Though you’ve never shared this with anyone, you check the locks five times before you leave home -- every single day. And you check the stove five times, too. You even arrange household items in nifty groups of five.
You know these actions aren’t necessary, but you just can’t stop. It’s almost like you have to do it. And oddly enough, it always has to be in sequences of five.
Time and time again, you wonder if these actions are normal. But you’re afraid to ask a doctor for fear that he or she will think you’re nuts. It’s embarrassing, so embarrassing in fact that you’ve secretly lived with these behaviors for most of your life.
The question is: What’s really going on here?
We’ve got news for you. You’re not weird, kooky or crazy. And you’re not losing your mind. You just may have OCD.
Who Gets OCD?
Repetitive actions like these are signs of an anxiety disorder called obsessive- compulsive disorder, otherwise known as OCD. It’s an embarrassing disorder of rituals and repetition that can quietly wreak havoc upon your life.
According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA), OCD affects about 2.2 million Americans. Though the median age of onset of OCD is 19 (with one-quarter of cases linked to an onset age of 14), one-third of adults with OCD first had symptoms as children.
Over and Over: OCD Habits
One of the most important signs of OCD is regularly repeated actions (like the stove and lock checking above). According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), those with OCD do the same rituals over and over such as washing hands, locking and unlocking doors, counting, keeping unneeded items, or repeating the same steps again and again.
Here’s the thing: in the case of this anxiety disorder, these actions feel compulsory. Sufferers feel as if they absolutely HAVE to perform these rituals. It’s not a maybe; it’s a must.
In the example above, if you try not to check the locks, you will feel extremely uncomfortable. Consequently, you’ll obsess about it until you do. And once you perform this action, you will better -- at least temporarily.
Thoughts seem to get stuck in sufferers' heads. Now don’t confuse this with the typical song from the radio that gets stuck on “mental repeat.” These repetitive thoughts will be much more expansive.
Truthfully, they can manifest in a multitude of ways. For example, a visual image of something disturbing may reappear consistently. And no matter how hard sufferers try, it won’t stop.
Sufferers may find themselves stuck in a repetitive sequence of numbers that mentally repeat. They might say “2,4,6,8,10” over and over again in their heads. But when trying to avoid this sequence of numbers, the repetitiveness only seems to get louder and more annoying.
Sufferers may be plagued with thoughts of something bad happening that will only be stopped by performing a ritual. For example, you may need to walk through a certain doorway in your home because you believe that if you don’t, a loved one will die. Or you may need to turn right on a random street while driving to avoid a fate that you fear (like developing a disease or dying).
Obsessing over frustrating concepts like cleanliness is common. Cleaning the countertop over and over but still believing it is dirty or feeling the need to wash hands to the point that they bleed may be OCD behaviors.
Normal Thoughts vs. OCD Thoughts
So how do you tell the difference between normal thoughts and OCD-related patterns? It all comes down to the time you spend in this state of mind.
One of the biggest ways to determine the difference between normal and obsessive-compulsive behavior is the extent to which these behaviors affect your life. In other words, OCD isn’t just a “sometimes thing.”
There’s a rule of thumb when it comes to how much time spent doing rituals is truly diagnosable OCD. The NIMH says that people who suffer from OCD “spend at least 1 hour a day on the thoughts and rituals, which cause distress and get in the way of daily life.”
So if you find that this statistic applies to you, you just may be suffering from OCD.
OCD Treatment and Therapy
That said, what do you do if you have been diagnosed with OCD? The first step is to find a therapist who can help reduce or altogether stop compulsions.
“The best way to help someone with OCD is to get them to stop doing their compulsions,” Dr. Patrick McGrath, author of The OCD Answer Book, tells With Anxiety in Tow. “Think of it this way…every time you do a compulsion and your feared consequence does not happen, you will feel as if it was the compulsion that kept you safe. Therefore, getting people to not do their compulsions is a way to teach them that their OCD lies to them. Never once has OCD told the truth to someone – it is just a liar.”
This is done through two specific types of therapy.
“The best way to decrease this power is to do Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) because ERP targets the emotional center of the brain,” McGrath tells With Anxiety in Tow. “You can’t talk people out of being anxious, but you can behave people out of being anxious. Therefore, reduce the power of OCD and anxiety by doing the opposite of what they want you to do. Then you can overcome these issues.”
Though there may be no official way to end the battle with OCD, it does get better. McGrath is sure of this.
“There may be no cure for OCD, but you can learn to live with it,” McGrath tells With Anxiety in Tow. “I often use an example from my own life. Imagine being in a theater or church and someone walks up to the organ, turns it on, takes a rock, and puts it on the highest key on the keyboard. This would create the highest note possible from the organ. After 5 minutes or so, this would get to be pretty annoying. And yet, that is the sound that I have heard for over 20 years. I have tinnitus – a ringing in the ears. While it is annoying, I have gotten used to it. I know it will never go away, and I accept that.”
He equates OCD to the same type of experience.
“OCD can be the same way – you can learn to live with it. You know it will never go away, but you can learn to not pay any attention to it,” McGrath says. “I do not always hear my tinnitus even though it is always there. Right now it is very loud because I am writing about it, but it will fade away again soon. Your OCD can be the same way – it can fade away for a period of time, and if it does rear its ugly head again, you can just recognize it and move on without paying it much attention at all.”