Quieting the False Alarms of “Not Just Right Experiences”

It’s a perfect September day. My wife and I are just starting a hike on one of my favorite trails in one of my favorite state parks. The scenery is beautiful and I’m feeling good.

But then….These new progressive glasses. They’re not…just right….

It’s not that I’m afraid I’ll trip, miss the thrill of seeing a bear in the distance, or step on a snake, again.

It’s that it feels….off. I worry that the imperfect glasses could ruin this glorious day. I trudge on as if my license to be happy has been suspended by some villain. Or existential policeman. Maybe I paid too much for the glasses.

My alarms are going off. Not terribly loud, but disturbing enough to monopolize my attention. Will I ever learn to be happy?

What are Not Just Right Experiences (NJREs)?

For the last 20 years or so psychologists have been researching a feeling common to people with OCD. It’s been studied enough to have earned its own acronym, NJRE, which sounds like the New Jersey Reality Exemption, but it isn’t. My neighbors in the Garden State would be thrilled with that prospect, but it’s just not in the cards.

It stands for Not Just Right Experience. While the scientific community is not in total agreement about how to define them, NJREs generally refer to the disturbing feeling that something is off, not quite right or incomplete, even if there’s no clear evidence or reason for it.

When experiencing NJREs we crave perfection and certainty, but experience a lack of resolution and ambiguity. These might seem like no big deal when compared to other more dramatic experiences, like not being able to get out of bed for 3 months because you’re so depressed, but the persistence and sheer number of them can make you stressed and depressed. You can never rest.

When people with OCD experience NJREs, they might attempt to stop them with some sort of ritual, like needlessly cleaning or checking. Rituals don’t stop the NJREs. They only distract from it. And thereby, ironically, prevent us from resolving them.

If we don’t learn better ways to manage Not Just Right Experiences, we might think we resolve one, but another one pops up triumphantly to take its place. It’s Whack-A-Mole all over. Again.

Research: The NJREs of OCPDs

Those of you who have OCPD are probably saying, “Well, DUH, that’s every second of my life.” (Please note that OCPD, obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, is different from OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder.)

Our psychological cousins with OCD don’t get to keep all the NJREs for themselves.

Yet, interestingly, even though estimates are that three times as many people have OCPD than OCD, and that OCPD has the highest economic costs to society of all the personality disorders, I can find no research on the relationship between NJREs and OCPD.

That’s just not right.

So, I write to Dr. Thomas Fergus, an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology & Neuroscience at Baylor University. Dr. Fergus researches NJREs and wrote an article suggesting that NJREs may affect not just people with OCD, but others as well.

I ask him whether Not Just Right Experiences might be experienced by people with OCPD as well as those with OCD. He’s kind enough to reply, and, sho ‘nuff, he agrees.

From here on there be dragons. Dragons of informed speculation. Since you may not want to wait another 20 years for the researchers to reach consensus on exactly what NJREs are, what causes them, and what to do about them, I will be speculating conservatively about how we can use these concepts now.

Those of us on the front lines of treatment can’t wait for perfect clarity.

NJREs: Specific vs. Global

I suspect, though I’m not sure, that the gap in research between OCD and OCPD NJREs exists because when researchers study NJREs they need to look at very specific things that they can measure, sensations that are relatively easy to quantify.

People with OCPD also might prefer things at right angles, but the things that really bug and bother them are bigger: They’re about situations or events that are unfair, inefficient, out-of-control, or imperfect in some way that’s much grander than asymmetry.

So, because these are more abstract versions of the Not Just Right Experience, they may be more difficult to quantify in an experiment.

In the same way that OCD and OCPD differ in that OCD is characterized by specific obsessions and compulsions, whereas OCPD drenches the entire personality, NJREs are probably more specific in OCD and more global in OCPD.

But still very real and still very disturbing.

Causes of Not Just Right Experiences

Not Just Right Experiences seem to be caused by a combination of cognitive, neurological and emotional factors: each impacting how the brain processes sensations, and each synergistically egging the other on to give us more grief.

For neurological reasons, people who experience NJREs often have heightened sensitivity to sensory details, what they see, feel and hear. People with OCPD are known to have greater sensitivity to detail. This often means they miss the forest because they’re scrutinizing the trees for moral failings. It can also mean that any details that aren’t just right are very disturbing. It’s like all your senses operate through magnifying lenses. Small becomes large.

What might look like a millimeter short to one person might seem like a centimeter short to another. So, they rip out the entire set of cabinets they just built and installed and start all over again.

