto today.
The book is organized into five areas of self-care:
Mental Self-Care — Learn about OCD, find the right therapist, advocate for yourself in treatment, and start to identify what you actually value and want from your life.
Transformative Self-Care — Take the kind of steps that change things. Work with your thoughts instead of against them, and build the courage to face what you've been avoiding.
Emotional Self-Care — Develop a kinder relationship with yourself through self-compassion, hope, and self-validation — and learn when to rest without guilt.
Physical Self-Care — Address the real, bodily toll OCD takes. Sleep, eating, hygiene, stress regulation, and harm reduction — all without shame.
Social Self-Care — Strengthen your connections, navigate relationship-themed OCD, build deeper friendships, and remember that you don't have to do this alone.
Who this book is for:
This book is for anyone with OCD who's ready to stop shrinking and start building something. That might look like:
Someone newly diagnosed who's waiting to access an OCD specialist and needs something to hold onto in the meantime
Someone already in therapy who wants practical tools to use between sessions
Someone who's exhausted by the idea of OCD as a battle to win, and is looking for a more compassionate approach
Someone who just wants to feel a little more like themselves again
No matter what your OCD looks like — what themes it takes on, what it tells you to fear — you'll see yourself in these pages.
About the author:
Aiden Reis (he/him) is a licensed mental health counselor, art therapist, and OCD specialist based in Western Massachusetts. He's also autistic and trans, which shapes both his clinical approach and his deep commitment to neurodiversity-affirming, LGBTQ+-positive care. Aiden is a member of the International OCD Foundation and their Autism/OCD Special Interest Group, and he has trained clinicians across the country on how to adapt ERP for neurodivergent clients. He wrote this book because he knows — professionally and personally — what it means to have a busy brain, and what it takes to build a life you actually want anyway.