From my point of view, there are a few misconceptions about OCD that seem to stem from OCD being the butt of the joke (again). So I just wanted to talk about a few different scenarios and situations, as well as how different types might differ from another. At the end, I would love to read about your perspectives in the comments!
What is OCD?
OCD stands for ‘Obsessive Compulsive Disorder’. According to the NHS, OCD is a mental health condition where a person has repetitive, compulsive thoughts or actions – which then impacts their daily life. How, how much, and why that effects a individual varies person to person.
Some of my Thoughts
I think the biggest thing people seem to forget about it is that it affects everyone differently, mainly due to the stereotype of all people with OCD are spending 14 hours a day cleaning their bathroom. From my experience and understanding, OCD can also include everything right down to the most minute of actions, such as the rumination of thoughts.
Meaning, for example, that if you don’t overthink something, something else bad will happen (regardless of what you’re ruminating about). For me, if I don’t overthink an argument I had with someone, I feel like that’s going to result in them disliking me even more. Despite there being no correlation between the two factors.
And, for me personally, having an argument with someone – usually – helps iron out a few niggling issues in whatever set up. The other person is very unlikely to hate you forevermore. Ironically though, the overthinking leaves you more worn out and exhausted than you were in the first place, leaving you prone to yet more stress (sigh).
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Having said that though, the building up of stress can actually drive you to do something that you’ve been meaning to do. On some occasions, this can have a compounding opposite effect in that then leads you to procrastinate. Then adding to a spiralling rollercoaster of stress. So I try to channel that emotion to then use it in smaller, manageable doses, so it’s energy is constructive rather than destructive. Always turn something perceived as a negative into a positive when you can (practically my motto at this point) – but also learn when and when not this will be effective. (Nobody can be on cloud nine all the time!)
I would say that this idea is not effective when it leads to us putting too much pressure on ourselves.
Taking the idea of turning a negative into a positive, if you have a habit of turning lights on and off a certain number of times before going to bed – as random as the example might be – does that necessarily have to be a bad thing? And I don’t mean that in a detrimental or patronising way at all. It’s just that there seems to be an unspoken (why is so much left unspoken?) expectation that anything which doesn’t fit in with the so – called norm, should either be ‘sorted out’ or ‘fixed’. Why can’t we just let things be? Why do we have such constrictive norms?
It seems that the need to be ‘normal’ can actually have an effect on the compulsivity of your OCD. I hope you can now see a pattern forming? Again, as an OCD sufferer myself, I’m only talking to you about my personal observations. You are entitled to disagree with me – in fact I encourage the discussion (you know me!)
I’ll leave you with that.
– D
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