Working Through OCD and LOW Feelings and Emotions

If you’ve ever battled OCD, scrupulosity, perfectionism, or just that “never enough” way of living, you may know what it’s like to suddenly find yourself feeling low, empty, and emotionally flat—right in the middle of trying to get better. Today, I unpack what I call the doldrums—those windless, still seasons where the drama of compulsions quiets down, but you’re left with a kind of emptiness, numbness, sadness or even possible depression that feels frightening and confusing. I’ll share why this stage is not a sign of failure, but actually an invitation to deeper healing that many people completely misunderstand.

As I walk you through this, I’ll help you recognize how the “toxic interpreter” hijacks these low emotions, convinces you that something is terribly wrong, and tries to drag you back into obsessive-compulsive loops. We’ll talk about why silence can feel deafening when you’re used to constant inner noise, how compulsions have been masking deeper hurts, and how to begin relating to yourself with compassionate grace instead of shame and panic. If you wrestle with religious OCD or spiritual dryness, I’ll also share encouragement for your faith journey and why this season does not mean God has abandoned you. My prayer is that this message will help you stop treating your low emotions as an emergency, and start seeing them as a doorway into the deeper healing your heart has been needing for a long time.

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So you have been doing the work of recognizing your compulsions and facing your fears instead of running from them. You’ve learned the importance of starving your compulsions while slowly starving the obsessive cycles that have ruled your life for so long. And something is actually starting to shift and there is some small progress being made.

So why do you feel so low?

This is one of the most common and most confusing experiences I hear about from people working through OCD, scrupulosity, perfectionism, or really any mental and emotional battleground. I faced this myself. You expected that as the compulsions were no longer the “go to” options, you’d feel relief. You’d feel lighter. You’d feel free. And instead, you feel empty. Flat. Strangely sad. Maybe even a little depressed.

If that’s where you are right now, I want you to hear this clearly: this is not about something being wrong with you. You may have entered a stage I call the doldrums — and understanding it could change everything about how you move forward.

What Are the Doldrums?

The word “doldrums” is actually a nautical term. There are regions of the ocean, particularly near the equator, where the wind simply stops. A sailing ship that drifts into that zone can get stuck there for days — surrounded by perfectly calm water, going nowhere, with no wind to carry it forward. That’s the picture.

For those of us working through OCD, the doldrums are that emotional stretch that arrives when you begin to successfully starve your compulsions. The daily buzz and drama of obsessive living starts to quiet down. The frantic mental noise that used to fill every waking hour — the checking, the ruminating, the reassurance seeking, the looping — begins to slow. And in its place? Silence. Stillness. And a strange, unsettling flatness.

You were used to the noise. You actually organized your whole life around it, even though it was destroying you. And now that it’s settling down, the quiet feels wrong. It can feel like something is missing. It can feel like you’re sinking.

That’s the doldrums. And it’s not a sign of failure. It’s actually a sign that the compulsions have stopped doing their job.

Why This Happens

Here’s something I want you to sit with for a moment. OCD is the Grand Distractor. It keeps you chasing thoughts, feelings, and fears that don’t actually need to be chased. And while it’s doing that, it’s also keeping you from something far more important — your own heart.

Think about it. If you’ve spent years pouring your emotional energy into loops like Am I really saved? Am I in the right relationship? Am I a dangerous person? Am I contaminated? — then your heart has been profoundly neglected. Not because you were lazy or careless, but because the compulsive cycle consumed everything. You were busy surviving. There was no room to check in with yourself. No room to grieve. No room to heal.

When the compulsions begin to quiet down, what gets uncovered isn’t emptiness. It’s the heart that was buried underneath all that noise. The sadness that was never tended to. The exhaustion that never got acknowledged. The old wounds that kept getting bypassed in the rush to chase the next obsessive thought.

In other words, the doldrums aren’t a dead end. They’re a doorway.

The Toxic Interpreter Strikes Back

Here’s where things get tricky. Just when the doldrums arrive — when you’re feeling low and empty and unsure of yourself — the toxic interpreter shows up with a megaphone.

And it knows exactly what to say.

For the person with Relationship OCD: See? You feel nothing. That proves you’re in the wrong relationship.

