About OCD

Courtesy of Mental Health America

If Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder were just about wanting things neat, the terror that sufferers experience on a regular basis would seem rather odd, wouldn't it? Well, I'm here to tell you that wanting your books in order is not "so OCD."

I have had people, even in clinical settings with psychological diagnoses of their own, tell me about "their OCD." A bipolar woman once told me "my OCD needs things to be straight." I wondered if she had a pet dog named OCD that would organize her books. I had another woman who was being treated for a variety of addictions tell me that her need to clean the common area of a mental hospital was because she is "wicked OCD." I had to wonder then if OCD was a descriptive characteristic like blue eyes or red hair. It couldn't have possibly been because mental patients aren't the neatest bunch and she didn't want to look at empty milk cartons everywhere any more than I did, and that's not even "my OCD thing."

Anyway, what you think you know about OCD may very well be wrong, so read some stuff below and find out the truth.

Definitions/Descriptions of OCD: 

"Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder" from NAMI

"Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)" from ADAA

"Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)" from the Mayo Clinic