The signs are all there: that slight chill in the air, the Halloween decorations crowding store shelves, the reappearance of pumpkin spice-flavored everything. Fall is imminent, and for some people that’s a cause for celebration. But for others, the end of summer and arrival of autumn is a time of dread. It means less sunshine, and colder temperatures. You may be heading back to school, or facing the end of a more relaxed attitude and schedule in the workplace. You might be frustrated that summer has come and gone without ever feeling the way it looks on TV.
If you have obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), this feeling of dread can go beyond those seasonal concerns, because the dread isn’t always only about changing leaves, or apple cider recipes, or cable knit sweaters, or other hallmarks of fall.
Loss of routine
For some people with OCD, routines can be rigid and made up of repetitive, ritualistic compulsions. In this situation, they may help feed the OCD cycle, which begins with obsession and then pushes you to carry out compulsive behaviors in search of temporary relief, before starting all over again. But other forms of routine that are not made up of compulsions can provide structure and predictability that serve as an effective coping mechanism
That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Some routines help you focus on the things you care about, and build time into your days for hobbies, friends, therapy, relaxation, and other priorities that support your wellbeing by aligning with your values. Other times, however, a routine built around accommodating rituals or compulsively avoiding triggers provides fertile soil for OCD symptoms to thrive in. In either scenario, the loss of a routine can be destabilizing and lead to a flare in OCD symptoms as the structures around which you’ve built your life start shifting around you.
Wondering if you “made the most” of summer
The approach of fall might also be a signal to your OCD to start looking backward, obsessively reviewing the recent months for signs of whether you felt the way summer was supposed to make you feel. Did I enjoy it enough? you might ask yourself while scrolling back through your own social media posts or staring at the ceiling in bed. Did I create the memories I was supposed to create? OCD can create outsized feelings of guilt and shame, amplifying these feelings.
You might find yourself seeking reassurance from others—That girls’ trip was the best right? That beach day was perfect, don’t you think?—a common OCD compulsion. And while your loved ones’ response might be to try to comfort you, this can inadvertently strengthen an endless cycle of feeling like you need to ask again to be certain and feel soothed.
Anxiety over the passage of time
For some people, the changing of the seasons taps into larger anxieties about time passing. You might look back over not only the summer but the year in general and feel uncertain about whether the trajectory of your life is headed in the direction you want it to be.
This kind of worry can and does happen to anyone, but for those with OCD it can tie into subtypes like existential OCD, which causes obsessive fixation on distressing questions about life, death, and the nature of reality. As summer’s end emphasizes the months and years going by, it can exacerbate questions like, Am I making the best use of my life? Does it even mean anything at all? The arrival of fall, a season when leaves turn brown and fall to the ground and animals burrow away, might activate obsession over what happens after death.
Shifting moods and difficult memories
There are also concrete changes that come with the arrival of fall. Some people experience seasonal shifts in mood or energy levels that can make intrusive thoughts feel louder. Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a form of major depressive disorder that flares in the fall and winter months when there is less sunlight. If you have OCD, the symptoms of SAD may make OCD feel more difficult to manage. Even if you don’t have symptoms that rise to the level of seasonal depression, shorter days and lack of light can sap anyone’s mood and energy.
If you experienced a difficult time or trauma that took place in the fall, the season’s return may also bring with it painful memories. The anniversary effect is a documented phenomenon wherein the approach of a date associated with a hard time creates distress. For those with OCD, these unsettling feelings that make fall feel threatening by association can also make it harder to manage OCD symptoms.
If you have come to expect feelings of dread as autumn approaches, you might even find yourself obsessing about the dread itself, questioning why you feel this way and whether the feeling signals that something bad is on the horizon. This anxiety can lead to compulsive researching, a form of reassurance-seeking. Not only grappling with dread, but then wondering obsessively about the meaning of that dread turns an already uncomfortable feeling into a second obsession stacked atop the first.
ERP can help with the beginning of fall, and other transitions
If the feelings of dread that creep up on you as September approaches have made you think you simply hate fall, it may be worth considering how the experiences and dynamics it creates could have been exacerbating your OCD. In other words, there’s a chance you don’t hate fall—your OCD does.
Exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy can give you the tools to handle the transition to fall with purpose, rather than bracing against it. ERP is proven to be the most effective treatment for OCD, and it works by intentionally exposing you to triggering thoughts, images, feelings, sensations, or situations in a controlled way with a trained therapist. You then practice resisting the urge to engage in compulsions, like seeking reassurance about your anxieties, or mentally reviewing how you spent each day of summer to make sure you appreciated the season sufficiently.
If you think you recognize yourself in this article, you can book a free 15-minute call with the NOCD Team, framed around this exact seasonal dread—there’s a name for what’s happening, and it’s treatable.
