Podcast Summary: OCD Recovery with Ali Greymond

Episode: You Are Not A Bad Person, It's OCD!
Date: December 19, 2025
Host: Ali Greymond

Episode Overview

In this episode, Ali Greymond addresses one of the most distressing and pervasive fears for people with OCD: the belief that they are fundamentally a bad person. Ali breaks down how OCD generates these thoughts, their impact, and strategies to disarm them. Drawing on her extensive experience and the Greymond Method, she reassures listeners that these feelings are symptoms, not truths.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. How OCD Targets Your Values

• OCD flips your deepest values:
  "OCD attacks what is most important to you. And the way it attacks it is it flips it into doing, thinking, being the opposite of what you want to do, think, be. So of course it scares you." (00:20)
• Escalation of fears:
  OCD frequently intensifies these attacks with new, scarier scenarios or variations within the same theme:
  "It always tries to one up itself saying, okay, well, this is scary. I'm gonna do one more. I'm gonna do one better and come up with scarier and scarier scenarios." (00:35)
• Multiple angles of attack:
  OCD may suggest you’re a bad person in different ways, playing into your worst fears about yourself.

2. Recognizing OCD Guilt, Shame, and the Urge to Confess

• Symptoms of OCD:
  Feelings of guilt, shame, and the compulsion to confess or seek reassurance are highlighted as classic OCD symptoms:
  "You start to get these feelings that I'm a bad person, feelings of guilt, feelings of shame, feeling like you need to confess to somebody, feeling like you need to get reassurance." (01:05)
• Physical compulsions:
  Some may also feel the urge to 'neutralize' fears through physical acts.

3. The “Bad Person” Premise is False

• Core reassurance:
  "The premise that you are a bad person is false. It is literally giving you the opposite of what you are." (01:35)
• Examples across OCD themes:
  • Harm OCD: Convinces you that you might harm others or have done so in the past (false memory), or could in the future.
  • Religious OCD: Triggers offensive thoughts during important rituals or prayers.
  • Other themes: Able to morph content to whatever is most distressing to the individual.

4. Breaking the OCD Cycle: Disregarding Thoughts

• Don’t buy what OCD is selling:
  "Don’t buy into it. Just look at it as like, nice try, I'm not reacting." (02:54)
• View guilt and shame as symptoms:
  "If you are experiencing feelings of guilt, feelings of shame, feeling like you're a bad person, feeling like you need to confess, just view it as symptoms, they're not true, just like the thought is not true." (03:10)
• Disregarding takes time and consistency:
  • Initially, thoughts persist because the brain is habituated.
  • The more you signal to your brain that the content is no longer scary, the less power OCD has.
    "Right now your brain is conditioned to view this as real because for a long time you've been doing rumination reassurance behaviors." (03:36)
• Replacement habit:
  • Shift from habitual reaction to habitual disregarding.
  • A useful self-talk phrase: "Disregarding, disregarding." (05:00)

5. Expecting and Handling Setbacks

• Normal to have ‘returning thoughts’:
  "If you're not paying attention to the content, why would your brain send these thoughts if you're not reacting anymore? So after a while, and again after a while, it will let them go. But...it will send the thought again." (05:36)
• Not a relapse:
  "This does not mean that there's something wrong. It also does not mean that you're having a relapse. 50,000 thoughts a day is normal amount of thoughts people get." (05:55)
• Don’t take the bait if new or returning themes arise.

6. The Power of Disengagement

• Summary tip:
  Treat even dramatic OCD accusations lightly.
  "Yep, feelings of guilt, feelings of shape. Sure. I'm not just a bad person. I'm the worst person that's ever existed. There it is. Me. And just go about it like that. Don’t buy into what it's selling. Don’t take the bait." (06:20)
• Result:
  When not fueled by fear, OCD thoughts lose their grip.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the essence of OCD’s attack:
  "OCD attacks what is most important to you ... gives you the worst possible scenario within that thing that you reacted to when you got the thought with fear." (00:22)
• On guilt as a symptom:
  "If you are experiencing feelings of guilt, feelings of shame, feeling like you're a bad person, feeling like you need to confess, just view it as symptoms, they're not true." (03:10)
• On building new habits:
  "If before your go to move was to react, now the go to move would be to disregard. And you can just repeat that phrase over and over again ... And that will become a second nature to you." (05:00)
• On long-term recovery:
  "These thoughts, they're only holding on by your fear. So if the fear is gone, the thoughts will be gone as well." (07:00)

Useful Timestamps

• 00:00–01:35 — How OCD attacks core values, creates new fears
• 01:35–03:10 — Real examples; guilt, shame, urge to confess as symptoms
• 03:10–05:36 — Disregarding the thoughts; shifting mental habits
• 05:36–07:00 — Brain’s testing phase; handling setbacks and new themes
• 07:00–End — Key reminder: Thoughts cling only through fear; advice for disengagement

Tone & Approach

Ali’s tone is warm, direct, and practical; she normalizes distressing thoughts and feelings, providing both comfort and actionable tools. The message throughout is: It’s OCD—not your character or morals. Disengagement is a skill that can be trained.

Final Takeaway

This episode is a compassionate, hands-on guide for anyone tormented by intrusive “bad person” thoughts. Ali Greymond provides understanding, validation, and a clear path to recovery: recognize OCD’s tactics, resist compulsions, and above all, learn to disregard the lies OCD tries to sell.