What is OCD? - An Introduction

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As someone who has suffered from severe OCD and depression I would like to start a series of posts about this torturous mental disorder. OCD is a mental disorder that is not well understood by most people and so hopefully I can give a better understanding of what it is from my own personal view.

We sometimes hear the phrase "I'm so OCD" thrown around to describe someone who likes to keep things organized or clean. But these things are not necessarily at the heart of of OCD. So what is OCD really about? To give a simplified answer OCD is about anxiety. For me OCD is much more complicated than anxiety and I will explain that in more detail in a later post but anxiety it is a good starting point for understanding OCD.

Someone who cleans their room or organizes their desk because they want or need to do it is usually not suffering from anxiety like one would experience with OCD. That is the crucial thing to realize. If you want to do something and don't have anxiety about doing it then this is not OCD.

So what makes OCD different from an anxiety disorder? OCD stands for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. From the name one can see that there are two key parts to this disorder, namely obsessions and compulsions.

The term obsession in regards to OCD means something slightly different than its normal use. An obsession is any unwanted thought, image or impulse that the sufferer experiences. The key here is that an obsession is unwanted. In the mind of someone with OCD an obsession will enter their consciousness and can stay in there for hours, days or even longer.

Because the person is tormented by the obsession that has entered their mind they will try to perform some sort of act or ritual to try and get rid of the obsession. This act is called a compulsion and is the second part of OCD. For example if a person touches blood they might have an obession about getting HIV and dying. Because this thought replays in their mind over and over accompanied by anxiety they might wash their hands over and over to try and remove the thought and convince themselves that they are not contaminated.

Notice that in the definition of obsession or compulsion there is no mention of anything about cleanliness or orderliness. This is because obessions can be about anything and a compulsion can be any act done to relieve anxiety. A compulsion might not even be visible to the outside world but occur only in the persons mind.

This has been a simple introduction to OCD and the terms obsession and compulsion. In later posts I will go in to some more details of common types of obsessions that people experience and compulsions they do to try and get rid of them. Let me know any questions or things you are curious about and I will try to answer them later.