Some researchers say that it’s not about a fear of something disastrous happening. It’s just about discomfort. But I suspect that that discomfort can also lead to a fear of something worse happening. Then it’s not just the sensory experience, it’s also about our reaction to that sensory experience.

Like my fear that my hike would be ruined and I would never be happy again.

One of the most common elements of NJREs is a sense of incompleteness. So you’re planning on buying a new pencil sharpener, but you can’t find one that sharpens just the right amount. The buying process is incomplete and you can’t rest until you find the right one. Maybe another browser will list other sharpeners. It goes on and on.

Many of my client experience distress about things that are unresolved. This could be about something that is unfinished or not understood.  And they feel compelled to either fix it or fixate on it. There is discord between the image in your mind of completeness or resolution, and it’s like a misspelled word you can’t correct.

Some researchers have found what they believe is a link between NJREs and guilt. So, when you feel that you’ve done something you think is wrong, you’ll feel something is not just right, even if that sense of guilt is hidden in the background, elegantly camouflaged by the thing that’s supposedly not just right.

So, one cause of Not Just Right Experiences could be a projection of something that’s off inside of us onto the world outside of us.

If you’re open to thinking about this wholistically, you might consider a Jungian approach. We would investigate whether we experience NJREs as a result of not feeling whole. When parts of ourselves are not integrated, we do not feel complete, and might then experience NJREs. In this understanding of Not Just Right Experiences, having a part of yourself (e.g. your Hero part, Mother part, Shadow part, Warrior part, Artist part) split off can cause profound disturbance.

 

The Effect and Reach of Not Just Right Experiences

NJREs can affect us in many ways. For example:

It’s not just right that able-bodied people park in the handicapped spaces. Not fair.

It’s not just right that that waitress walks the long way to get back to the kitchen. Not efficient.

It’s not just right that people are talking over each other. Not in control.

It’s not just right that that lady pronounced later like lader. Not perfect.

The experience of these is not just intellectual. It’s visceral. And we can get stuck on any of them.

NJREs can also make us vulnerable to shame or manipulation. The man on the television said that my pinky shouldn’t be so pink, and so therefore I have Pink Pinky Syndrome. I can see it. It’s pink and it shouldn’t be. So I better buy whatever he’s selling.

This might seem like a cheap shot on my part, but it happens more often than we’d like to admit.  NJREs can veer off into more serious conditions like body dysmorphic disorder in which you become obsessed with personal physical aberrations, like a slightly enlarged ear lobe. As small or insignificant as that may seem, I can assure you, it can become life-consuming. And that’s the issue. Small becomes large.

I’ll leave formal differential diagnosis to the psychiatrists on both this particular question, and on the larger one as to where to draw the line with NJREs in general. I’m throwing my net very wide here to catch the larger pattern of disturbances for things not being just right.

Negativity Bias

I see NJREs as a form of negativity bias: those of us who have compulsive personality traits are always scanning for what’s off and what needs to be fixed. This negativity bias is part of what can motivate us to work hard and correct and fix and complete. But unless we bring mindfulness and balance to these potentials, they’re a curse.

If we don’t bring awareness and restraint to our capacity and tendency to see what’s wrong, we will rarely experience peace, happiness or contentment because things rarely fall in line enough for us to override the Not Just Right Experience.

This can make it really hard to enjoy anything.

I’ll give you a personal example.

A few years ago I completed 4 years of service as president of my psychoanalytic community, and as director of our low-fee clinic. It took a lot of time and energy. And believe me, I rarely felt that things were “just right.” There was appreciation for what I did, and we did accomplish a lot as a group. I could have felt fulfilled by this. But I saw everything that was not just right. People responding in ways that didn’t feel right to me. My mistakes. Typos. Dropped balls. Unfinished projects.

Alarms went off constantly.

So, when I wasn’t more mindful, I imagined that once my service terms ended everything would be Just Right. I didn’t really believe that, but I often thought it. That helped me get through those years. I’m very good at delaying gratification.

But it was only a band-aid.

Once my terms were over and I’d finished those projects, it became clear that there was a horde of other Not Just Right Experiences lined up, gleefully waiting to accost me at the gate as I stepped back out into freedom. The issue was less my responsibilities as president and clinic director; it was more that I focused on what wasn’t just right and I chomped at the bit for when they would be just right.

My point is that we get confused about what’s not just right. It’s our perspective, not our situation.

