OCD Treatment

Are you tormented by the pressures of obsessive compulsive disorder?

Do you have to run your life around seemingly pointless repetitive rituals and behaviors in order to get any peace of mind?

People who have never experienced obsessive compulsive disorder find it very hard to understand - or accept. They can't understand why you can't just not count to a hundred, wash your hands for the fortieth time, open and shut the door in precisely that way - or whatever your compulsion is. The trouble is - you can't understand it either. You only know that the feeling that you've got to do it is overwhelmingly powerful.

Getting OCD treatment

If OCD has taken over you life completely and is causing you significant problems and distress, you should seek professional help. But there are also steps you can take yourself, alongside such help. The main thing is to understand that it's not so important to know why you have these compulsions as to understand what is happening when you feel them, and how to deal with it.

The basics of obsessive compulsive disorder

Typically OCD involves experiencing obtrusive incessant worrying thoughts about something, and then developing behaviors that are an attempt to eliminate those thoughts. The thoughts may have a rational basis (did I lock the door?), or be nothing to do with the real world (the misalignment of my shoes means that I am in danger). Whether they are rational or irrational, they induce high levels of anxiety.

You already know that rational explanations do not help. You know (for example) that the position of shoes on the floor has no inherent meaning. But the feeling of danger is more powerful than this knowledge, and so you meticulously place them in exactly the right orientation to relieve that feeling, at least temporarily.

So essentially what is happening is that a strong negative arousal (anxiety, guilt, worry) has become associated with a certain trigger. When you are in the 'trigger' situation, you automatically experience the arousal. Rationality and choice do not come into it. It's as if your brain has been 'programmed' to react like this. And this is true.