Understanding Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
What Is OCD?
Obsessive-compulsive disorder is a mental health condition that consists of unwanted thoughts and fears that are called obsessions and repetitive behaviors known as compulsions.
Obsessions lead to compulsions, as those struggling with OCD believe their compulsions will relieve their obsessions. These acts can significantly impact your life. They disrupt daily routines and can cause anxiety or distress.
What Is the Difference Between Obsession and Compulsion?
Obsessions are unwanted, intrusive thoughts that cause intense anxiety, whereas compulsions are the repetitive behaviors or mental acts performed to alleviate that anxiety.
The symptoms of obsessive thoughts are lasting, persistent, unwanted thoughts, urges, or images that cause distressing thoughts, anxiety, and are intrusive. Often, individuals attempt to ignore or rid themselves of these symptoms by using physical or mental rituals. It’s not uncommon for obsessions to occur when you’re trying to do or think of other things.
Compulsive behaviors are repetitive behaviors you feel you must do. The compulsions act to alleviate anxiety or stop something bad from happening. However, the compulsions rarely bring pleasure and give limited relief from anxiety.
OCD is usually composed of obsessive and compulsive behavior; however, it is possible to have one without the other.
What Is the Difference Between OCD and Anxiety Disorders?
Anxiety disorders are defined by severe or excessive worry about specific things in your life, but don’t include compulsive behaviors that exist in OCD.
OCD is characterized by persistent, intrusive, unwanted thoughts that end up in repetitive behaviors whose goal is to reduce anxiety.
How Does OCD Affect Quality of Life?
OCD can be extremely challenging because it often makes daily activities like making a decision, getting dressed, or leaving your home emotionally exhausting and time-consuming.
The areas in your life that may be disrupted due to OCD can include:
- Personal Life: You may struggle with guilt, low self-esteem, and self-doubt. These feelings can be expressed through repeatedly checking the stove and fear of harming loved ones.
- Work and Education: The symptoms of OCD can hurt your ability to focus, your productivity, and your performance. The persistent symptoms, like intrusive thoughts or rituals, can lead to delays, fear of failure, or absenteeism.
- Relationships: The intrusive thoughts and repetitive behaviors can strain relationships. Your loved ones might not understand your compulsions, leading to frustration and misunderstandings. Additionally, you may engage in reassurance-seeking behaviors or avoid social situations and intimacy.
- Emotional Health: Individuals with OCD may also be diagnosed with depression, chronic stress, and generalized anxiety. The reason is that the mental strain of performing rituals and suppressing thoughts often leaves you emotionally drained.
4 Main Types of OCD
What Are the 4 Types of OCD?
Contamination and cleaning, checking, order and symmetry, and ruminations are often considered the 4 main types of OCD.
Many mental health professionals use the DSM-5 to diagnose mental health conditions. While the DSM-5 doesn’t have any specific types of OCD, it does recognize that many different types of OCD can vary between individuals.
Despite the DSM-5 not having a classification or subtypes of OCD, researchers have suggested that individuals have OCD symptoms in these categories:
- Contamination and cleaning
- Checking
- Order and symmetry (just right)
- Ruminations or intrusive thoughts
Within the subtypes of OCD is a distinct type of disorder called hoarding disorder. Hoarding disorder is characterized by difficulty discarding items due to extreme emotional attachments. Conversely, hoarding OCD is characterized by the fear that something bad will occur if an object is thrown away.
These OCD subtypes include extreme preoccupation, fear, or intrusive thoughts that disrupt an individual’s daily life and affect their well-being. Furthermore, they cause significant distress and can affect how an individual interacts with the world.
What Are Ruminations or Intrusive Thoughts OCD?
Thoughts that are obsessive, unwanted, and intrusive about a specific type of thought or theme are called ruminations or intrusive thoughts.
Intrusive thoughts can include taboo thoughts or forbidden topics like violence, religion, or sexuality.
Often, rumination is linked to an underlying obsession with extreme responsibility for harm and guilt. Individuals with intrusive thoughts or rumination may have compulsive rituals to try to neutralize the anticipated threat.
What Are the Signs of Ruminations or Intrusive Thoughts OCD?
