Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is one of the most misunderstood mental illnesses as it has been normalized in culture to be a fixation on cleanliness or order. There has been a common claim to having OCD when people are especially picky about how things are done, how clean their space is, or how many times a surface has to be washed. However, OCD is not so simple as being particular about a way of life.
What is OCD?
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is described in the DSM 5 by breaking up obsessions and compulsions into two categories and defining each.
Obsessions:
- Recurrent and persistent thoughts, urges, or images that are intrusive, unwanted, and cause anxiety or distress
- The individual tries to ignore, suppress, or neutralize the thoughts, urges, or images with compulsive thoughts or actions
Compulsions:
- Repetitive behaviors that the person feels driven to perform in response to an obsession or rigidly applied rules
- The behaviors or mental acts are aimed at preventing or reducing distress or preventing some dreaded event/situation; behaviors/mental acts are not connected in a realistic way with what they are designed to avoid; clearly excessive
As both are split and defined, it is crucial to understand that there is a trigger, an obsession unique to the person with OCD, and a compulsion, ALL of which seem out of proportion with reality or illogical. Another thing to be keenly aware of is that it does not always come in the form of obsessively washing hands or tidying an office space. Instead, each person has a unique response to the trigger and typically believes something horrific will happen if the compulsive behavior is not performed.
Here are a few examples:
- Someone with OCD may have an extreme fear of contamination and sickness. They believe that if they touch something in public without washing their hands, their family will get sick and die.
- Someone with OCD may compulsively count to 7 every time they leave the house, believing that if they don’t then they will get into a car accident and die.
- Someone with OCD may compulsively confess to any perceived misgivings or else they obsessively think about what they’ve done wrong.
OCD Doesn’t Always Present in Physical Behaviors
When thinking about OCD, one typically pictures a person who taps, washes hands, cleans an area, or counts obsessively. It is commonly depicted this way in media and in most psychology courses, yet there is another world on OCD that is not addressed within this idea.
OCD is a mental illness; therefore, it starts in the brain when somebody is triggered. The obsessions reside in the mind of a person, becoming increasingly disorienting and disturbing. I can attest that the obsessions are lies that begin to feel truly real. Half of the battle with OCD is inside the brain where nobody can see.
While most people have outward behaviors that others can see, there is a form of OCD that is mostly hidden. This is when the obsessions are thoughts that keep spinning within the brain, and the compulsion is to fixate on the intrusive thoughts with no end. The compulsion comes from believing that thoughts have power over one’s physical being.
In my experience, my obsession is triggered by change, eating disorder thoughts, or unwanted thoughts. This creates a compulsion of praying immediately and repetitively, holding onto the thought and trying to change it forcibly, or talking about it with another person and searching for reassurance.
A lot of OCD goes undiagnosed or unnoticed because the obsessions and compulsions are present but are not seen by the human eye. It takes knowing the true symptoms of OCD or speaking with a psychiatrist and therapist.
Triggers are always the same, Obsessions and Compulsions Change
When first going through treatment for OCD, I was trying to identify triggers, process obsessions, and prevent compulsive behaviors. Yet analyzing all three of these was not what would lead to relief from OCD.
A therapist ended up telling me that while the triggers for OCD are always the same, the obsessions and compulsions will always change. Therefore, if I didn’t work on lowering my reaction to the trigger, I would continue to cycle through obsessive-compulsive behavior.
If somebody is trying to move past OCD, the key is to dig into the root of the issue, rather than just changing compulsions. Without addressing the trigger, the OCD cycle will continue to torment a person.
It Doesn’t Make Logical Sense
The distinction between intrusive thoughts and OCD thoughts is slight but important when combating obsessions and compulsions. A normal intrusive thought is quick and fleeting, and the non-OCD mind allows it to pass without attaching value to it. An OCD brain will see an intrusive thought as a threat and attaches weight to the thought, making it feel as If it will cause damage. It creates the perception that all adverse things are happening in real life while they aren’t.
The threats OCD perceives are out of line with reality and don’t make logical sense. It causes someone to believe that they are in danger and the only thing to make anything better is to act on compulsions. It also causes one to believe that they are at fault for having intrusive thoughts or responsible for anything wrong happening.
To understand, here are a few examples:
- Having a hateful intrusive thought about another person and believing it will be the cause of their harm and feeling deeply that it is your fault. This may lead to compulsions to confess, pray, tap a certain number of times, or obsessively blame yourself.
- Touching a door handle and thinking that if you don’t wash your hands, you will infect the people in your family with a highly infectious disease and they will die.
- Thinking that you will never be forgiven by God if you don’t pray all the time or if you commit one sin, so you compulsively confess and repent.
These examples are only the tip of the iceberg for OCD and go much deeper than the simplified statements, but to someone with OCD, these thoughts are tormenting and entrapping. They create a string of debilitating compulsive actions that one feels out of control with.
One of the most frustrating aspects of OCD thoughts is that they do not make logical sense to someone not experiencing them. They create an internal world in which thoughts are the enemy, you are to blame for all things going wrong, and all threats come from not acting on compulsions.
OCD Doesn’t Have to Last
As harmful as OCD is to the psyche, the treatment is incredibly effective. While there are medications that can help ease the mental torment, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is pivotal when someone is trying to be released from the grip of OCD.
I began working on OCD when I started reaching for recovery, learning that the eating disorder and OCD worked together with each other. It was three months of working through resisting urges to act on compulsions to start seeing that slowly but surely, I was being relieved from intrusive obsessions.
The key, simply put, is being exposed to triggers and resisting compulsions. This is much easier said than done, but when you are dedicated to fighting urges, OCD slowly becomes a thing of the past. Another important aspect is knowing that seeking reassurance from other people that things will be okay will keep the cycle going as well.