What is OCD? - Obsessions

This is my second post on OCD from the perspective of someone who suffers from this disorder. In the first post I explained that there are two main components to OCD, namely obsessions and compulsions. I gave a brief description of what these are and some examples of each. In this post I will go in to more detail about what obsessions are and some of the common types of obsessions that people with OCD experience.

Recall that an obsession is any unwanted thought or image that repeats over and over in the mind of the sufferer for an extended period of time and causes them great mental anguish. Notice that this definition of obsession is not the same as the everyday use of the word. For example, I could say I am obsessed with the music of Bach but this just means I like to listen to it a lot. Whereas somebody who has an obsession in the OCD sense is tormented by their thoughts and the thoughts are completely unwanted.

Note that the definition of obsession does not say anything about the specific content of the thought. Obsessions can be about literally anything. For example, there have been sufferers with OCD who doubt if they are alive or not. Now I will give some of the common types or themes of obsessions that people experience but hopefully it is clear that this is in no way an exhaustive list. Anything that is capable of being thought can become an obsession for someone with OCD.

I think the most well know to the general public type of obsessions are about contamination. There is the stereotypical OCD person who washes their hands constantly. This is because they are trying to decontaminate themselves from some type of contaminate. Some common physical contaminates that people with OCD worry about are germs, blood, and bodily fluids. For example, a common obsession for people with OCD is that if they touch someone else's blood, no matter how miniscule the amount, that they could get a disease such as HIV. This thought could lead to a series of rituals in order to try and remove the anxiety experienced by having the thought of dying stuck in their head. As the person's OCD worsens the rituals will become more and more time consuming and extreme lasting for hours, days or even years. Performing the ritual can provide some temporary relief but it only serves to strengthen the obsession over time. It is also important to note that the obsessions can go both ways. By this I mean that people with OCD might not be worried about contracting HIV themselves. Instead they could have obsessions about giving HIV to someone else. This can happen even if the person does not have HIV. They will get themselves tested over and over but doubt that the results are accurate and feel like they are infected. This person will do everything they can to prevent letting anyone else come in to contact with their own blood, germs or bodily fluids.

Another common type of obsession has to do with checking/doubt or some sort of catastrophe happening. This involves thoughts about forgetting to lock the door, burning down your house because you left the stove on, or leaving the garage door open and being robbed, etc. The person who has obsessions about burning their house down could turn off their stove and be looking directly at it and still have a doubt about whether they have turned it off. You might wonder how this is even possible. The important thing to realize is that OCD is a mental disorder. The problem is in the sufferer's brain. In their mind they are having the thoughts "Your house is going to burn down", "Did you really turn off the stove?" repeat over and over. So while we may look at someone with OCD and see them as quirky it can be hard to understand what is happening internally to make them perform these acts that seem strange to the outside viewer.

Our last obsession theme for this post will be about magical thinking and orderliness. It is common belief that being orderly or clean means you have OCD. If you like being organized or clean this probably has nothing to do with OCD. The key word here is like. People with OCD that are orderly and clean are not doing it because they like it. They are doing it because they are in hell if they don't. Someone who is clean and orderly can be doing it because of contamination obsessions as described above but there are many other reasons as well. Magical thinking is the idea that something horribly wrong can happen if the person doesn't perform their compulsion. For example, a common obsession could be "If I don't order my clothes by color then my mom will die of cancer". So the person precedes to order their clothes over and over in order to prevent their mom from getting cancer. But they can never get it just quite write or if they do their obsession could morph in to ordering something else such as their food or desk. They believe that just by having this thought about the mom getting cancer that it will magically occur and that if they don't do something to prevent it from happening then it will be their fault. Not everyone who has OCD is orderly or clean. In fact some are just the opposite. Some people become so overwhelmed by the time it takes to complete their rituals that they will just stop doing them. For example, you will find items such a clothing piled up in their house because they do not want to touch them because they will become contaminated and have to spend the whole day cleaning and decontaminating themselves. This turns in to a huge cycle of avoidance where people are not able to even go in to certain areas of their house or they become paralyzed and stuck in bed unable to accomplish anything productive.

In this post I have given just a few small details about obsessions that people with OCD have. Your are probably already familiar with some of them. However, people with OCD also have obsessions about much darker and taboo things that most people are not aware of. I myself have these obsessions constantly and they are extremely difficult to describe because of their nature. People who have these thoughts feel extreme guilt and shame about them and usually do not share them with others. This is why I think they are not as well known as the above obsessions. In the next post I will try to give some more explanation about these obsessions if I can muster it.

If you want to read my first post about OCD check this link:
https://steemit.com/psychology/@timspeer/what-is-ocd-an-introduction