You might know some people having weird behaviors and reactions to simple things and sometimes it doesn't matter. The petty compulsions are often overlooked whether its of oneself or another. But did you know that you might have an obsessive compulsive disorder?

Obsessive compulsive disorders have been categorized into 4 and many sub-types. These 4 main types may be observed as checking, contamination/ mental contamination, hoarding and rumination/ intrusive thoughts. There are still many other unpopular OCDs and some of them are more difficult to explain. It is probable than you might have an OCD if you have symptoms distressing and unwanted obsessions and compulsions, that impact significantly on your everyday functioning. Your obsessions and compulsions become alarming when it consume excessive amounts of time and cause significant distress and anguish. This may Interfere with daily functioning at home, school, or work; or interfere with social activities/ family life/relationships.

Types of OCDs

To know which one you may have, we need to situate your problems in the categories of such disorders. We need to understand and analyze the symptoms which are related to you mannerism or behavior.

Checking

It happens when checking becomes a compulsion, an obsessive fear to prevent damage, fire, leaks or harm. This includes activities like:

• Memory (checking ones memory to 'make sure' an intrusive thought is just a thought and didn't really happen).
• Gas or electric stove knobs (fear of causing explosion and therefore the house to burn down).
• Water taps (fear of flooding property and damaging irreplaceable treasured items).
• Door locks (fear of allowing a burglar to break in and steal or cause harm).
• House alarm (fear of allowing a burglar to break in and steal or cause harm).
• Windows (fear of allowing a burglar to break in and steal or cause harm).
• Appliances (fear of causing the house to burn down).
• House lights (fear of causing the house to burn down).
• Car doors (fear of car being stolen).
• Re-reading postal letters and greetings cards before sealing / mailing (fear of writing something inappropriate or offensive).
• Candles (fear of causing the house to burn down).
• Route after driving (fear of causing an accident).
• Wallet or purse (fear of losing important bank cards or documents).
• Illnesses and symptoms online (fear of developing an illness, constant checking of symptoms).
• People – Calling and Texting (fear of harm happening to a loved one).
• Reassurance (fear of saying or doing something to offend or upset a loved one).
• Re-reading words or lines in a book over and over again (fear of not quite taking in the information or missing something important from the text).
• Schizophrenia Symptoms – (fear that OCD is a precursor to Schizophrenia which will cause them to lose control).

If the checking is being carried out multiple times, like sometimes hundreds of times, and for hours on end, this results in the person being late for work, dates and other appointments. It does have a serious impact on a person’s ability to hold down jobs and relationships while also causing damage to objects that are constantly being checked.

Contamination

Have you ever felt the constant urge to clean and washing becomes compulsion. This may be due to the obsessive fear is that something is contaminated and/or may cause illness, and ultimately death, to a loved one or oneself. This type of disorder might be easily identified and may be in the list below:

• Using public toilets (fear of contracting germs from other people).
• Coming into contact with chemicals (fear of contamination).
• Shaking hands (fear of contracting germs from other people).
• Touching door knobs/handles (fear of contracting germs from other people).
• Using public telephones (fear of contracting germs from other people).
• Waiting in a GP’s surgery (fear of contracting germs from other people).
• Visiting hospitals (fear of contracting germs from other people).
• Eating in a cafe/restaurant (fear of contracting germs from other people).
• Washing clothes in a launderette (fear of contracting germs from other people).
• Touching bannisters on staircases (fear of contracting germs from other people).
• Touching poles (fear of contracting germs from other people).
• Being in a crowd (fear of contracting germs from other people).
• Avoiding red objects and stains (fear of contracting HIV/AIDS from blood like stains).
• Clothes (having to shake clothes to remove dead skin cells, fear of contamination).
• Excessive Tooth Brushing (fear of leaving minute remains of mouth disease).
• Cleaning of Kitchen and Bathroom (fear of germs being spread to family).

Here, the cleaning or washing will carried out multiple times often accompanied by rituals of repetitive hand or body washing until the person ‘feels’ it is clean, rather than someone without OCD who will wash or clean once until they ‘see’ they are clean. This takes hours and can have a serious impact on a person’s ability to hold down jobs and relationships and there is also a secondary physical health impact of the constant scrubbing and cleaning on the skin, especially the hands. Such people also avoid entire places if they experienced contamination fears there previously. And you gotta be rich to satisfy such needs as there is also a cost implication of the constant use and purchase of cleaning products, and also of items (especially electrical) that are damaged through excessive liquid damage.

Mental contamination

Though mental contamination share some qualities with contact contamination but yet have some distinctive features. The feelings of mental contamination can be evoked by times when an individual fesels badly treated, physically or mentally, through critical or verbally abusive remarks. They feel like they are made of dirt and disgust, which creates a feeling of internal uncleanliness albeit the absence of any physical contact with a dangerous/dirty object. The distinctive feature of mental contamination is that the source is almost always human whereas the contact contamination that is caused by physical contact with inanimate objects. Such people will engage in repetitive and compulsive attempts to wash the dirt away by showering and washing which is where the similarities with traditional contamination OCD return.

