Visual OCD

If you had an intrusive thought about the lips, and then you get bothered every time you look at someone’s lips, which we have to, how do you break that OCD? I’ll go conversations with people, realize I had no thoughts about it, and that only strengthens it. I don’t know if I’m just watching someone talk or mad about OCD now. Intrusive thoughts are easy now, because you know they can’t happen, but this is different.

[Selesnya]

I don't know that this really addressed your issue directly, but this is what I thought of:

psychcentral.com/lib/sensor...

On The OCD Stories I think that Dr. Steven Phillipson has an episode where he talks about body-focused OCD. This might be the episode that I'm thinking of:

theocdstories.com/podcast/d...

I hope that some of this helps.

My most general (and probably non-helpful) advice is to do the opposite of what your OCD says. Let yourself feel anxious and know that sometimes every choice is the wrong choice (listen to the podcast above for much more detail on this).

[cambridgeborn in reply to Selesnya]

Thank you so much for these helpful links. Resources truly are our lifeline!

[Hidden in reply to Selesnya]

So basically you’re saying I should welcome looking at someone’s lips, and analyze their expression. Eventually I’ll realize nothing happens from it, and move on.

[Selesnya in reply to Hidden]

More or less that is it.