Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) affects approximately 2% of the population and usually onsets in childhood or adolescence. People with OCD experience unwanted thoughts, images, or impulses that cause anxiety or distress. These intrusive thoughts can be about a lot of different themes, but some common examples include:
- Having a sudden image of pushing a friend into traffic and thinking this makes you a bad person or increases the chances of actually doing it
- Holding a handrail on the subway and worrying that you will be contaminated and make yourself or others ill
- Noticing that the objects on your desk are not parallel to each other and feeling uncomfortable
People with OCD almost always engage in compulsions to try and get rid of or neutralize their intrusive thoughts and related distress. Compulsions are repetitive, tend to be quite time-consuming, and interfere with important activities or responsibilities. People with OCD also avoid situations they fear will trigger their obsessions. Examples of compulsions include:
- Walking in front of your friend on the sidewalk instead of beside them, running through a mental list of all of the good things you have done to prove you’re not a bad person, or repetitively checking the road to be sure you haven’t pushed someone into traffic
- Using hand sanitizer excessively, keeping your hands in fists so you don’t contaminate your clothes or bag, or washing your hands for a long time or in a ritualized order
- Rearranging the items on your desk so they are all parallel to each other and you get a “just right” feeling