Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Is No Joke
Obsessive compulsive disorder has NO known cure; so what are you here for then?
Let me ask you a question first.
You are carrying 20 kilos of baggage on your back and you cannot unload it. But you have the option to make it lighter by 10–15 kilos.
Would you not choose that?
You know, curing OCD by 100 percent(definitely not impossible) sounds rather rare doesn’t it? But trust me, I have never realized that applying these strategies would make my days feel significantly less stressful — until now!
OCD And Its 4 Symptoms
1 in 40 adults in the U.S suffer from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder — BBC health statistics.
Just so you know, Obsessive compulsive disorder is a mental disorder in which people have a lot of recurring and unwanted thoughts that drives them to perform an action repeatedly.
Here is a list consisting of four common symptoms OCD patients show very often.
1. Fear of Contamination
This involves showing excessive concern for contamination, illness. Patients often fear contaminants that are not just limited to regular dirt but blood, household chemicals, sticky substances and much more. Not to mention, consistently disinfecting hands, clothes and other personal belongings after every few minutes is a must for them.
Have you ever read Turtles All the Way Down by John Green?
Aza, the girl who drinks antiseptic liquids to prevent C.difficile infection from her gut bacteria is actually suffering from this OCD.
2. Consistent Doubts of accidental harm
Someone with such obsession is actually referred to as the “Checker”.
Individual suffering from this type of OCD experience intrusive imaginations leading to tremendous fear of disaster.
For instance, fear of forgetting to turn of the stove before going to bed as a result, your house might catch fire leading to the death of your loved ones. These fears severely promote the level of stress hormones. At the same time, forces them to repetitively perform a task to ensure complete prevention of the perceived dangerous consequences.
There is this movie Silver Lining Playbook where Pat Sr.(dad of Pat) considers his son the lucky charm; forcing him to watch the game together because he hunches otherwise his team shall lose.
That’s the OCD we are talking about!
3. Unacceptable thoughts
This version of OCD might sound similar to the previous one to some extent but as a matter of fact, it is much different and more threatening to the well being of one’s mental state.
Such OCD patients have excessive obsession to socially unacceptable thoughts that are always intrusively engaging their mind, thus violating their morals.
Example includes molesting a child, blasphemous thoughts about religious belief or a sudden urge to commit any sort of violent activity.
4. Finding difficulty with arranging, symmetry and/or counting
This is the most common type of OCD among people. In other words, these people are called “Perfectionist”.
They are obsessed with how they can manage ordering or symmetry of an object in the most perfect manner. As a result, compulsive behavior engage them into repetitively organizing objects. Opposing such behavior results in a feeling of incompleteness.
On the other hand, it is not just their unwanted thirst of perfection but, Magical Thinking that forces them to behave like that. Magical thinking gives certain hope of luck or fear of danger depending on the patient’s action.
For instance, if the patient fail to align his pens in the right order, he might fear failing a class test.
How Am I Treating Myself Using Cognitive Behavior Therapy(CBT)?
First thing first, if you do not know what CBT is; Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) is among the most effective treatments for OCD , which naturally incorporate elements of Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) method.
You must be wondering how on earth can you afford all that time, energy, not to mention money for a therapist; after all its a year of financial crisis for most of us.
But hey, what if I say you can perform this therapy by yourself at HOME?
I ain’t joking, because Seth J. Gillihan, a licensed psychologist and Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania has his approval all the way!
“If you’ve wanted to try CBT for anxiety or depression but aren’t able to see a CBT therapist, you may not need to. Many studies have found that self-directed CBT can be very effective”. — Seth J. Gillihan
So how exactly does this therapy work?
Basically you have to willingly expose yourself to those specific thoughts, objects or incidents that trigger your obsession. At the same time, Response prevention part comes in where the patient has to deliberately convince himself/herself to avoid compulsive behavior based on the exposure.
Its cool and all that you can do it by yourself, but the process sounds terribly complicated does not it? Do not fear as I am breaking down this whole thing on how I perform self-directed CBT so that you have a better understanding.
Let me first state one of my most frequent OCD symptoms. When I am walking down a narrow road, I visualize it in three straight portions; left, middle, right. I have a feeling that if I don’t walk on the rightmost side of the road, something unfortunate might happen to me (refer to the 4th symptom, magical thinking).
I take a few seconds, close my eyes, focus on my thoughts and make a self-commitment that no matter what I am not letting my compulsive behavior make me do some weird sh*t. I start walking down the same road listening to some hard rock music or chilling along my friends. Sooner or later I realize that I have unknowingly passed it. I am consistently practicing this and one thing I can see for sure is that the more I expose myself to my fears the more I grow my mental strength.
I definitely won’t say that I have grown to be perfect and OCD-free by now. I am still fighting more or less every day. But what I can say is that, if I can feel a lot better by now, YOU WILL.
I don’t think I can fight this alone. If you are one such victim as well, then please share how are you tackling this; cause we’re in this together!
Here goes a little inspiration for you, take love.
