To want to challenge the myths about OCD?

[LittleMissIntrovert]

As someone who has been suffering with OCD for over 25 years, I would just like to speak up about some of the common misconceptions.

There are different kinds of OCD, it's not just having an imaculate clean house. Some people are hoarders, and some can have a mixture.

I am a hoarder, I struggle to throw things away. I have some piles of clutter in my house, but nowhere near as bad as TV programs would have you believe but I also wash my hands a lot, and am paranoid about germs from raw meat etc.

It's with me every day, and it's very overwhelming. It takes over.

I find it frustrating when people say they are a bit OCD because they have to have all their pegs the same colour for example. I know they don't mean it badly but it really minimizes a serious condition.

If anyone has any questions, or wants to share their experiences, please do.

Hmm. Everytime I read something about OCD, like this thread, or several "things you didn't know" -type articles, it all seems so familar.

I had never thought I might have OCD before, but now I'm wondering. I'm wondering if it's worth pursuing, because I also feel it doesn't impact me as much as I see some people here.

I'm mostly just so relieved I finally have a name to put to intrusive thoughts! I learned about those when someone mentioned that they sometimes can happen in pregnancy/after birth, and I recognised the freaky thoughts I've had my whole life. I remember as a kid I'd be visiting someone's house, and see a knife on their sideboard, and think, "What if I picked that up and stabbed everybody?" and once I thought it I'd just keep thinking it the whole visit, and for ages afterwards if I ever saw a knife. I once told DH one of my intrusive thoughts, and he really freaked. So I haven't done since. What I hate is how they have triggers and it's some simple everyday object that's everywhere, but I thought something scary about it, and each time I see it I rethink that.

duplodon - I know it's not uncommon. It's just that, as the OP points out, it's sooooo common for people to just say they're OCD that it seems likely to be the case with some members of mn too.

Thank you for explaining this. It must be hell living with this. Unimaginable to those of us who haven't experienced it. Threads like this help to educate and should increase understanding.

As for the language - I would ignore it - you cannot control the language others use. At what level do you say that you can "permit" the term to be used?

My DS certainly had a touch of it but I wouldn't use the term. He is dyspraxic and has a cognitive disorder and struggles hugely with things. His anxiety was so bad that it contributed to his having to be taken out of school for a year. (He washed his hands until they bled, he won't eat anything if a fly might have landed on it, he hums the same tune for weeks, he cannot use toilets in certain places, he has rituals - but I don't think it is OCD but some of the symptoms were similar - and he is much better now he is away from school).

Murmuration, I had no idea I had OCD. I thought I had anxiety but had no idea it was OCD until the therapist mentioned it and gave me an assessment to fill in and I scored quite highly on it.

That does sound quite similar. I am always struck by how similar the stories of different people with OCD are, particularly as many people walk around for years thinking that they are the only person who feels like this, and that they are going mad, or that they are evil and want to kill people, or that no-one would understand. I feel really strongly that if we can, we should try to increase understanding of OCD, not to make it more acceptable in society or stop the jokes, but to help the people who are walking around terrified of what is going on inside their heads, and just as terrified about telling anyone else.

When I really broke the worst part of my OCD down, my fear was that I would go irretrievably crazy. I was afraid of contamination because it made me think certain thoughts, and I was afraid if I had the wrong thought at the wrong time, I would start checking things in my head and it would spiral and I would never find my way back (this was slightly based in reality - that particular iteration of my OCD was set off by a PTSD breakdown thingy that was, in turn, set off by flashback intrusive thoughts, and did take quite a while to recover from, and I was terrified of it happening again).

So basically, my OCD was exacerbated by fear of OCD. Which is really bloody scary.

crosspost!

Sorry manic but I don't understand why you 'like' the fact that people are massively misunderstanding a serious mental illness. It makes it seem like you don't fully understand it either.

Those who say that they're 'a bit OCD' are mostly people who like a clean house, for example, not because they think their grandmother will die if they don't polish the mirror until their hands go numb.

OCD means something different for everyone who has it and of course some can have milder symptoms and others, like myself, have more severe symptoms. But OCD isn't something you can be, it's something you have, like any other disorder.

I had ocd about checking things initially and, like you say badtime, walked around with it for perhaps 4 years, getting increasingly bad but unable to tell anybody until I got ME (which took me out of the work environment that was badly exacerbating it), and then the contamination ocd started to rumble away, partly because my life became so limited that I didn't encounter any of the world so nothing was 'natural' any more - if you haven't worn shoes for a month you can start to over think the fact they've been outside and outside is dirty and partly because I couldn't clean, then one day, while under pressure from my mum's broken arm (so loss of support and not being able to stay there for a while), benefits forms, OH assessment I just cracked completely. I was utterly terrified, and the worst of it happened over the bank holiday weekend last august so I couldn't go to the doctors'. The only good thing was that I felt so horribly bad, and so suddenly, that I told my parents and a couple of close friends, who did their best to keep me company while I weathered the storm of crazy. I was alone and housebound and cracking up and it was hell. Luckily my doctor had seen me plod on through 18 months of ME generally with a matter if fact positivity (although I had been starting to get depressed as I discovered when the antidepressants kicked in!) and when I went in sobbing that I was going mad and terrified she went out of her way to get me help as quickly as possible. The worst did burn itself out slowly, thankfully, as the pressure eased, but I was left so scared if I happening again that a lot of safety behaviours started, and those are what I'm breaking down with CBT.

I don't have OCD but I wouldn't be surprised if it did get diagnosed one day. I mentioned do my counsellor once that it would surprise me if I had it and she did nod in agreement. But I am clean and tidy (when my health allows it) and everything in my house does need to be in a certain position. If it isn't I will have to get up and move it else I'll sit and look at it and just get more wound up and unable to focus on anything else. If my health is suffering though (I also have ME) then I have to leave stuff as I don't have the energy. Because of this many friends often say "oh its your OCD" and other such comments which I do find pretty ignorant to the fact that it is such a terrible psychological condition. I find its more of wanting control of my environment due to my early abusive childhood and the lack of control, and the lack of control with having ME. But it could be OCD but if it is I don't feel it's bad enough to do anything about.

I do suffer with unwanted thoughts a lot around losing my children or something terrible happening to them. I find I cannot stop the unwanted scenarios playing out and everything down to people's reactions and funerals will go through my mind which then makes me very upset that I can even think such things and if I can think them then it may make them happen.

I have a friend and we were talking about Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners and she actually said she wished she had OCD. I think I was too gobsmacked to comment.

Very few people think it is something other than liking a clean and tidy house.

I have Pure O, OCD without the compulsions. It manifested itself after I was physically ill with a lot of checking for lumps, then doing it over and over. I don't do that anymore and its most recent form was obsessive thoughts about anxiety and panic and a feeling of dread hanging over me near constantly. I'm ok now and have been for about five months... Fingers crossed.

how do we non sufferers help a friend or relative who suffers from ocd? persuade them not to act out compulsions or collude with compulsions? what else?