For the scrupulosity sufferer: A real Christian wouldn’t feel this spiritually dry. God must have left you. You are not really saved.

For the person wrestling with harm or contamination thoughts: This numbness proves there’s something deeply wrong at your core.

Whatever your OCD theme is, the toxic interpreter will use your emotional low to try to drag you back into the loop. It takes real emotions — the kind every human being experiences in seasons of healing — and attaches a catastrophic verdict to them. And because you already feel low, those accusations can feel incredibly convincing.

But I want you to hear this: those feelings are not evidence. They are not proof of your worst fear. The doldrums are not a verdict about your soul, your relationship, your faith, or your future. They are a sign that you’ve finally slowed down enough to go deeper.

A Special Word for Those with Scrupulosity

If OCD targets your faith, this season can feel particularly disorienting. Spiritual dryness during the doldrums can feel like abandonment by God — which is exactly what your OCD brain has been conditioned to declare. But I want to remind you that spiritual dryness is one of the most universally documented experiences in the entire history of the Christian faith. Masses of believers have all walked through what some have called “the dark night of the soul.” That season of silence and flatness did not mean God had left. It was often the very crucible where their faith went deeper than it had ever gone before.

The compulsions you fed with confession loops, the reassurance seeking, the Scripture checking, the desperate Google searches, they were sending you down trails that felt spiritual but were actually keeping you distracted from genuine relationship with God. When those compulsions get starved, the silence that follows can feel like God’s absence. It is not. He is ever-present in the dry and quiet places. And this stillness may actually be an invitation to a quieter, less frantic, less performance-driven walk with Him than you’ve ever known.

How to Walk Through the Doldrums

The temptation when you hit the doldrums is to do one of two things: run back to your compulsions to recreate the noise, or panic and treat the low emotions as an emergency. I want to encourage you to resist both.

The doldrums are not an emergency. They are an invitation.

Here’s what I’d encourage you toward instead:

Don’t run from the emptiness. Stop looking for the quick exit that will make the feelings go away. I remember sitting by my fire pit one evening, feeling low and flat and honestly even depressed, and instead of scrambling to fix it, I just said to myself — It’s okay. I’m going through something. I’m at a new stage. My heart is weary and it needs some recovery. And I sat there in it. That posture of staying — instead of fleeing — was one of the most healing things I could have done.

Treat yourself with compassion, not contempt. Those of us who wrestle with OCD and perfectionism are often wired to respond to our own weakness with shame and self-criticism. But this is not the time to pick up that weapon against yourself. This is actually the moment to practice the kind of grace toward yourself that you would freely extend to someone you love. What would you say to a dear friend going through what you’re going through right now? Speak those words to your own heart.

Allow yourself to grieve. Some of what surfaces in the doldrums is grief that was never given room to breathe — grief over years of anxiety, over strained relationships, over peace that was stolen.

This is not about self-pity or dwelling in shame. It’s about honest, sober tenderness. Sometimes we just need to take a long breath and say, I’ve been through some hard things. God is not afraid of that grief. He draws near to the brokenhearted.

Invite God into the low places rather than demanding they disappear. Instead of praying for the feelings to go away, try something simpler: Father, you see me in this low and quiet place. I’m struggling to feel your presence right now, but I want to. Help me to receive your love in this season. That kind of prayer opens a door rather than slams one shut.

The Doldrums Are a Sign of Deeper Healing

I want to leave you with this: the doldrums reveal what the compulsions were covering up for so long. And that’s actually good news. Because what was covered up can now be brought into the light — into God’s presence, into healing work, into the kind of compassionate self-awareness that compulsive living never allowed.

You are not sinking. You are going deeper.

The noise quieting is not a sign that something is wrong. It’s a sign that the relentless cycle that has dominated your life is losing its grip. The emptiness that follows isn’t a verdict — it’s an opening. A new chapter. An invitation to stop surviving and start healing.

You are not going to think or analyze your way through the doldrums. You’re not going to compulse your way out of them either. You’re going to slowly, lovingly, compassionately walk your way through them — with grace for yourself, and with a God who is not in the least bit threatened by where you are right now.

Empowering You to Live Healed and Free