You leave the house, locking the front door behind you. Then you wonder: Did I turn the oven off? Or the iron?
It’s perfectly natural to want to double-check something. Everyone double checks things sometimes. But with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), you feel an overwhelming desire to check things all the time. You may even have a routine or ritual you go through. These thoughts or rituals, when tied to OCD, can prevent you from leading a meaningful life.
When you have OCD, you:
- Have recurring thoughts or fears about various things, like diseases, dirt, violent or sexual people or behaviours, religious conflicts, neatness, safety/security, or social embarrassment or are preoccupied with regularity, evenness, uniformity, and consistency.
- Performing the same actions repeatedly, like hand washing, securing doors, counting numbers, hoarding items, or repeating process steps.
- Have uncontrollable thoughts or actions.
- Don’t like performing these behaviours, but may experience a brief respite from the anxiety.
- Spend at least an hour daily performing these behaviours and may find them interfering with your daily life.
“Obsessions” describes these frequent upsetting thoughts. “Compulsions” summarizes what sufferers do to control the obsessions. When you have OCD, you can’t control the obsessions nor the compulsions. In fact, the obsessions often end up controlling you.
If you suspect you have OCD, talk to a licensed medical practitioner about your symptoms. You may have to undergo some tests and exams, or a referral to a mental health specialist, to conclusively determine OCD. They may do an exam to make sure that another physical problem isn’t causing the symptoms.
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