What is obsessive compulsive disorder yahoo answers

There are physical symptoms, too, such as severe fatigue, restlessness, lack of concentration, insomnia, avoiding certain foods, and nausea. How do you know if you have OCD? Symptoms include irrational fears and unwanted thoughts involving sex, religion or aggression, excessive cleaning, compulsive counting, repeatedly checking things, completing tasks in a specific order every time, etc.

Common compulsions can include washing, cleaning, checking, repeating, counting, arranging things in a particular order, hoarding, praying, retracing past memories, and seeking reassurance.

Obsessions can manifest in unpredictable ways, not just as the hand-washing behavior most of us have seen in the movies or on TV. In children, OCD often co-occurs with separation anxiety, school refusal, tics, behavioral disruption or oppositional defiance, ADHD, and autism.

For example, generalized anxiety disorder GAD can often be confused with OCD in the sense that both conditions involve experiencing intense anxiety. The difference between GAD and OCD is that OCD involves involuntary, intrusive thoughts that are often irrational along with compulsions that serve as relief from these thoughts. Someone who has GAD, on the other hand, usually will have intense worries and anxiety about everyday life without specific compulsive behaviors to gain relief.

Someone with OCD can appear unfocused, forgetful, and have impaired ability to make decisions because obsessions and compulsions can be extremely distracting. Imagine needing all the pencils and papers on your desk to be aligned perfectly before starting a paper, for example. That would take a lot of time and would certainly be distracting! The difference is that a person with OCD will often be extremely cautious and need to perform rituals according to a specific set of rules, whereas someone with ADHD is generally more impulsive and struggles to focus on details.

A sufferer is no longer able to function. OCD can get so bad that the sufferer begins to avoid family, friends, social experiences—everything. What the audience sees is just the external behavioral presentation of the compulsions—for example, they see a character going back and forth, repeating themselves, or acting in quirky ways.

What we do know is that it has to do with a chemical imbalance involving serotonin in the brain. Although OCD does run in families and genes play a role, environmental factors such as having an illness or undergoing stress also contribute to the onset of OCD. More signs include withdrawal from social situations, repeated thoughts of death, and feelings of hopelessness. Getting treatment as soon as possible for OCD is crucial.

At any age, however, seeking help from an OCD specialist is crucial because OCD is a treatable mental illness and can be overcome. This is not simply the traditional talk therapy or play therapy. Like any new skill, you will learn by practicing CBT to discredit distorted thinking patterns so that your thoughts will reflect reality more accurately.

A patient going through ERP treatment will be introduced to exposures to the thoughts, images, or fears that trigger anxiety and start the cycle of compulsions. Getting treatment is an important step for those living with serious OCD, but breaking down the stigma is too. Mattu notes the importance of looking at the big picture. There is hope. Pete Davidson broke the ice surrounding borderline personality disorder — an expert brings you the facts.

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Available in more than 20 colors, these luxe, anti-pilling sheets fit mattresses up to 18 inches thick. Thousands of shoppers use the organic serum to battle age spots, dark circles, fine lines and more. OCD is a matter of degree, especially since there are real-world risks associated with nearly all obsessive-compulsive triggers. Houses do burn down, and hands do carry germs. If the anxiety is so great it consumes your thoughts and disrupts your day, you may have a problem. There are proven treatments available for OCD.

Medications, including certain antidepressants, are often a big part of the solution, but psychotherapy—especially cognitive behavioral therapy CBT —can be just as effective. As the name suggests, ERP involves gradual exposure to increasingly provocative situations—under the guidance of a therapist—while avoiding any rituals to undo the anxiety.

Begin by touching a doorknob without washing your hands, for example, progress up the ladder of perceived danger—a handrail on a bus, a faucet in a public bathroom—and slowly the brain unlearns the fear. Until I saw this.

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These can be relatively trivial and difficult to notice. I watched a friend throw salt over her shoulder three times before she cooked for more than a year. But before she told me the ritual related to her OCD, I assumed she was just superstitious. But the compulsions can also be debilitating. Goodman describes patients who end up housebound, unshowered, and with uncut fingernails because they're avoiding germs in the water and outdoors. Willian Doan. Doan said that he feels OCD, along with anxiety, in his body before it translates into a mental experience.

The sensation begins in his chest, where the diaphragm sits and the bones of the rib cage join together. He feels vibrations, and a tightening feeling, and his breathing getting more shallow. It's vibratory, that's the best word I have for it," he said. Those vibrations the signs of either a panic attack coming on or a period of heightened symptoms that can last for days. When that happens, he has a series of coping mechanisms he can engage. He meditates. He goes for long walks.

He makes art — some of it is illustrating this article — to express the wordless sensation of the illness. And while she only figured out the socks 10 or so years in, she also just knows my personality. And she is really sensitive to when I might be moving into a phase of heightened anxiety. She'll suggest he go somewhere quiet for a couple days to cope, or go for a long drive, or close himself in his art studio.

Similarly, he said his close collaborators in his theatrical work have a habit of using humor to help break him out of obsessive-compulsive loops. While Doan's experience may be fairly typical as far as OCD goes, the illness has no single common form. Blair Simpson, a clinician, researcher and professor at the Columbia University Medical Center, said that while OCD may be easy to define, in practice it can be hard to recognize and diagnose. That's because the symptoms follow certain stereotyped patterns.

But any two people with OCD will likely have very different experiences. Some people live with fears of contamination 1 or harm 2. They might worry that something will damage or contaminate their bodies. Or they might fear hurting or infecting their loved ones.

These forms of OCD tend to associate with cleansing and checking rituals. Others people feel compelled to do things "just so" 3. I spoke to one person who feels paralyzed when he can't figure out which parking spot lies closer to his door at work. Another walks into stores to clutch every garment on her favorite rack until the ritual abates. Then there are people who struggle with "kept thoughts" 4. These are "immoral" thoughts or urges that contradict the deeply held beliefs of people who live with them, like a religious Jew constantly imagining eating a pig.

And a final group struggles with hoarding 5 , although researchers now consider that a somewhat separate disorder. We have patients who think California is contaminated.