Asking AI 'Am I a Bad Person?' 40 Times a Day – When a Chatbot Becomes Part of Your OCD
Ricky Scoggan is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist specializing in OCD and anxiety, blending therapies with mindset leadership. As the founder of The Scoggan Institute in Scottsdale, AZ, he empowers high achievers like business owners, athletes, and celebrities via behavioral reprogramming and neuroplasticity for mental freedom and success.
AI chatbots never get tired of answering the same question. For someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), that's the problem. It used to be Google. Before that, it was a parent, a spouse, a pastor, a best friend. Someone with OCD would ask the same question again and again. Did I lock the door? Could I have hurt someone? Do I really love my partner? The answer brought a few minutes of relief. Then the doubt crept back in, and the question started over.
Now the one answering is a chatbot. It never gets tired. It never says, "We already talked about this." It answers at 2 a.m. as patiently as it did at noon. For someone with OCD, that is exactly the problem.
I'm Ricky Scoggan, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT), founder of The Scoggan Institute for OCD and Anxiety Treatment, an outpatient clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona, and Salt Lake City, Utah. I use AI every day to run my practice, so this isn't an anti-technology article. But AI has quietly become one of the newest compulsions in OCD, and most people doing it have no idea that's what it is.
What is reassurance seeking in OCD?
OCD has two parts. The obsession is the unwanted thought, image, or urge that shows up and spikes fear, guilt, disgust, or doubt. The compulsion is anything you do to make that feeling go away.
Reassurance seeking is one of the most common compulsions and one of the hardest to spot because it looks like a normal question. "Is this normal?" "Would a good person think this?" "Can you get sick from touching a doorknob?" People ask questions all day long. With OCD, what matters is why you're asking. You're not asking to learn something. You're asking to make the anxiety stop.
It works, for a little while. That's what makes it so sticky. The relief teaches your brain that the fear was dangerous and the question rescued you. So the fear comes back a little louder next time, and you need the answer a little sooner.
You can't out-argue OCD. There's always one more what if waiting behind the answer you just got. What weakens it is refusing to feed it, and every reassurance you go looking for is food.
Why a chatbot is the perfect partner for OCD
I explain OCD to clients with a simple picture. Your brain is a computer, and every compulsion is a driver, a small program that installs itself and kicks on by itself the moment fear presses the key. The more often a driver runs, the faster and more automatic it gets. Every time you refuse to run it, it gets a little weaker.
Most reassurance drivers have a built-in limit because the people answering are human. Mom gets tired. Your spouse finally says, "We've been over this." Your pastor has other people to see. Those limits feel frustrating in the moment, but they force the driver to shut down now and then.
A chatbot takes away every one of those limits. It's awake at 3 a.m. It never sighs. It never runs out of patience or out of new ways to phrase the same comfort. It's also built to be pleasant and agreeable, which is exactly the tone the fear is hoping for. When the question has no final answer, like "What if I'm secretly a bad person?", it will keep offering new angles for as long as you keep typing.
So the driver gets to run as often as it wants with nothing to interrupt it. That's how a compulsion that used to fire a few times a day can end up firing forty.
How to tell if AI has become a compulsion
The test I give clients is about the feeling, not the tool. Before you open the app, notice what's pushing you. If it's plain curiosity, go ahead. If it's that tight–can't move on until I know pressure in your chest, that's the driver asking to run.
A few other signs I watch for:
The answer calms you for a moment, and then a new "but what if" shows up behind it.
You've asked about the same fear more than once this week.
Not asking feels harder than asking.
You'd feel uneasy if someone scrolled through your chat history.
If those sound familiar, the chatbot has probably become part of your OCD cycle.
Why "just delete the app" doesn't work
People hear this and delete the app. Some do fine for a week. Then the urge hits, the phone is right there, and they're back in the loop, now with shame piled on top.
Cutting off a compulsion without understanding it rarely holds. At The Scoggan Institute, the first step is helping clients see the machinery of their own OCD because it's hard to push back on a pattern you can't spot. Then we build exposure and response prevention (ERP) around their real rituals, digital ones included.
ERP is the gold standard treatment for OCD. Exposure means facing the thought or situation that triggers the fear on purpose. Response prevention means not doing the compulsion afterward. With AI, an exposure might be typing out the feared question and then not hitting send. You sit with the doubt. You let the wave of anxiety crest and settle without doing anything to it. You learn, in your body and not just your head, that you can handle not knowing.
OCD hygiene rules for using AI
I teach clients a set of daily skills I call OCD Hygiene, so their recovery doesn't depend on having a therapist nearby. Here's what that looks like with AI.
Ask once: If you catch yourself asking again, that's the compulsion talking. Close the chat.
Keep it away from your fear: Using AI for work or dinner ideas is fine. Using it to check what your intrusive thought says about you is not.
Notice the "just to be sure" feeling: That feeling is OCD. Name it, and let it sit there.
Tell someone: OCD grows best in the dark. Letting your therapist or family know how often you're asking takes away a lot of its power.
Leave the question unanswered: This is the whole skill. Uncertainty is uncomfortable, but it isn't dangerous.
A note for parents and partners
If your son, daughter, or spouse suddenly stopped asking you for reassurance, don't celebrate just yet. Gently ask where the questions went. That's one reason families are part of treatment at our Institute. OCD doesn't stay inside one person, and relatives are often the first to notice when a compulsion quietly changes shape.
You don't need a better answer
The goal was never to find the one answer that finally makes the doubt go away. There isn't one. OCD will simply come up with a new question. The goal is to get strong enough to leave the question alone.
If AI has become part of your OCD, you haven't failed. OCD just found a new tool. The skills that work on every other compulsion work on this one too.
Read more from Ricky Scoggan
Ricky Scoggan, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
Ricky Scoggan is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and founder of The Scoggan Institute in Scottsdale, Arizona, specializing in OCD and anxiety disorders through innovative blends of ERP, sound frequencies, and mindset coaching. With over 20 years of experience, from distressed adolescents and substance recovery to high-profile clients like business leaders, athletes, and celebrities, he has empowered thousands to overcome challenges via neuroplasticity and behavioral reprogramming. A devoted family man and passionate educator, Ricky inspires purposeful living with a mission to expand nationwide and launch an online school for broader mental freedom.
