So what is OCD really like, anyway?  What’s it all about?

As the title suggests, OCD is made up of two parts: obsessions and compulsions.  Obsessions really mean doubts, worries, that little niggling ‘what if?’ at the back of all our minds.  What if the house catches on fire because I left that toaster plugged in?  What if I didn’t wash my hands properly and I end up with a horrible disease?  What if I didn’t lock the door and someone walks in on me in the toilet?

This is the sort of thing that gets published in the media.  What doesn’t get talked about so much are the really scary worries. What if I lost my memory? What if I hit that person?  What if I just started screaming right now and didn’t stop?  What if I hurt my child?  What if I jumped in front of that car?  What if I went insane?  What if the next time I go to sleep, I don’t wake up?

And then there are the more abstract, seemingly pointless worries.  Did I count the number of words in that sentence accurately?  Is that stack of books straight enough?  Have I organised all my CDs perfectly alphabetically?

Everyone is struck by obsessions as different points in their lives.  It is an illness to which no one is immune.  When it becomes a problem is when it starts to overtake other aspects of life, and suddenly all that seems important is the obsessions.

Compulsions are what we do, then, to counteract these obsessions.  If we’re afraid we might set the house on fire, we will check all electrical items are unplugged every time we leave the room.  If we’re scared of germs, we wash too often and too hard.  If we worry about amnesia, we spend all our time writing out journal accounts of even the most mundane points in our days.  If we’re terrified we might hurt our children, we pass care responsibilities over to someone else.  We realign, we clean, we check, we count, we struggle.

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If none of this works, we try superstitions, such as tapping our fingers together three times as a way of warding off the evil we feel quite certain is to come, as a result of not completing the rituals we have become enslaved to.

This is the reality of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.  It’s not a joke.  It’s irrational and paranoid.  It’s time-consuming and life-destroying.  It’s disempowering.

But there IS hope.  There IS a way to take back some of that control and live again.  As someone who has lived all her life with OCD, I know what I’m talking about.

Vrinda Pendred
Editor & Founder of Conditional Publications

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