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Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) Approximately five million people in the U.S., or about one in every 50 Americans, suffer from OCD. That’s about 2%, a substantial number of sufferers. It affects men, women, and children, as well as people of all races, religions, and socioeconomic backgrounds.
OCD is an anxiety disorder characterized by symptoms that can include powerful, unwanted, or recurrent thoughts and/or compulsive, repetitive behaviors.
Some of the most common obsessions are:
Fear of contamination
Fear of causing harm to another
Fear of making a mistake
Fear of behaving in a socially unacceptable manner
Need for symmetry or exactness
Excessive doubt
Some of the most common compulsions may include:
Cleaning/Washing
Checking
Arranging/Organizing
Collecting/Hoarding
Counting/Repeating
Obsessions are unwanted, recurrent and unpleasant thoughts that cause anxiety. Compulsions are repetitive, ritualistic behaviors that the person feels driven to perform to decrease anxiety. At least 80 percent of patients with OCD have both obsessions and compulsions.
OCD appears to be caused by increased activity in the orbital frontal cortex and caudate nucleus of the brain. OCD may also involve abnormal functioning of the neurotransmitter seratonin in the brain. Stress does not cause OCD; however, a stressful event can trigger the disorder. There are no hard facts to tell how OCD is obtained. OCD is thought to be a genetic disorder. This idea has plenty of evidence and is believed by most doctors. The chemical imbalance in the Brain is an imbalance of Seratonin and Dompamine. 80 percent of the people with OCD have another disorder called Tourettes Syndrome (TS). This syndrome is caused by the imbalance of Dompamine in the Brain. This causes the person to have muscular and/or verbal spasm which are called tics. Some people who are familiar with TS may think of people shaking wildly of cursing a lot, but that is only in a severe case. These are a couple of examples, or case studies, that I got off the internet.
I. Dick
Up until this year, Dick had done fairly well in school, played basketball, held down a part time job cleaning a fish plant, and spent most weekends with his girl friend. Over the last year, he has had to let most of this go. His girlfriend found someone who had more time, he quit his job, and he stopped going to basketball. He could barely get his schoolwork done. Why? It took him about three hours to get ready in the morning, another three hours to get ready for bed at night, and a good 3 hours after school obsessing and doing rituals. Dick said he felt like a hamster going around in a wheel.
II. Curtis-
Curtis used to be kind of a carefree 11 year old. Lately, he looked as if something horrible had just happened. In fact, his teacher told his mother, he looks like those pictures on TV of who are wandering around in refugee camps in Africa. Curtis's life seemed pretty nice by most standards. On the other hand, inside his head was like a war. About 10 times a day, Curtis would think that he will probably loose control and strangle someone. Some weeks it is his baby sister, sometimes it is his mom. He has never hurt anyone, but he can't help thinking about it
III. Chanelle
After reading some books on OCD, Chanelle said she would rather wash her hands 100 times a day and check every door than have her problem. The only way Chanelle could get to school was if she wore green shoes, blue jeans, and a green sweatshirt. She washed this outfit every day and put it on clean the next. It didn't take very long for the other kids in grade 5 to start noticing this. Chanelle told no one why except to say, "it's stupid, but I can't help it". She was teased constantly and was on the verge on refusing to go to school altogether.
IV. Jody
When Jody was 6, She had a little "habit". Before she picked up anything in her hand, she would very lightly touch it once with her index finger. When her parents asked her why, Jody just said that she liked to. There were no other obsessions or compulsions. Although no one mentioned it outside of the family, Jody's mother and father became worried when Jody's little sister, age 3, started imitating this habit. They were about to go see their family doctor about this when it started to go away and never really came back. Two years later, after no signs of OCD, Jody started counting. She thought her mother, who had had a routine hysterectomy, would die if she made a mistake. She was counting and checking her counting for errors each day. Only when they were in the pediatric psychiatrist's office did they remember the "habit" she had at age 6.
V. Tim
When Tim was 8, he told his mother that she needed to make an appointment with their family doctor for him. " Why?", asked his mom. Tim said it was too private to tell her. His parents wondered for two weeks what this could be, but figured it had something to do with a birthmark he had on his leg that he was occasionally teased about. Well, Tim told his doctor that she had to promise not to tell his parents what he was going to say. Reluctantly, she agreed. Tim then told how he was having horrible obsessions about killing his neighbor, doubts about whether his parents really wanted him, and how each night he had to turn his head one way and then exactly the same amount the other way. Well, eventually his parents found out and after about 6 months of treatment, he was better. He only obsessed about one hour a day. Two years later, the obsessions moved up to hours a day and he started checking and ordering everything. He again was treated for OCD and it improved again, but he was still checking things and obsessing at times three years later at age 13.
I. Rebecca
Rebecca was 13 years old when she saw a show about OCD one day when she was home from school on a snow day. She told her mom that she had this, too, and wanted to find out for sure. Her family doctor sent her to a pediatric psychiatrist to see if something could be done about the "touching problem". By the time she was seen by me 6 weeks later, the "touching problem" was pretty much gone. Well, that sounded like good news to me. "No," said Rebecca, I would rather have the touching problem any day." What do you mean?" Rebecca meant that she would rather touch than think about what she was thinking about. What Rebecca was thinking about was so embarrassing and private that I never ever heard about it until she was mostly better. Rebecca was afraid that she would start masturbating in class and not realize it. Rebecca had only masturbated once in her life a year ago. By the time we got down to discussing what the treatments were, that obsession had become milder and she was checking all the time again.
