Imagine you are going to work. You have an important meeting. You are already running late. You leave your house and you have almost reached work, when suddenly a thought pops up in your head about whether you have locked your door. You check the time, see that you’re already late and decide to ignore the thought. But anxiety builds up within you. You keep on getting thoughts of whether or not you have locked the door. Your heart beat picks up and you start panicking and finally decide to go all the way back home to check. Throughout the way home, you keep on having the thought whether you should avoid going back home or straight away go to work. You finally reach home. The sight of the lock on the door calms you down. You heave a sigh of relief, head back to work, when a few minutes later you again start having a niggling doubt that did you really check the lock properly. And the cycle continues.
This scene is just a snippet from the daily struggle of a person suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, commonly known as OCD is characterized by obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions are thoughts, images or urges are repetitive. They are intrusive which means that they invade your thoughts even when we are focussing on something else. They are felt to be unwanted and senseless to the individual experiencing them. They cause a lot of anxiety and this increases when the individual tries to control or ignore the thoughts.
Obsessions are usually, but not always, followed by some act to reduce the anxiety caused by them. These acts are called as Compulsions. In the example given above, the individual has an obsession of doubt of whether his door is locked. The compulsive act is repeatedly checking the lock on the door, even after knowing that it is locked and what they are doing in senseless. Often we see the only outward compulsive act of the individual but fail to understand the underlying obsession or the agony the individual is facing.
It is important to understand that a person with OCD does not want to have these thoughts and neither can they control them. In common media, people with “OCD” are often shown to be always washing, cleaning or sanitizing their hands. They’re called as “cleanliness freaks” or”orderliness freaks”. Friends and family members of such people generally fail to understand their behaviour and simply ask them to stop being so sticky. However, such behaviour is not due to some quirk in their personality but due a very real psychiatric disorder. Fortunately it is a treatable disorder and there are many options such as medications and therapies that are available for this disorder. And no, telling such individuals to simply stop doing their compulsive behaviour does not help, rather it adds to their distress. So if you know anyone with such issues, then please advise them to visit a Psychiatrist.
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