OCD is not alone is this - think for a second if you’ve ever described someone as bipolar or schizophrenic when you meant “moody.” Can you imagine if we started using the term cancer this way? Mental illness can be just as devastating to a person and their family as cancer - it interrupts lives, derails plans, and in extreme cases can lead to a person taking their own life.
It has somehow become a synonym for uptight. This is how the term OCD is often misused in pop culture. A synonym for anal-retentive, neatnik, clean freak, etc., etc. The brain can’t help but go to this deep dark place, no matter the situation. This “doomsday” thinking is the bread and butter of someone with OCD.
Have you ever let your mind wander to the worst possible outcome in a given situation? For example, I’ve been stuck on a bus in traffic and imagined being stuck there forever - playing out Lord of the Flies scenarios in my mind with fellow passengers. Perhaps they think they will catch a communicable disease, or worse, give a disease to someone in their family, because they cooked dinner in a kitchen that carried these terrible germs - even when they “know” it isn’t true! OCD isn’t about logic - it’s about anxiety. A person with OCD doesn’t clean the same corner of the kitchen counter 100 times for fun - they do it because they are terrified about what will happen if they don’t. Once triggered, their OCD would necessitate doing an elaborate ritual to undo the mistake that was made. For someone with OCD, there is no obvious “problem solved” moment. If someone uses the wrong sponge, I throw it away and get a new sponge (and perhaps re-wash the plate that just touched the gross counter sponge) - problem solved. I have a thing about germs, but this is not OCD. My house has one sponge for washing dishes, and one sponge for cleaning the counters, and it annoys the hell out of me if people use the wrong sponge for the wrong thing (also, it’s gross). Likewise, I have a thing about kitchen sponges. It’s funny, quirky, perhaps impractical, but she didn’t organize the books this way because she felt compelled to do so out of a need to alleviate deep-seated anxiety. Perhaps not a practical index system, but it seemed to make her happy. Instead of being organized by class or subject or author, they were literally organized by the colors of the rainbow. I had a roommate in college who color-coded all of her textbooks on our bookshelves. I am “obsessive.” However, I recognize this as part of my personality and when things don’t go my way, even if I find it upsetting, I do not feel a crushing, debilitating wave of anxiety as a result. so caught up in the thoughts and worries that you could not go to work, or go meet friends, or perhaps even leave the house, because your brain was essentially on overdrive, and completely fixated on that one thing. Imagine being so consumed about something (such as the previously mentioned job interview, first date, essay, or cleaning the kitchen) that you literally could think of nothing else until you felt sure of the outcome you needed…. A person with OCD is overwhelmed with anxiety and fear about what will happen if they don’t clean their kitchen properly. A person with OCD doesn’t obsessively clean their kitchen just because they like it to be clean. These thoughts are linked with intense anxiety driving the individual with OCD to engage in compulsive behavior - their only escape. But for a person with OCD they can’t just “snap out of it.” Research has shown that the brain of a person with OCD actually functions differently in this situation, essentially getting “stuck” on a thought. Obsessive and compulsive traits on their own are not a mental illness - we all have things that perhaps we obsess over, (constantly replaying a recent job interview or date in one’s head, examining every last detail for clues to what the person thought, re-writing the same paragraph over and over to make sure the essay or report is JUST right). As our executive director likes to say, emphasis on the capital D for Disorder. OCD stands for obsessive compulsive disorder. This or this (or this, or this… and on and on).
0 kommentar(er)
