To hate the term 'a bit OCD' especially when OH says it!!

[LittleMissGerardButlerfan]

I am probably being over sensitive, but it really irritates me!

It seems a common thing to say now, eg ooh I like all my tins facing the same way I'm a bit OCD.

I know it's good people talk about it and are becoming more aware, but they have no idea how crippling it really is :(

You can't be a bit OCD, if you have it, it takes over your life. I'm lucky in that I can manage and it's under control, although its still there all the time.

My OH just said someone was a bit OCD and I just looked at him, he knows how much I hate the term!

I know I am being unreasonable but I wondered if its just me who hates the term?

I completely agree. People who say it have no idea how debilitating it is. its a horrible horrible condition, that entraps the sufferer in an awful repetitive cycle. Its as if some people think it a 'kind of cool' condition

This made me "lol" because this was the first ever AIBU topic I posted way back when!

I absolutely hate it when people say "oh I'm so OCD!" with a little titter and so on. I feel like screaming in their face TRY FUCKING HAVING THE REAL THING AND THEN SEEING IF ITS ANYTHING REMOTELY SIMILAR YOU TWATBAG.

I've had to start trying to ignore it now and just accept a lot of people are ignorant when it comes to MH because they don't come into contact with it unless its on a channel 4 programme.

Absolutely agree, OP. Me and DH, both of whom have struggled with anxiety and depression were watching a TV show recently where someone described themself as "a bit OCD." Yes, because you lining your shoes up according to colour is really reflective of the way life is for people with a crippling illness, who struggle to leave the bloody house. If any of these people experienced actual OCD for a day, they would not joke about it.

I'm sure your DH isn't being offensive on purpose. Just tell him you can no more be a bit OCD than you can be a bit pregnant!

I am a little bit OCD, without the 60ml Prozac I would be a lot OCD. I do think like most things it is a spectrum. A little bit OCD is a good thing, nice tidy house.

I'm probably going to get flamed for this but i don't 100% agree with you on this. I have various mental health issues myself, and have been told by mh professionals that I have some OCD traits, but I do not have OCD. I fully appreciate that OCD is an awful condition to have, and am not trying to say its not completely debilitating. I am simply saying that some people like myself can be 'a bit OCD'.

Well, you can't be a little bit Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. You can't be Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. That's one of the bits that really niggles me. You can have it or suffer from it but you can't be it. So you can have traits Heffa but you'll never be "a bit OCD".

That's a little pedantic sparkly, and wasn't the OP's issue with using the phrase. The OP's opinion was that you cannot have a little bit of the condition: "You can't be a bit OCD, if you have it, it takes over your life."

I hate this sort of thing as well, but people don't appreciate what the real thing is unless they have encountered it.
For instance, I used to describe myself as having panic attacks when I got a bit anxious, slightly breathless and had to take a minutes breather with a glass of water. Then I had the real deal, hyperventilitating, babbling at a stranger, thing I was going to die.

I am not "a little bit OCD" because there is no such thing, but my therapist has diagnosed me as having OCD traits because I have some very distressing, intrusive, regular thoughts and I have a real issue with certain things eg checking the gas is off, locking the front door. It doesn't ruin my life -although with a less sympathetic partner and employer it might come a lot closer to that. But the fact that it is only minor doesn't mean it isn't worthy of being taken seriously and being treated - and believe me it has taken me a long time to say that.

You can be a bit OC just not the D. When I had therapy for OCD my therapist pointed that out to me and said she felt it was ok to say a bit OCD as its a phrase people now understand and raises awareness, I agree.

YANBU, I hate it.

However, I find it preferable to someone calling themselves 'anal'

Why people cannot say that they are 'particular' or 'fussy', is beyond me.

Not pedantic at all Heffa. On a thread about OCD, its quite relevant to point out that its not a nice way of wording things. OCD is not something I am, its something I suffer from.

And imo, tigold, I think that's kind of wrong of your therapist too. It encourages all the idiots out there who use it to describe having a clean house or a quirk of theirs. It does the opposite of raise awareness of how awful OCD is and just continues the image of it being something quirky and eccentric meaning people who do suffer with OCD and OCD itself aren't taken seriously.

I disagree a bit with you too OP. Lots of people suffer from some traits of OCD, which they manage to control to some extent, whereas for others it really has completely ruined their lives.

That said, the people with any genuine experience of it are unlikely to joke about it in relation to a habit they have which isn't affecting their lives in any way. So I kind of agree with you too.

I have splinters in my arse from sitting n the fence!