Hoarding

Another obsession long considered to be part of ‘OCD’ is the inability to discard useless or worn out possessions, commonly referred to as ‘hoarding’, which is common among the elderly. In the past it was suggested that hoarding, as a subtype of OCD, may be less responsive to treatment than other forms but as a result of more recent research, and due to a greater understanding of this problem, there is now significant evidence to suggest that treatment can be just as effective for this type of OCD, as with others.

Ruminations

Rumination is known to encapsulate all obsessional intrusive thoughts, but this is not accurate as in the context of OCD, a rumination is actually a train of prolonged thinking about a question or theme that is undirected and unproductive. Ruminations are not objectionable and are indulged rather than resisted, unlike obsessional thoughts.

Most of the ruminations dwell on religious, philosophical, or metaphysical topics, such as the origins of the universe, life after death, the nature of morality, and so on. In this case the person dwells on the time-consuming question like: 'Is everyone basically good?' and would ruminate on this for a long period of time, going over in their mind various considerations and arguments, and contemplating what superficially appeared to them to be compelling evidence.
There exists people that ruminates about what would happen to them after death and they would tend to weigh up the various theoretical possibilities, visualize scenes of heaven, hell, and other worlds and try to remember what philosophers and scientists have said about death.

And trust me, most ruminations never leads to a solution or satisfactory conclusion and leaves the person to be deeply pre-occupied, very thoughtful, and detached.

Intrusive thoughts

Intrusive thoughts, as type of OCD, are where a person generally suffers with obsessional thoughts that are repetitive, disturbing and often horrific and repugnant in nature and these may be thoughts of causing violent or sexual harm to loved ones. Due to the fact that the intrusive thoughts are repetitive and not voluntarily produced, they cause the sufferer extreme distress asthe very idea that they are capable of having such thoughts in the first place can be horrifying.

But let's point out, what we do know is that people with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder are the least likely people to actually act on the thoughts, partly because they find them so repugnant and go to great lengths to avoid them and prevent them happening. Intrusive thoughts can be linked any subject, but the more common areas of OCD related concerns covers the following sub- categories:

• Relationships.
• Sexual Thoughts - Fear of:
• Magical Thinking - believing that:
• Religious - believing that:
• Violent Thoughts - fear of:

Relationship Intrusive Thoughts

This may be identified when there are obsessive doubts over the suitability or sustainability of a relationship, one’s partner or one's own sexuality are the main focus for the obsessional thoughts. Obsessional thoughts are stereotypically:

• Constantly analyzing the depth of feelings for one's partner, placing the partner and the relationship under a microscope and finding fault.
• Constantly needing to seek reassurance and approval from one's partner.
• Doubts that one's partner is being faithful.
• Doubts that one may cheat on their partner.
• Questioning one’s own sexuality, and having feelings, thoughts and impulses about being attracted to members of the same sex.

This constant analyzing and questioning of the relationship and of your partner often places immense strain on the relationship and the result is a person with OCD will often end the relationship to rid themselves of the doubt and anxiety.

Body focussed obsessions (Sensorimotor OCD)

This is due to an hyperawareness of particular bodily sensations and it is sometimes called sensorimotor obsessions. Symptoms include:

• Breathing, obsession over whether breathing is shallow or deep, or the focus is on some other sensation of breathing.
• Blinking, an obsessive fixation on blinking.
• Eye floaters/visual distractions, an obsessive fixation on eye floaters.
• Swallowing/salivation, focussing on how frequently one swallows, the amount of salivation produced, or the sensation of swallowing itself.
• Awareness of specific body parts, for example perception of the side of one’s nose while trying to read.

The Body focussed obsessions OCD should not be confused with Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) where the obsession is more about perceived defects with body parts.

Sexual Intrusive Thoughts

These are obsessive thoughts of unintentionally causing inappropriate sexual harm (i.e. to children) unintentionally, or the constant questioning of one’s own sexuality are the main focuses for these obsessional doubts. Such obsessional thoughts can include:

• Fearing being a paedophile and being sexually attracted to children.
• Fearing being sexually attracted to members of one's own family.
• Fearing being attracted to members of the same sex (homosexual OCD) or for those who are gay fear of being attracted to members of the opposite sex.
• Thoughts about touching a child inappropriately.
• Intrusive sexual thoughts about God, saints or, religious figures.
• The constant analysing and questioning of one’s own sexual preferences, or the thought of being attracted to a child, are perhaps two of the most mentally disturbing aspects of OCD and, because of the nature of the thoughts, many sufferers are reluctant to seek help from health professionals, fearing they may be labelled.

The person that experiences these types of intrusive thoughts would like to avoid public places, like shopping centres, in an attempt to avoid coming into close contact with children or even avoid spending time with younger members of the family. Unfortunately, a parent with this form of the illness could avoid bathing and hugging their own children which can lead to emotional distress for both children and parent.

