“I’m so OCD!”
“I can’t stand having stuff on the counter, I must be OCD.”
“Oh my god, you’re OCD? Can you come clean my house?”
These are all things that have been said to me or in front of me by people who I consider friends and colleagues. And while there has never been any malice behind these words, I always feel a pang of unease whenever I hear them, because with those words comes a stigma and stereotype that completely undermines all the struggle and hard work I have gone through to get to where I am now.
I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and no, I don’t want to clean your house.
You probably wouldn’t want me to anyway, since the only time I ever remember to vacuum the carpet is when I spill something and only God knows when the last time I actually cleaned the bathroom mirrors was. You see, cleaning is not a compulsion that generally accompanies my OCD symptoms. I usually get tics (finger tapping, flinching, swallowing, etc.) and repetitive behaviors. Often times I don’t even get compulsions, just obsessive thoughts that cycle over and over and over and ove-
I might have lost you there. OCD is a very complex and difficult disorder to talk about when both parties don’t understand what it really entails. Let’s break it down.
OCD is a chronic and fairly common disorder that affects roughly 2.3 percent of the population. It’s characterized by a person having uncontrollable, reoccurring thoughts (obsessions) and behaviors (compulsions) that he or she feels the need to repeat over and over. What happens is the brain latches on to a distressing thought and repeats it constantly, triggering an anxiety response. The brain then tries to counteract the anxiety by engaging in a behavior or thought pattern that is thought to negate the distressing thought. So the obsession (the distressing, repetitive thought) leads to a compulsion (behavior thought to negate the obsession). So, for example, one of my obsessions is that someone will break into the house. The compulsion that goes along with this thought is to check, double-check, and triple check that all the doors and windows in the house are locked.
That particular thought is not abnormal for people even without OCD. Plenty of people get in their car, can’t remember if they’ve locked the front door or not, and get out to check before leaving. This behavior crosses the line into OCD territory when the thought that the door might be unlocked causes significant anxiety, and going back and checking the door only once isn’t enough to ease that anxiety. I have been stuck standing at the front door for upwards of 20 minutes before, unlocking and re-locking the door and tugging at the handle to make sure that it’s actually locked. I have been late to lunch with friends, missed appointments, and worked myself into full-blown panic attacks trying to satisfy my OCD. That is OCD. It’s when these obsessions and compulsions start to negatively affect your every-day life.
It’s entirely possible for someone with OCD to have obsessions without compulsions and vice-versa. As I mentioned earlier, I often get obsessive thoughts that don’t come with a compulsion. The thought just circulates over and over in my head and I have to try to deal with it without creating a new compulsive behavior. When this happens, it’s generally an embarrassing or unpleasant memory that gets stuck in my head and I have to use some tricks I learned in therapy to break the cycle. I also have compulsions that seemingly come out of nowhere. One of my early compulsions (that I’ve since conquered) was to make sure NOTHING was within an inch of the edge of my bathroom counter. This was a particularly strong compulsion that would make me get out of bed multiple times a night to make sure there was nothing near the edge of the counter. There were nights where I would still be awake at 3 am because I couldn’t quiet that particular compulsion, even when nothing was anywhere near the edge. It was frustrating, because I knew that what I was doing was illogical. I knew that it didn’t matter where things were on the counter, and that I needed to go to sleep, but the compulsion was so strong that I couldn’t fight it, and it was just easier to stay up late to keep checking the counter than it was to try and fight it and sleep.
So we have obsessions, we have compulsions, and we have OCD. We have a disorder that can be severely disruptive to people’s lives. And we have people who make comments like, “Oh, your house must be spotless! I’m so jealous.”
Yes, some people with OCD are obsessive cleaners/organizers. But they don’t enjoy cleaning. One of the most defining parts of OCD is that sufferers do not get any satisfaction or joy when engaging in a compulsion other than a small (and often very temporary) relief from their anxiety. When it comes to cleaning as a compulsion, often times the person cleans far beyond what would be considered normal housekeeping. It can consume hours of each and every day, and become a huge hinderance in personal relationships, work, and hobbies. People who are obsessive-compulsive cleaners are not any more “lucky” than someone who obsessively checks their locks.
I know that people don’t mean anything when they say things like, “I’m so OCD,” but I think that’s the problem (not to mention that saying “I’m so Obsessive Compulsive Disorder” doesn’t make ANY sense). Phrases like, “Don’t be so bipolar,” “That’s retarded,” and, “You’re OCD about your kitchen,” all contribute to the stigma and misinformation about these disorders, and belittle those who actually suffer from them. It’s not that difficult to say, “You’re being really anal retentive about your kitchen,” and it helps protect those who suffer from a real and problematic disorder (you also get some bonus potty-humor if you roll that way). Find different words, expand your vocabulary, and educate yourself about the words you use. Just the fact that you read this post means that you’re curious and interested in learning more about OCD, and I hope that I’ve helped shed some light on the disorder and expanded your understanding of what people with OCD really experience in their every day lives.
Thanks for reading, I’ll be back soon.
NeuroLogical 