My experience with OCD

When you think of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), you likely think of people who have an urge to keep things tidy, clean, and organized. While this is one of the common things that people with OCD have, it is by no means all that OCD is about. OCD is much more than you might think.

I hate it when people say things like this: 'Oh my gosh, I'm so OCD! I've had to check my alarm like two times before I was able to fall asleep tonight!' or 'Yeah, I'm gonna need you to be a bit more OCD about this.' None of this is really OCD. When society trivializes OCD in this way, it belittles the experience and severity of OCD and the serious difficulties that people with OCD have in their daily life. So, if you say things like this, you most likely don't actually have OCD.

A little over 1.1% to 1.8% of the global population struggles with OCD. That's way less common than most anxiety disorders, so statistically speaking, you probably don't have OCD.

While OCD isn't that common, it is a very serious problem. About half the people who have OCD experience severe impairment from it. This means that everything from everyday things like going to the bathroom, returning phone calls and messages, going around town, and being around people can be difficult or even impossible.

OCD is a biological problem and is not a choice or a preference. While science is not completely sure about what causes OCD, there is a growing body of evidence that suggests that it is a complex disorder with a combination of genetic, biological, and environmental factors. for me it started in childhood and got a lot worse during the teenage and young adult years.

The neuroscience here can get really complicated, but to summarize, the parts of the brain that are responsible for rewards, error detection, movement, and memories aren't really communicating all that well with each other. Because brain in people with OCD is wired a little bit differently, I'm unsure if a simple task is complete or not. For most people, when they turn off a light switch, their brain registers that the task is complete and they're able to move forward with their life. But for me, when I flip a light switch, there's still some anxiety and uncertainty in my mind whether the task is complete or not. My mind tries to make sense of that anxiety, so it creates a story around it like: 'Well, maybe I didn't turn it off all the way because there's some dust stuck in there, and if I don't do this again, well, maybe something bad could happen, like an electrical fire and the whole house might burn down.' This is what our brain does so well: it creates narratives and stories to make sense out of the chaos of the world. Except in the case of OCD, it's trying to make sense of anxiety that doesn't need to be there in the first place.

This is why I experience thoughts, images, and impulses that don't make much sense and are very hard to get out of my head. That's the 'O' in OCD: Obsession. Obsessions can include anything, for example: contamination, unwanted urges, sexual thoughts, religious thoughts, suicidal thoughts, questioning the reality of the world, causing harm, horrific images, self-harm, sounds, reassurance, hoarding, repeating words in the mind, thinking 'neutralizing' thoughts to counteract the obsessive thoughts, fear of impending doom or that something bad will happen, and fear of death.

To try to reduce anxiety from obsessions, I engage in compulsions. Compulsions can include anything from: checking, washing, counting, repeating, following strict rules, ordering or arranging things, tapping, and engaging in rituals triggered by religious fear. It's usually doing something over and over again like a ritual until it feels right and reassuring and complete. This does reduce anxiety for a little bit, but eventually that anxiety comes back, over and over again, over some other things or the same things.

This brings us to the defining element of OCD, Doubt, People with OCD get consumed by doubt, doubt becomes something that is so hard to get out of your head that it stars spinning these narratives that keep us feeling trapped, "Did I do that the right way? What if I didn't?", "Was that really a bump on the road or did I just run some animal over?", "Is this world really real or is this all a simulation and what's the point?", "Did I touch the counter at that store? does that mean I have AIDS now?", "Did I say that prayer the right way? Am I going to hell now?", "I nee to keep doing this until it feels right, I need to say the right numbers until it feels right, that doesn't feel right, I need to do it again, I need to do it again, I need to do it again", the doubt OCD creates takes up so much time from your day and it makes it so hard to do the most basic things, and it exhaust us so much. This doubt can end up creeping into every aspect of your life, consume your life and make it so hard to get even the most basic things done.