The other day I ordered a grilled chicken sandwich in a restaurant via its drive-through. The clerk misunderstood me due to my accent and gave me three (regular) chicken sandwiches and charged for three instead of one. I corrected the miscommunication, was refunded for two sandwiches, and finally had a grilled chicken sandwich instead of a regular chicken sandwich.
Several days later, I craved a grilled chicken sandwich again when I was taking a shower in a gym. I decided to have a grilled chicken sandwich for lunch. Then the obsessive thoughts came up, as follows:
What if they misunderstand me again? Do I need to pronounce “a” [ā] instead of “a” [ə] to prevent miscommunication? What if they misunderstand “a” [ā] as eight? Do I need to use “one” instead of “a”? Does the use of “one” make my English sound awkward? Do I need to ask for a receipt to avoid miscommunication? What if they do not understand my pronunciation of receipt? . . .
I was doomed. As I had already spent too much energy on thinking about the what-if questions and possible answers to them, I lost my appetite. Being trapped in a loop of what-if questions wasn’t what I expected. I just wanted a juicy grilled chicken sandwich.
When I almost gave up a grilled chicken sandwich for lunch, I thought about what I was going to do after lunch; it was the practice of writing. I would write for a book that I was working on. The thought that there existed an occupation that I could engage myself with by paying my full attention relieved my anxiety.
More specifically, I knew that I would concentrate on the practice of writing better after being teased by my OCD bully. I learned from my previous experiences that my OCD motivated me to work harder on my occupation of writing as I desperately wanted to forget about my OCD thoughts.
In this way, the successful experience of forgetting about OCD thoughts with the occupational engagement with the practice of writing served as a “mental shelter” where I could feel safer. Even though I couldn’t engage with the practice of writing at the time in the gym, thinking about my occupational engagement itself relieved my anxiety about the potential miscommunication at the restaurant.