What are obsessions?
OCD is a mental health condition characterised by intrusive thoughts and repetitive behaviours that take up an excessive amount of time and interfere with a person’s daily life.
People with OCD suffer from obsessions, which are persistent and intrusive thoughts, images, urges, perceptions, or mental experiences that cause distress or anxiety. These obsessions can range from worries about contamination by germs in the physical environment to thoughts about violence or something else that a person finds unpleasant. To cope with the experience of obsessions, people with OCD may develop “compulsions”, which are repetitive behaviours or mental acts that the person feels driven to perform in order to reduce obsessive anxiety. For example, a person with OCD might have an obsession about germs associated with a fear of contracting a disease or of “never being clean again”. To cope with this anxious distress when they are experiencing an obsessive worry, they may engage in ritualistic compulsions such as excessive hand-washing or cleaning to relieve their distress. Though cleaning and personal hygiene are important to everyone for self-care, the cleaning rituals due to OCD are out of proportion to the need for cleanliness and distressing or harmful to the person. These rituals might take up so much time that they interfere with daily life as well.
Other common compulsions include counting, checking, arranging objects in a particular way, thought blocking, reassurance seeking, researching, monitoring, and idiosyncratic movements of the body. These types of rituals associated with OCD can be incredibly disruptive to a person’s life, and also work to maintain the fear and anxiety associated with an obsessive worry.
It is important to note that while everyone experiences intrusive thoughts from time to time, something which is expected and normal, those with OCD suffer from an impossible expectation of themselves that they can control and protect themselves from thoughts by performing ritualistic behaviours or acts. The process can quickly spiral to the point that their pursuit of thought control and avoidance of risk entirely begins to significantly interfere with their daily functioning and amplifies the distress of their thoughts.
If you think you may be suffering from OCD, it is important to seek professional help. Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy (ERP) and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is the most effective form of treatment for OCD and can help people learn to cope with their obsessions and compulsions. With the right treatment, people with OCD can often lead more productive and fulfilling lives.