Blog Post 5: The OCD

If ever you feel uneasy and experience anxiety just by looking at this photo, that’s one of the signs that you’re suffering Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder or more known as OCD. It is an anxiety disorder which is characterized with compulsive actions, such as hoarding, counting, checking and cleaning, and obsessive thoughts. Examples of these are repetitively checking if the door is locked and repetitive hand-washing.

For further information, an obsession is an unpleasant, unwelcome thought, urge or image that keeps entering the person's mind, eventually causing severe anxiety. While a compulsion is a repetitive behavior carried out by the person with the obsessive thought as a means of preventing that obsession from occurring, or relieving the anxiety it causes. 

I myself experience slight uneasiness whenever walking in the streets and I would imply to myself that I shouldn’t step on any of the cracks, adjusting the volume only to an even number and other stuff. But I know that I don’t have OCD only because it isn’t associated with anxiety and compulsion. An example of a situation is; a person may shower every time they touch another person, go to the toilet, or go outside, because they are scared of catching a disease - the obsession is catching the disease while the compulsion is to have a shower. My opinion with OCD is that the one who experience it must suffer a lot because most of the time their minds are occupied with the things they shouldn’t worry about, and feels uncomfortable whenever they don’t check or repeat it.

In an article by Elizabeth Landau entitled OCD in children:'A darkness has overtaken me,' it was stated there by a 10 year old child named Mystery Almond:

"Sometimes I feel like, with my OCD, I feel sad. It feels like a darkness has overtaken me. It's a real bad feeling"

Because she always get picked on for washing her hands more often than most people and for some reason she would see words spelled inside her head instructing her to do things. This is one proof that a person with OCD tends to suffer a lot. It’s not enough that she’s already torturing herself with the things she can’t help but follow, but she also gets bullied for it. People need to be educated more with this disorder so children like Mystery who are still young won’t have to suffer more than they already are.

Meanwhile, contradicting the negative side of the disorder, Steven Phillipson wrote in his article “OCD and Reflections on September 11^th”:

“In general, when real life delivers a crisis, persons with anxiety disorders, and specifically those with OCD, tend to manage these crises somewhat more effectively than the population at large. The very nature of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is the mind's relentless and endless effort to process and prepare for the most extreme nightmarish scenarios. The anxious mind compels people to mentally anticipate the worst possible scenario and not the negative outcomes which life typically delivers. Our usual world predominantly delivers circumstances to us which don't come close to matching the level of negativity that people with OCD consistently prepare themselves for.”

Here he says that you can turn your disorder to an advantage. As someone who tends to worry much with little things you shall be able to overcome easily the problems you will meet. You already anticipated the worst scenarios that could happen therefore you are able to prepare in advance what you need to do to solve it.

Therefore OCD as a disorder isn’t a total hindrance to you as someone who experiences it. Sure it tortures your mind by occupying your head to do such things such as repetition and hoarding you don’t need to do. You just need to find ways so that you could turn the negative effect, into a positive. Do not let ‘darkness’ overcome you.