OCD Basics 1: What is OCD?

My first blog post!

Periodically I’ll be adding thoughts, suggestions and resources. To start, I’ll just be mirroring my first few instagram posts.

OCD has two “sides”: Obsessions and Compulsions.

Obsessions

When talking about OCD, an obsession refers to any intrusive, unwanted and repetitive thought or image. In this context, obsessions are “ego-dystonic”, meaning they don’t fit with your personal values, and the occurrence of these thoughts is annoying or upsetting.

So while you might be “obsessed” with records or sneakers, these interests are likely “ego-syntonic,” meaning they fit with what you value and who you want to be. They’re not experienced as unpleasant or distressing.

Compulsions

Compulsions are any actions a person does to get relief from the content of the obsessions. These actions can be overt, physical actions like washing, arranging, tapping, or averting one’s gaze.

Or they can be covert, mental actions like counting, suppressing, or neutralizing thoughts with more positive ones. A person my also excessively ruminate, analyzing situations in order to “get an answer.”

Diagnosis

In order to meet criteria for OCD, a person must experience distress from their obsessions and/or compulsions and there must be some impairment of normal functioning. So for instance, being very tidy is not OCD if being clean and organized is important or appealing to you (not distressing), and not unless you can’t leave the house, you’re often late to work, or your friends are regularly complaining about how it’s hard to be in your space (impairing functioning).

This is why many people who struggle with OCD find “I’m so OCD about x” comments to be invalidating, because the disorder can actually be terrifying and debilitating. But more on that later.

Here is a much longer and more informative page about OCD basics: https://iocdf.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/What-You-Need-To-Know-About-OCD.pdf