Demystifying OCD

Have you ever heard someone who is detail-oriented, high strung, or bothered by untidiness and mess described as “OCD”?

As with depression and anxiety, which I discussed in previous posts, OCD is a clinical term that gets pulled out of its clinical context and used colloquially. OCD stands for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, a disorder that can be severely distressing and difficult to live with.

It can be frustrating for people suffering with clinical OCD symptoms to hear the term used so casually, as in referring to extreme tidiness as “being OCD”. It can also be difficult for folks with fairly commonplace personality quirks to be pathologized by having the term OCD applied to them. 

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As far as mental health professionals are concerned, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is operationalized and defined in the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, 2013). A person might be officially diagnosed with OCD if they experience the following:

Obsessions:

An obsession is a thought, urge, or image that you cannot get out of your head. It brings up distressing feelings such as terror or disgust, and it pops into your mind uncontrollably. The obsession is intrusive, distracting, and you feel you must find a way to avoid it.

Compulsions:

Compulsions are repetitive behaviors that you feel you must perform in order to manage the negative feelings caused by an obsession, or otherwise because of rigid imaginary “rules” that you feel you cannot break. Compulsive behaviors are “clearly excessive” to you or others who observe the behaviors. Compulsive behaviors might not have any obvious connection to the obsession they relate to. 

Obsessions and compulsions are more than annoyances or personal quirks. They interrupt normal functioning by taking up too much time or getting in the way of important activities. 

Some people with OCD may recognize that obsessions and/or compulsions are not rational or realistic. But others may be delusional, meaning they are convinced that beliefs related to obsessions and compulsions are true.

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Being highly attentive to detail or highly distracted by untidiness is not necessarily a marker of mental illness, and it is important to keep this in mind any time the term OCD is used. 

OCD is a serious mental health condition that can be very hard to live with. If you think you might recognize the symptoms of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in yourself or a loved one, you should reach out for help from a trained therapist.