VII. Judy
Judy is 13. Her life has been ruled by OCD as long as she could remember. She never even thought much about it until she was 8 and stayed over at her friends house for an overnight. That was the first time Judy realized that she was different. She thought OCD was just part of being human. Well, when the other girls got ready for bed in 10 minutes and she was still getting ready for bed an hour later, she realized she was different. Judy was amazed that the other girls could fall asleep in that room with everything so "wrong". So, once Judy's friends were asleep, Judy spent the next hour tip-toeing around them and straightening books, papers, backpacks, and other stuff which was not lined up right. She then went to bed and cried. Now Judy has another fear. She has learned a lot about OCD, and is sort of sad, as so much of who she thought she was seems to be either obsessions or compulsions. She had calculated that about 15 minutes a day were free of OCD. She is glad that the treatment is working, as her life had become totally controlled by constant obsessions and compulsions. But who is she? Now that she is not totally controlled by OCD, what kind of person is she? Judy isn't sure yet.
VIII. Jocelyn
Jocelyn was sexually assaulted at age 8 by a neighborhood boy who was 14. It was terrible, but she told her mother after the second time and the boy was charged and sentenced to a youth prison. Two years later, Jocelyn was doing poorly in school and seemed preoccupied with getting things done just right. She also became mildly depressed. She was seen in a local mental health center and entered into 8 months of counseling for sexual abuse. She was referred to a psychiatrist for something to help her horrible insomnia. It came out that part of her insomnia was due to horribly complex mental rituals and compulsions. In the end, as Jocelyn would tell you, the sexual assault was nothing compared to the agony she experienced from lifelong OCD.
IX. Jonathan
Like half the kids in his grade 2 class, Jonathan got sick this winter. His sister got Strept throat, so did his brother. Jonathan only missed a few days of school and never ended up taking any antibiotics, as he wasn't very sick at all. Two days later he could not sleep for anything. He could not fall asleep. He would come into his parent's bed crying about "bad thoughts" that wouldn't stop. During the day he was exhausted. He started washing his hands over and over trying to get something "bad" off of them. He went to his family doctor and an appointment was made with a psychiatrist in a few weeks. By the time the appointment came, these problems were almost gone. They canceled their appointment.
The examples above give a snapshot at one time of obsessions and compulsions. Almost no one has one obsession or compulsion. The course of OCD shows a huge amount of change over time.
Sometimes it isn't so much the time OCD takes, but the mental Hell it puts a person through that is the most disabling. This is often the case with very embarrassing, sexual, or aggressive obsessions and also with very unusual compulsions. Sometimes certain OCD symptoms will make school, work or social life impossible. At school, having to do things over and over or having obsessive fears about masturbating in public, for example, will make it very difficult to concentrate on school. Working with the public and having obsessions about catching illnesses makes most jobs impossible. Children and adolescents who check, touch, hoard or who are very slow become social outcasts. Some children will have one obsession or compulsion for a few months and then it will disappear. There may be no obsessions or compulsions for years, and then they might return for no apparent reason. A common pattern is for a person to have a number of obsessions and compulsions which are quite severe, but which then lessen, at least for awhile.
Sometimes OCD seems to either stay the same or worsen, without any real periods of improvement. People get used to their obsessions and compulsions, but then they seem to just get worse. This is the worst course and most often is accompanied by depression.
When researchers follow children with OCD for years, many children still show signs of OCD 2-7 years later. About 43% of children still have the diagnosis of OCD, which means disabling obsessions and/or compulsions. About 11% had no sign of OCD whatsoever. The remaining 46% showed some signs of OCD, but not enough to make a diagnosis.. No factor, including age, sex, type of OCD, or insight into the illness has been proven to be a good predictor.
Society is affected in ways that aren’t easily seen, for instance, if a political advisor, or an office holder, was to be a sufferer of OCD, than his/her work could be affected due to his/her mental illness. Since approximately 2% of the population in America is OCD, (5 million people) society is most definitely affected, maybe even bettered by it, in the way that the OCD obsessions take over the work habits of our counties leaders, making them work until it is just right. In other ways it can be self-defeating, because these same leaders will have compulsions to do things that may waste time, money, and respect.
But not all this has to go untreated. When treating OCD there are two forms of treatment, Cognitive Behavioral treatment and another form of treatment is medications. Cognitive Behavioral treatment is a treatment in which the person is exposed to there obsession and go without fulfilling their compulsions. This kind of like "facing your fear".In treating OCD with medications there are many medicines that are prescribed, here are five of the most common: Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Luvox, and Anafranil. These medicines do not always work, but 60-80% of the time they do. Also these medicines do not just work right away. They have to take time to balance in the body. This usually takes about 6-8 weeks. A person is usually on one of these medicines for 12-18 months, but can be more or less.
Support groups are few, yet one that I found on the Internet, called “Emotions Annoymymous” seemed to help alot of people, since this disease isn’t well known by the general public, it is misunderstood, and the words “obsessive-compulsive” are used out of place far too frequently.
My Opinion
I think that OCD Is a common disorder that is underestimated and there are not enough people that are educated about it. The more people know about something, the less they are afraid of it. There are five million people that have it, I think more people should know about it, one in fifty people has it.
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