So, what is OCD…
In short: Hell.
Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, therapist, social worker, etc. Nothing in this article is to be perceived as medical or treatment advice. This is for educational and entertainment purposes only.
OCD stands for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. I’m going to use the DSM-5 for the definitions as the DSM-5 is basically the mental health diagnosis Bible. Obsessions are defined as recurrent and persistent thoughts, urges or images that are experiences, at some time during the disturbance, as intrusive, unwanted, and that in most individuals cause marked anxiety or distress. The individual attempts to ignore or suppress such thoughts, urges, or images, or to neutralize them with some thought or action(by performing a compulsion).
Compulsions are repetitive behaviors or mental acts that the person feels driven to perform in response to an obsession, or according to the rules that must be applied rigidly. These behaviors or mental acts are aimed at preventing or reducing distress or preventing some dreaded event or situation. However, these behaviors or mental acts either are not connected in a realistic way with what they are designed to neutralize or prevent or are clearly excessive.
The obsessions or compulsions are time consuming(take more than 1 hour per day) or cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
Lastly, the disturbance is not better explained by the symptoms of another mental disorder (e.g., excessive worries, as in generalized anxiety disorder; preoccupation with appearance, as in body dysmorphic disorder; difficulty discarding or parting with possession, as in hoarding disorder; hair pulling, as in trichotillomania [hair-pulling disorder]; skin picking, as in excoriation [skin-picking] disorder); stereotypies, as in stereotypic movement disorder; ritualized eating behavior, as in eating disorders; preoccupation with substances or gambling, as in substance-related and addictive disorders; sexual urges or fantasies, as in paraphilic disorders; impulses, as in disruptive, impulse-control, and conduct disorders; guilty ruminations, as in major depressive disorder; thought insertion or delusional preoccupations, as in schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders; or repetitive patterns of behavior, as in autism spectrum disorder).
Now that I’ve just thrown a ton of words at you, lets break this definition down to a simpler definition.
The obsessions cause the anxiety. The compulsions help relieve the anxiety…..temporarily. See, that’s the problem with performing compulsions. Yes they relieve the anxiety, at the cost of your time and sometimes what feels like your sanity, but the obsession(s) will return and you’ll do the compulsion again.
I do have an issue with the part of the definition that states: “Lastly, the disturbance is not better explained by the symptoms of another mental disorder.” Yes, I’m not a doctor or mental health professional, but some obsessions can be seen as excessive worries. I would know. I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and told I don’t have OCD by a therapist.
After working with her for awhile and clearly getting worse, I sought out an OCD specialist who immediately saw that I had OCD. This isn’t just my issue though, according to a survey of physicians done in 2015, OCD was misdiagnosed 50.5% of the time. Glazier K, Swing M, McGinn LK. Half of obsessive-compulsive disorder cases misdiagnosed: vignette-based survey of primary care physicians. J Clin Psychiatry. 2015 Jun;76(6):e761-7. doi: 10.4088/JCP.14m09110. PMID: 26132683.
According to the American Academy of Family Physicians, the average time that it takes to receive treatment after meeting the OCD diagnostic criteria is 11 years. https://www.aafp.org/afp/2015/1115/p896.html. 11 years is such a long time. I was lucky and, while I did have many of the hallmarks of OCD in my teenage years and 20’s, I found ways to cope. I gave into compulsions. I didn’t see a doctor because I thought it was normal and I had no clue what OCD was. My parents had no idea what OCD was.
All I ever heard about OCD was that OCD meant you were either afraid of germs or things needed to be just right. I will cover both of these in other posts as they are types of OCD, but there is no set definitive OCD. There are multiple types of OCD and throughout this blog’s journey, I will be addressing each of them in their own posts.
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