A few of the symptoms of rumination or intrusive thoughts in OCD include:
- Ruminating about sexual orientation
- Persistent worries about cheating on a partner
- Fears or worry that they will hurt themselves or someone else (also known as harm OCD)
- Always questioning their religious identity
- Worrying about becoming a sexual predator despite the absence of evidence
Others can have:
- Graphic sexual imagery
- Violent imagery
Intrusive thoughts can vary from one individual to another.
For some, ruminations take the form of repeatedly replaying an event in their mind, worrying that they said something offensive, or going over the words to find clarity or reassurance that all is well.
What Is Checking OCD?
Checking OCD occurs when you experience intense, irrational fears of harm or making mistakes, leading to compulsive, repetitive, and time-consuming rituals to verify safety.
For example, someone with checking OCD may repetitively check the locks on their doors to ease their specific fear.
Individuals with checking OCD often fear they may cause something bad to happen, whether it’s intentional or unintentional. Checking OCD is one of the more common types of OCD.
What Are the Signs of Checking OCD?
If you have checking OCD, you may often excessively perform rituals that aim to alleviate your fear of harm to yourself or others.
Some examples of compulsive behaviors include:
- Checking the locks on windows and doors
- Repeatedly checking the appliance to make sure it’s off
- Constantly checking to reassure themselves that essential things aren’t misplaced, lost, or damaged.
An example of checking OCD is having an extreme fear of someone breaking into the house, leading to repeatedly checking the locks in your home.
What Is Contamination OCD?
The fear of contamination and/or germs is called contamination OCD.
Some individuals may also experience a fear of emotional contamination.
Those with contamination OCD will do everything to avoid places, people, or topics that go against their beliefs or the things they consider dirty.
How Does It Feel to Have Contamination OCD?
If you are struggling with contamination OCD, you may live in a state of constant, overwhelming dread that you are dirty, infected, or spreading harmful germs/toxins to others.
To help get rid of your fear of germs or contamination, you may have the following rituals:
- Repeatedly cleaning surfaces like countertops
- Compulsive handwashing (excessive handwashing)
- Excessively worrying about food ingredients or household products
- Avoid contaminants by avoiding what other individuals have touched
Some individuals may also avoid public places due to various sources of contamination.
What Is Symmetry and Ordering OCD?
The need to have things “just right” is called “symmetry and ordering OCD.”
This type of OCD can include an unsound preference for order that can result in the compulsion to find ways to meet standards.
What Are the Signs of Symmetry and Ordering OCD?
If you experience symmetry and ordering OCD, you may often have compulsions and obsessions that create the need to count, arrange, and ensure there is symmetry.
Some of the examples of this specific OCD’s symptoms include:
- Arranging or lining things up repeatedly
- The persistent rearranging of furniture to make sure it looks perfect
- The need to repeatedly count items, divide them into separate yet equal groups
- Fear of punishment if things aren’t perfect
This OCD subtype can lead to harm. For example, if you become overly preoccupied with symmetry or order, you may focus on how your hair looks or your body proportions. Focusing on your body proportions can lead to low self-esteem and poor self-image.
How Do the 4 Types of OCD Differ From Each Other?
While the 4 types of OCD are defined by their obsessions and compulsions, what makes them different is the different themes of those obsessions and compulsions.
For example, contamination OCD focuses on the fear of germs and on excessive cleaning. On the other hand, checking OCD is focused on the fear of harming a family member, themselves, or other loved ones.
Diagnosis of OCD
How Do You Know if You Have OCD?
If you have OCD, you may have repeated, intrusive, unwanted thoughts that significantly interfere with your daily life, leading to repetitive behaviors you feel you must do.
If you believe you have OCD, the next step is to contact a professional. You can contact a mental health expert or talk with your doctor.
Should the obsessions or compulsive behaviors become severe or threaten you or others, or harm you, you should seek immediate help.
At Ocean View Psychiatric Health Facility, our admissions team is available 24/7 to guide you through the admissions process.
How Can You Tell if Someone Has OCD?
Identifying if you or a loved one has an OCD disorder can be challenging, but there are some common signs to look for, including:
- Excessive Handwashing: Handwashing that leads to raw, red, chapped, and bleeding hands is a sign of contamination OCD.
- Double-Checking: In this case, it is defined as persistently checking and rechecking an excessive number of times to verify that locks are locked.
- Being Perfect: The fear of things not being done perfectly may lead to something terrible happening or punishment.
