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.

Transcript

A (0:00)

Hi, everyone, I'm Ali Grayman. Today I wanted to talk to you about feeling like you are a bad person. This is a thought that a lot of people with OCD get. You have to understand that 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. It basically gives you the worst possible scenario within that thing that you reacted to when you got the thought with fear. So. And 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, or come up in not or, but and also come up with different scenarios within the same theme. Well, maybe you're a bad person in this way, maybe you're a bad person in that way. And when, when you are thinking about it, the thoughts feel so real that 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. And all of the. Or you maybe in a, in terms of a physical way, you need to neutralize this feared situation. This is all part of ocd. So the beginning of it, right, that the premise that you are a bad person is false. It is literally giving you the opposite of what you are. You're afraid of causing harm. It's going to tell you you either cause harm or in the past or you will cause harm in the future. So it can be a false memory ocd, or maybe one day I will do it. If you are a very religious person, it can give you something that goes against your religion, or it can give you. For people with religious OCD all the time, they get thoughts during prayer, during the worst times to get these kinds of thoughts. That's when they will get them. This is, it's. It's just a mechanism. It doesn't mean anything. You have to stop taking it for. Don't buy what it's selling you. It's selling you a lie. Don't buy into it. Just look at it as like, nice try, I'm not reacting. I've reacted for long enough and I believe I am done and push forward. 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. These things are not true as well. So you have to push forward in this regard. And when you disregard again, a lot of times people will say, well, I'm trying to disregard, but the thoughts are still there. Of course they're still going to be there. Right now your brain is conditioned to view this as real because for a long time you've been doing rumination reassurance behaviors that have convinced the brain that this is really scary to you. And it's going to take a while for it to unplug. And it will only unplug if you continuously send the signal that this is no longer valid, this is no longer scary to you. And I mean, you don't have to be perfect at this, but you do. It has to be the majority of the time. So if before the majority of the time you were being scared of the thought, now the majority of the time you have to say, I'm done being scared. Yes, I feel the feelings, but I'm done listening to them. I'm done paying attention to them, kind of putting them on one side of the brain and you're on the other side of the brain. Not literally, but you know what I'm saying, right? Kind of just, I'm away from them, they're there, I'm here, I don't care. I'm disregarding. And the more you do this, the more you will start to get in this habit of doing, of doing disregarding. It won't feel so severe because the anxiety starts to go down. And also you will be used to doing it this way. So 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, kind of no disregarding, disregarding. And that will become a second nature to you. And after a while, if you're not reacting to the thoughts with fear, 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 the way it lets it go is it will let go a little bit, make sure everything is okay, then it will send the thought again. At this point, when it sends a thought after you haven't had one in a while, 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. So this is okay. But you can't take the bait. So you have to say, nope, don't care, not buying it. Or maybe it will try to send a thought from a different theme that you've had in the past or another thing that you're scared of. Or something triggers you, say you watch the news, something else triggers you that you kind of didn't expect to trigger you. And then you got triggered. And then now the brain sends thoughts on this topic and if you react, you can start a whole new theme. So you have to make sure from the get go you're disregarding. You're saying, no, I'm not buying into it. 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. You will see that you will start to feel better. These thoughts, they're only holding on by your fear. So if the fear is gone, the thoughts will be gone as well. I hope you find my videos helpful. Thank you so much for watching. If you haven't subscribed to this channel, please subscribe. I do daily videos about all things related to OCD recovery. If you would like to do one on one recovery program with me, all the information is on. You have OCD.com thank you so much for watching. I'll see you tomorrow.