I pulled a friend up on this recently. He said something about "I'm just being OCD again!". So I replied quite calmly, "Have you got a diagnosis? It's just that you've mentioned it a few times. It's fine if you have, you know I suffer from a mental illness. But I know OCD includes hallucinations, self harm and difficulty controlling thought processes." He got a bit flustered and said that he hadn't realised it covered all that, he just likes things done in a certain way. He hasn't said it since.

It pisses me off, same as it pisses me off when people say they're 'depressed' and 'fuck my life' over ridiculous things like a takeaway order being messed up - because they have no idea what it is actually like to suffer every day, and sincerely feel that way.

I see what you are saying sparkly, but it's quite a common turn of phrase these days and is probably just used because people wouldn't connect the abbreviation OC with OCD, so wouldn't say someone is 'a bit OC'. I don't think the intention is to ever say someone is the condition.

However, I really do agree that it shouldn't be used as a description when someone is simply being particular, as I totally agree that using it in that situation trivialises the condition.

Yeah you're right, just had a think about this and there have been times, someone has said this, and i think 'no, it's not the same'
Tbf I DO have everything facing the 'right' way and get very distressed if things aren't done a certain way, or a certain number of times but it is very much under control unless i am tired (awful, intrusive thoughts) or very anxious (crippling, going to die, panic attacks)
MY DDad, DBro have it too though and my eldest DS has traits, which were picked up very early, so we've always seen it as a 'family quirk' as opposed to OCD ' the condition !'
In fact i've always been a bit ashamed of it, especially when Doctors wanted me on medication after not wanting to feed my DS for fear of the germs and mess had me in a right state - it scared me into cbt and it was a tough time - so yeah when people downplay it into a tidy house or an even number of cans in the fridge it isn't helpful because they don't know how it can infringe on your life ...

But that's the problem, Heffa. The fact its such a common turn of phrase just highlights how many people are unaware of how serious a condition it can be and that its actually something we suffer from and isn't part of who we are. People do use it to describe their personalities or how picky they are about things so if people who have OCD start doing it too but to describe their actual OCD, it just reinforces the idea that it is a personality thing rather than an illness.

YANBU at all.

OCD is an illness, and it can be very different from the stereotype people imagine, as SirBoobAlot describes.

I agree it's wrong to trivialise something which can be so distressing to sufferers.

Surely there are degrees of OCD? It's not either 'not got it' or 'crippling'?

But surely there are stages. Just like there are stages of conditions like Tourette's.

I have some OCD tendencies. I have been know to turn around and drive 15 miles home as I was sure I left the front door open when we were going to stay at a friends for the weekend. If I hadn't I would have spent the whole weekend on edge.

An ex business partner of mine had a wife who had severe OCD and one of her issues was having to return to the school where she worked on a regular basis because she was sure she had let a child locked in a classroom. She never had. This was similar to me but a lot worse.

But in case you think I am wrong I have asked a psychiatrist the question and the answer is:

Everything is a spectrum and no two people with a diagnosis will be exactly the same due to underlying personality differences. Rather than a full blown OCD type clinical picture a milder variation would probably be classified as an "anankastic" personality trait or disorder.

So I guess some people are a little bit OCD.

It depends what you think you are being unreasonable about. If you think that people are making light of OCD then probably you are not being unreasonable. However, you may find they are anankastic, which is " a little bit OCD"

That's completely fair, as I said I only feel it should be used when a person has OCD traits, not just to describe the way they like things to be neat etc.

Someone may have OCD and suffer from OCD, but it doesn't mean they are OCD, any more than someone "is" any other illness.

Also "a bit OCD" doesn't make sense, because you either have OCD or you don't. It comes in different degrees of severity, but they are all OCD.

I don't think I'm wording what I mean to say well at all. Even someone with OCD traits or full blown OCD shouldn't say "I'm a bit OCD" or "I'm OCD" imo because it lumps in with the people who use it to describe their personality (people who use it instead of words like fussy or picky or quirky to describe themselves or their quirks) and the distinction between a disabling illness and personality quirks become blurred and OCD isn't taken seriously.

I don't think I'm explaining what I mean at all haha

I am going to disagree as well. There are people who have OCD tendencies in certain areas of their life. I live with someone who has been correctly diagnosed with this. In the main it doesnt affect his day to day life too much, but it certainly is possible to be OCD about some things.

Having traits of OCD (i.e being "a bit OCD") is completely different to having and living with the symptoms OCD itself - So yes it does bug me when people use this term so freely and loosely.

I get REALLY bothered when someone who has gone from having a bad da\y, to a good day, back to a bad day says they have been "a bit bipolar" today.

You try living with the stigma, the full blown symptoms, the medication changes and having to spend periods of your life in psychiatric hospitals followed by endless pdoc/cpn appointments etc etc.....

Having a trait of a mental illness? It's just completely incomparable with actually having and managing a mental illness!