- Hoarding: The fear of throwing objects away can lead to something bad happening.
- Arranging and Counting: Individuals with this type of OCD are particular about how things are arranged or ordered. An example is arranging objects by size or color.
The exhaustion or overwhelming anxiety associated with OCD can develop into the need for acute psychiatric care.
The professional team at Ocean View Psychiatric Health Facility provides the appropriate treatment level based on your needs. After a comprehensive evaluation, our mental health staff will determine if outpatient or a higher level of treatment is best for your individual needs.
What are the Diagnostic Criteria for OCD?
The DSM-5 outlines the criteria necessary to be diagnosed with OCD:
- Presence of Obsessions, Compulsions, or Both
- Recurring and persistent thoughts, urges, or images that are unwanted and intrusive (obsessions)
- Repetitive behaviors or mental acts that an individual feels compelled to do based on their obsession or inflexible rules
- Consumption of Time
- When the obsession or compulsion lasts for an hour or more each day or significantly disrupts daily activities
- Significant Distress
- The OCD symptoms cause impairment or distress in work, interpersonal relationships, or other areas of life
- Ruling Out Other or Related Disorders
- Excluding other mental health disorders, like the preoccupation with appearance in body dysmorphic disorder
Finding Treatment Options for OCD
How Can I Get Help for My OCD?
To get help for you or a loved one with OCD, you can talk with your healthcare provider, who can refer you to a mental health provider in your community who can provide treatments like cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) or medications such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).
If your OCD symptoms require acute psychiatric care, your provider might refer you to an intensive treatment center like Ocean View.
How Can I Help a Loved One With OCD?
Helping a loved one with OCD can be challenging if you don’t know what to do – here are a few ideas that can guide you:
- Learn What OCD Is and Its Effects: Educating yourself about the symptoms of OCD can increase your understanding of what your loved one experiences. A bonus is that you also learn how to help meet their needs while protecting yours.
- Stop Accommodating OCD Compulsions and Obsessions: While it may seem like you’re helping when you accommodate your loved one’s OCD, it often enables your loved one to continue their compulsive behaviors.
- Support Without Reinforcing Behaviors: Trying to stop a loved one from performing OCD behaviors is difficult, but you can set boundaries. Initially, setting boundaries can be distressing to your loved one, but you can let them know you’re doing so because you love them. To help you set boundaries, you should work with a therapist to support your decision to stop accommodating and set limits.
- Be Flexible: Since OCD is a persistent mental health disorder, you must remember it will take time before you and your loved one see changes. You can meet them where they’re at and support them even if they experience a relapse of symptoms.
- Support Them in Finding Treatment: There are evidence-based treatments that can successfully improve their control and maintenance of their mental health.
Will I Need Medication for OCD?
You may not need medication to treat OCD.
Some individuals can learn about and manage their OCD through therapies like CBT or exposure and response prevention (ERP).
What Medications Help Treat Symptoms of OCD?
The most common medications prescribed to treat OCD are SSRIs.
However, if SSRIs aren’t effective, some individuals may be prescribed tricyclic antidepressants.
Effective Treatment Approaches for OCD in Southern California
Acute Psychiatric Care for Managing Symptoms of OCD
At Ocean View Psychiatric Health Facility, we provide compassionate, short-term OCD treatment for individuals 18+ to help them understand and manage their OCD.
Our approach emphasizes safety, understanding, and effective treatments.
Medication Stabilization and Management
Patients admitted to Ocean View’s inpatient psychiatric program may require vigilant medication stabilization to attain symptom equilibrium.
Our medical director closely monitors and adjusts medications to optimize therapeutic outcomes, emphasizing the ability to manage OCD symptoms. Once symptoms are stabilized, you will receive weekly medication management, during which adjustments will be made if necessary.
Our Psychiatric Health Facility
Ocean View’s professionals are empathetic and are here to help you with the care you need.
Our ADA-compliant health facility has 39 beds, and 80% of our rooms are private. Our facility isn’t locked, so you can feel free to participate without feeling confined. A bonus is the beauty of Long Beach and its proximity to Los Angeles, which makes treatment accessible and comforting.
FAQs
There are two rare forms of OCD: harm OCD (thoughts of causing harm to yourself or others) and taboo OCD (distressing thoughts that go against personal morals or beliefs).