Oh, the world is messed up all right. I won’t contest that. But if you’re always on edge because of it, you will have a hard time doing anything about it. Nature may have given us NJREs to motivate us to make things better, but it doesn’t work that way for those of us who perpetually experience them and don’t learn to manage them.

It’s that alarm that’s always going off.

Distinguishing False Alarms from Real Ones

How do we separate false alarms from real ones? Doesn’t it make sense that if we often sense things that seem wrong, sometimes we’re going to be right?

I can’t tell you which specific situations are dangerous, and which are not. But I can warn you to be very suspicious of any alarm that never stops crying wolf.

Like my dog Stella. Every time she ventures into the wilds of our suburban backyard she starts barking. General purpose barking. Howling really. Loud as a Motorhead concert and ugly as audio feedback from a tower of speakers. She flaunts it just in case anyone or anything dangerous is lurking on or near our property.

This is a very safe neighborhood. We’ve had no sitings of lions, tigers or great white sharks for donkey’s years. Stella is a walking, barking false alarm. And I’ve learned not to take her seriously. Though I still wish she’d just knock it off.

What if you choose to ignore the alarm and the alarm turns out to be legit? What then? Most of these NJREs are not about life-threatening experiences. The odds are that taking NJREs literraly all the time will cost you a heap more than the few times you get it wrong. That’s the very real threat.

As I write this I wonder if I have the concept of NJREs just right. Am I stretching the meaning of it so that I have something to say that sounds scientific? I’ll let you be the judge as to whether it’s helpful. That’s the important thing. I’ll cut myself some slack and say it’s OK if I get it a little not just right.

If you’re interested in nailing this down for yourself, you can find the standard research tool, the NJRE-QR questionnaire, in an article at the International OCPD Foundation website.

Coping With NJREs: Turning Off The Alarm

So what if you or I do have Not Just Right Experiences? What good does knowing that serve? Am I writing this just so we have yet another excuse to be ornery?

No. I’m suggesting that if we can name it we can tame it. Then we have reason to say, “That alarm is just another NJRE. I don’t want to take it literally, but I do want to take it seriously.”

By that I mean that because it is disturbing, I want to process the emotions related to it so I can stop obsessing about it. But I don’t have to believe what it’s telling me.

Too often, because we take them literally, we compulse or obsess to avoid the disturbing emotions of NJREs.  These both prevent us from processing the underlying emotions. People with OCD unproductively use checking and washing rituals to avoid the feeling. People with OCPD may use control, overworking, pleasing or planning to try to lower their NJRE discomfort.

According to Thomas Fergus, the researcher I corresponded with about NJREs and OCPD, these avoidant responses may strengthen the intensity of the NJRE and make it more likely to re-occur.

In other words, you run in circles rather than shutting down the alarm.

However, recognizing the concept of NJREs can help us to understand that this is not an external issue, but a part of our psychology. In other words, rather than trying to sort out what’s right and wrong on the outside each time we have an NJRE, we can recognize that this is something originating inside of us, a habit, a pair of glasses we wear that distorts our view of reality.

Whether the causes of your NJREs are neurological, cognitive or emotional, there are ways to retrain your mind. It takes practice, but it’s possible.

Here’s what we can do to quiet NJRE alarms:

• Identify NJREs as false alarms that originate inside of you.

 

• Watch for things that trigger your NJREs?

 

• Take NJREs seriously as an emotional problem, but don’t take them literally as information. Don’t believe them.

 

• Which is more expensive, paying attention to the alarm or not paying attention to it? Is the alarm as dangerous and significant as it says?

 

• Get out of your head and into your body. Breathe into your belly to lower your level of arousal.

 

• Identify how you usually react to NJREs:
  • Behavioral avoidance?
  • Worry?
  • Shutting down or numbing?

 

• Build better patterns:
  • Increase your tolerance for uncertainty and incompleteness.
  • Challenge your expectations for perfection.

 

• Ask, “What’s really not just right here?”
  • Is there underlying guilt?
  • Feelings of being incomplete or divided inside?

 

• Notice what meaningful things NJREs keep you from and replace the NJRE with more fulfilling thought or behavior.

The false alarms created by Not Just Right Experiences do not have to ruin our days or our lives.  We can learn to screen out the noise and to see if there is anything to be learned about what’s really going on inside.

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And BTW, about that hike I told you about when it seemed my glasses weren’t just right. It turned out just fine. It takes time to adjust to new glasses. That and a little knowledge about NJREs saved the day. I was just being alarmist.