First, let's start by establishing what Obsessive Compulsive Disorder IS, and what it ISN'T. OCD is defined as "excessive thoughts (obsessions) that prompt repetitive behaviors (compulsions)." People with OCD can experience compulsive behavior, agitation, compulsive hoarding, hypervigilance, impulsivity, meaningless repetition of own words, repetitive movements, social isolation, and persistent repetition of words or actions. Emotionally, people with OCD can experience anxiety, depression, excessive guilt, panic attacks, fear, racing thoughts, and night terrors. It's also common to experience food aversions and sensitivity to stimuli.
OCD is NOT: hand washing, organizing, cleaning, using hand sanitizer, a tendency to keep things orderly, or a dislike of things being dirty or disorganized. A person with OCD might tend to those things, or they may not. None of those are symptoms, they are simply behaviors influenced by personality and preference.
When most people think about OCD, they think about a character like Monk that washes his hands excessively, uses hand sanitizer constantly, and won't touch anything without a handkerchief. If you actually watched the bulk of the series, they later revealed that his compulsive behaviors resulted from trauma (as most do) and were his compulsive attempt to control his recurring thoughts. Mental illness is not defined by the habits demonstrated via physical actions, but rather by the thought patterns that spur them on. If this were a physical illness, you would go to a general practitioner and they would examine your physical symptoms, but since it is a mental illness, it requires evaluation (usually long, tedious and thorough) by a Psychiatrist or Psychologist. The mistake a lot of people make is assuming that OCD is completely defined by the behavior observable by others, when in actuality, the compulsions are more of a symptom of a bigger problem.
I very commonly hear people misuse "OCD," maybe more frequently than any other mental illness. I have heard coworkers (while erasing the white board) say "I'm so OCD, I have to get it all erased" or, after organizing blocks in a bucket say "I can't help it, I'm so OCD." Like I said before, this is just habit based on personality or preference to cleanliness/organization. The worst one I've heard yet, "everyone is a little bit OCD." Nope. Just, nope.
I have demonstrated some traits of OCD my entire life, but it has really become a prominent distraction in the last ten years or so.
My life and symptoms vary from week to week, but my illness is mainly defined by recurring, terrifying thoughts of fatal things happening to my children. Once, my son leaned over the loft wall overlooking the staircase and tile floor at my parents house when he was almost two. He did this two more times before knocking it off. However, I never stopped thinking about the worst case scenario, and he's almost seven. I had invasive images of him falling and breaking his neck, or worse (usually worse) over and over and over again. Every time we went to my parents house, I was terrified of this possibility. Now, there really wasn't a rational reason for this. He understood the danger after a stern talking-to and a spanking, had promised not to do it again, and really had not leaned over the wall again. But I couldn't get the image out of my head. Like a nightmare that would frighten you awake in the dead of the night, but all throughout the day, and I had no control over it. Another time, I had a friend lose a child in a freak accident, and again, all I could think about was the possibility of this happening to one of my children. Another time, I had a thought, without any prompting or basis in reality, of an alligator coming out of the pond near our house and eating one of my young children or our dog, and again, couldn't shake it. I saw it happen over and over and over again. Rationally speaking, this was ridiculous, it had no basis in reality. However, the obsessive thought patterns prompted by the made up scenario were no different for the thoughts prompted by real life events. All were terrifying, uncontrollable, and recurring. At this point in time (a few years ago) I could usually divert my thoughts elsewhere, distract myself for a period of time until the anxiety was no longer overwhelming, and carry on with my day (on the good days). On the bad days, my compulsive thoughts were overwhelming, exhausting, and deeply depressing. I responded to these upsetting thoughts as if they'd actually happened, and mourned. My depression was overwhelming and sucked the energy and life out of my days. I responded to these thought patterns with anxiety and depression, and I compulsively ate my feelings. I felt the anxiety helped me control and prepare for the worst, and somehow, the over eating made me feel like I was in control of something. The depression wasn't a choice, but it was a pretty inevitable side effect, as I was absolutely exhausted.
As the years went on, the compulsive behaviors have shifted from compulsive binge eating, to compulsive shopping/spending, to compulsive cleaning and rearranging furniture, to over eating again.
Fast forward a few years and I gave birth to Hannah, suffered a hemorrhage and endured a conscious, painful surgery. All hell broke loose in my brain. The thought patterns and fears that I used to be able to distract myself from, now were 10x louder, more painful, more exhausting. There was no distracting my brain, I completely lost hold of the steering wheel and was at the mercy of whatever my brain chemicals were doing that day. After a short period, the obsessive thoughts blurred together to a constant, static noise that I couldn't separate my own thoughts from. There was no stream of conscious thought anymore, just a blur of negative feelings and noise. I obsessed over trauma, worst case scenarios, and the fear of something happening to my children now felt inevitable, which was overwhelmingly depressing and exhausting. I attempted to control it by forcing myself into a rigorous routine, which helped keep it in check for a little while, but after a month or two, even routine wasn't enough. I was overtaken by exhaustion, mental "fuzz" and an overwhelming feeling of anxiousness. I started arguments to feel any sort of emotional response, and felt uncontrollable anxiety when overstimulated by sensory experiences. I couldn't sleep without touching the closet light three times and checking on Hannah three times. Sometimes, I would sleep for 11 hours every night and still feel tired... sometimes I would sleep for 3 and be wide awake the next day.
The takeaway here is this; mental illnesses like obsessive compulsive disorder are not defined by the behaviors that accompany them, they are defined and diagnosed by the thought patterns and mental dysfunctions that prompt them. A person with obsessive compulsive disorder is prompted to seek control of their obsessive thoughts by participating in compulsive behaviors. If this is not you, and you do not reserve the right to flippantly call yourself "so OCD." My hope with sharing my experience is that people will 1. In some small way, in their corner of the world, stop stigmatizing mental illness, so that more people feel comfortable seeking help, and 2. become more aware of the actual affliction that is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
Be on the lookout in the next couple of days for my next article on the topic of how to care for and support your loved one with mental illness.
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