Member Community Discussion: OCD
Hi everyone!
My name is Georgie, and I'd like to talk to you about OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder. This is a disorder that I myself had in the past, but have since recovered from. It's something I'm very happy to talk openly about, although I know a lot of people aren't, so please don't feel the need to share anything you don't want to here.
For those who don't know much about OCD, it's characterisedby a serious of obsessions which the person with the disorder tries to control through compulsions. These obsessions can be slightly vague fears, such as illnessand death, or more specific fears, such as germs. So intense are these fears, but often so difficult to really control, that the person with OCD will develop compulsions - a series of repetitive actions - that they feel they must complete to protect themselves from the fear, even though the actions are often unrelated to the fear. For example, I used to have to touch the top of the doorway in my kitchen whenever I left the room in order to prevent a serious accident happening to my family. Though we often recognise that this is not very logical, it's also very difficult to stop.
So my first two questions to kick things off, if you don't mind sharing, are:
1) What are your main obsessions?
2) Whatare your main compulsions?
I will also answer these questions now.
1) My main obsessions were fear of death, both my own and those of the people I love, and accidents/illness. I had some fear of germs, but only in very specific areas, such as my teeth.
2) Like I said above, I had to touch the top of the kitchen doorway whenever I left the room, I had an anklet I couldn't take off, I had to find patterns in every number I found (especially on digital clocks) and, in the case of clocks,if there was no pattern I had to keep looking at the clock until a time came up that did have a pattern. Shoelaces had to be tied at all times, I could never walk, sit or stand on the left of a group of people, I had to brush my teeth for about five minutes until they felt just right. Those are the ones I can remember for now!
Thanks for posting this thread! I hope I can join in, even though I'm not a member :)
For a long time, I suffered from Primarily Obsessional OCD, which means I had the intrusive thoughts that come with OCD, but no compulsions to make them go away. Recently, however, I started to develop some compulsions too. Interestingly, it got worse when I strated to take medication for my anxiety. Anyways, as for the questions...
1) What are your main obsessions?
Basically anything which involves me failing in some way. I tend to imagine various catastrophic scenarios, which involve school, me being sick, someone close to me dying etc.
2) Whatare your main compulsions?
When I'm walking somehwere and get overwhelmed, I need to stop. Or when I'm somehwere where I'm not moving, I need to say something out loud. Which might cause an awkward situation, eh.
Of course you can join in Barush! Everyone is welcome :)
It's really interesting to hear about a different type of OCD. For me it was always very compulsion-based - mine actually grew out of compulsions. The touching the door thing began as something to see how tall I was, and then it became routine, and then suddenly I started to imagine all these horrible consequences if it ever stopped, so it's really interesting for me to hear that yours was the other way around.
I think your obsessions are some of the more usual ones - generally the obsessions I've heard of involve illness and death. I can imagine that you might have some awkward situations with those compulsions though! Thank you for sharing :)