What is OCD?
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or OCD is a serious anxiety related disorder (see our pages on anxiety) and young people experiencing OCD may have obsessions about something, followed by repetitive compulsions or urges to do something. If you have OCD you might get horrible thoughts in your mind such as something awful happening to your family, and urges to do rituals like repeated hand washing, counting things or repeating the same action to try and make things better or stop this horrible thing from happening.
OCD is made up of three parts – 1. Obsessions, the thoughts that make you feel anxious, 2. Anxiety and 3. the Compulsions or things you do to reduce the anxiety such as the rituals.
Obsessions
The obsessions may be thoughts or worries that you may get a disease or that something will happen to someone close to you. You may have horrible pictures spring into your mind such as something happening to yourself or your family or you doing something awful such as stabbing someone. You have constant doubts over yourself and may strive for perfection and insist that things are done in a certain way ie you may want to have your books lined up in a particular way.
Anxiety
You may feel anxious, tearful, depressed, scared, worried, guilty, disgusted or tense. Carrying out the rituals makes you feel better for a short time.
Compulsions
You may carry out rituals, like obsessive hand washing or arranging things in a certain way or repeatedly touching things or counting. You might constantly check things like all electrical appliances are switched off before you leave the house. You may try to make up for the bad thoughts you are having by having good thoughts, or saying prayers and repeating a special word over and over again. You may avoid things that worry you and you may hoard things that are not useful but you just can’t throw them away.
People with OCD know that their thoughts and feelings are irrational but believe the only way to ease the anxiety is to carry out the rituals.
Nice is the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence and it makes recommendations to healthcare professionals about different types of treatment. It says that it is thought that between 1-2 per cent of the population have OCD although some studies have estimated at between 2 and 3 per cent.
OCD may be inherited and run in the family, it may be caused by stress or life changes or it could be an imbalance of the chemical serotonin in the brain. It can also be down to your personality, if you are naturally a neat and tidy person you may be more likely to experience OCD.
Around one in 50 people experience OCD and they may have quite mild symptoms or the disorder may be quite serious and prevent them getting on with things in everyday life. It affects men and women equally. It is a serious condition but also very treatable.
See our next section for further help on OCD.