Magical Thinking Intrusive Thoughts

It is the fear is that even thinking about something bad will make it more likely to happen and it is sometimes also called ‘thought-action fusion’. The sufferers are beset by intrusive bad thoughts and they also try to dispel them by performing rituals. These magic rituals are often bizarre and time-consuming and involve linking actions or events that could not possibly be related to each other. An example, like having the thought 'I may strangle someone' is regarded as being as reprehensible as actually strangling a person or believing that simply imagining a horrific car crash will increase the likelihood of such a crash taking place, or a person may feel that if they don’t count to ten ‘just right’ harm will come to a family member. This is easily observed through thoughts like:

• A certain colour or number has good or bad luck associated with it.
• Certain days have good or bad luck associated with them.
• A loved one’s death can be predicted.
• One’s thoughts can cause disasters to occur.
• Stepping on cracks in the pavement can make bad things happen.
• Whatever comes to mind can come true.
• Breaking chain letters will actually bring bad luck.
• Attending a funeral will bring death.
• One can inadvertently cause harm to others with thoughts or carelessness.
• Hearing the word ‘death’ will mean repeating the word ‘life’ to prevent death.

These thoughts and events happening could not possibly ever be linked, but the person with OCD will believe that this possibility does exist, and as a result, this will cause them immense stress and anxiety. Thus, their silent internal compulsive behaviors will take hours, and often prevent them interacting with anyone else during this time.

Religious Intrusive Thoughts

This OCD often fixates on areas of great importance and sensitivity and religion and matters of religious practice are prime candidates for OCD obsessions. It may be referred to as scrupulosity, religious intrusive thoughts include:

• Sins committed will never be forgiven by God and one will go to hell.
• One will have bad thoughts in a religious building.
• One will scream blasphemous words loudly in a religious location.
• Prayers have been omitted or recited incorrectly.
• Certain prayers must be said over and over again.
• Religious objects need to be touched or kissed repeatedly.
• One is always doing something sinful.
• Repetitive blasphemous thoughts.
• That the person has lost touch with God or their beliefs in some way.
• Intrusive sexual thoughts about God, saints or, religious figures.
• That the person has broken religious laws concerning speech, or dress or modesty.
• Intrusive bad thoughts that occur during prayer will contaminate and ruin or cancel out the value of these activities.

Constant analyzing and questioning of a person’s faith places immense strain on their beliefs and prevents the person deriving peace from their religion and often result in avoidance of church and all religious practices.

Violent Intrusive Thoughts

These are obsessive fears of carrying out violent acts against loved ones or other people and these intrusive thoughts include:

• Violently harming children or loved ones.
• Killing innocent people.
• Using kitchen knives and other sharp objects (compulsion will include locking away knives and sharp objects).
• Jumping in front of a train or fast moving bus.
• Poisoning the food of loved ones (compulsion will include avoiding cooking for family).
• Acting on unwanted impulses, e.g. running someone over, stabbing someone.
• Thoughts about accidentally touching someone inappropriately, with the aim of hurting them.

The sufferers with these types of fears often end up labelling themselves as a bad person, simply for having the thoughts and they falsely believe that having the thoughts mean they are capable of acting upon them. Thus, the constant analyzing and questioning of these disturbing aspects of OCD becomes incredibly upsetting and because of the nature of the thoughts many sufferers are reluctant to open up to health professionals to seek help, fearing they may be labelled.

Such people will avoid public places like shopping centres and other places, where social interaction may be required, to avoid coming into close contact with people that may trigger the obsessive thoughts.

Symmetry and Orderliness

Basically, it is the need to have everything lined up symmetrically just ‘right’ is the compulsion, the obsessive fear might be to ensure everything feels ‘just right’ to prevent discomfort or sometimes to prevent harm occurring (see Magical Thinking). Some examples are:

• Having everything neat and in its place at all times.
• Having pictures hanging aligned and straight.
• Having canned food items all facing the same way, usually forward.
• Having clothes on the rail all hanging perfectly and facing the same way.
• Having everything spotless, with no marks or smudges on windows and surfaces.
• Having books lined up perfectly in a row on a bookshelf.

The sufferers would spend a lot of time trying to get the symmetry ‘just right’ and this time consuming checking can result in them being extremely late for work and appointments. So, they may also become mentally and physically drained if the compulsions take a considerable amount of time. These people may also avoid social contact at home to prevent the symmetry and order being disrupted which can have a negative impact on social interaction and relationships.

Now, this is not a complete list or detail information about the OCDs, but we rather summarized it for better understanding. I hoped that you are not having any of these disorders and if you do, i hope you're coping well with them. In case you have discovered that you have symptoms of a disorder, please try getting help of a psychologist and don't look up medicines online to consume without your doctor's approval. Last but not least, belated happy new year to you all, steemians. Stay safe.

Source:
ocduk.org