What is OCD: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder?

  We were going out and mom locked not only the main door but also the back door and then sat in the car. Just before dad starts the car to leave we hear mom saying “oh did I switch off the iron?” “Ainny will you go and check.”Oh my god. Anyways we all assured her that we had seen her switching it off. So we left. Just as we moved, after a few minutes we again heard  mom saying “did I lock the door properly? Uff! “yes mom.” We all replied promptly “of course mom”. This was one of my childhood memories which I  understand now.

  Another flashback from my childhood- whenever I would walk on the footpath, concrete usually has lines on it as it is divided into squares, I would always make a rule for myself that I am not going to step on the lines and incase I did so, it was as if something wrong was done and if I had to walk again on that part but without stepping on the line.There was no reason for this but if not followed it would irritate me and give me anxiety. In both cases though the habits were weird and annoying  but thank God they weren’t  severe. They didn’t disturb our life, only wasted a little time. But such behaviors can sometimes become severe to the extent that they can disturb your daily life and social activities. This behavior is known as OCD.

    What is OCD behavior?

 Obsessive compulsive disorder [OCD] is a common chronic and long lasting disorder in which a person has uncontrollable recurring thoughts [obsessions] or behaviors [compulsions] that he feels the urge to repeat over. In case of mild OCD, the intrusive thoughts are not time consuming in a significant way, or maybe, even though the person is troubled by the thoughts, they do not notably impair his or her daily functioning. Let me explain to you what an intrusive thought is. If a thought is disturbing you and it’s something you want to push out of your mind, it might be an intrusive thought. The thought feels hard to control.Intrusive thoughts are often repetitive and won’t go away.The more you think about it, the more anxious you get and the worse the thoughts get. As a result you will try to get rid of these thoughts by performing a compulsive behavior or ritual.These obsessions typically interfere when you are trying to do other things.

Hence we would say obsessions are intrusive unwanted thoughts and compulsions are uncontrollable behaviors that you do in order to get rid of those thoughts.

 Types of OCD

There are basically 4 main types of OCD:

• Contamination

• Perfection(symmetry & ordering)

• Doubt/harm (checking)

• Forbidden thoughts.

Symptoms of OCD

Some of the symptoms of obsessive thoughts and the compulsive behavior related to them are:

 Other OCDs include repeating words in their head,counting, drawing lines or figures in their mind.OCDs vary from person to person.

Almost everyone has habits and thoughts that they repeat sometimes. But people with OCD (severe) have thoughts or actions that:

Treatment:

Treatments are mainly of 2 types;

The moment you realize you are repeating a behavior unnecessarily, you need to ultimately direct your attention towards something interesting or productive. Get yourself busy in something, just like right now you’re reading this magazine with full interest and not allowing any intrusive thought to divert  you. Besides, do observe people around you and if you see anyone having OCD, do try to reach them and make them aware of their condition so that they can get relief from it.