{"id":2036,"date":"2018-06-07T05:53:00","date_gmt":"2018-06-07T05:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/besthealth.guide\/?p=2036"},"modified":"2021-10-05T09:36:26","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T09:36:26","slug":"12-typical-ocd-symptoms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/besthealth.guide\/12-typical-ocd-symptoms\/","title":{"rendered":"12 Typical OCD Symptoms"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Obsessive-compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a syndrome that makes a person feel driven toward a certain obsession or fear. By doing this, they end up repeating a certain behavior. Because they cannot be controlled, especially if you are unaware that it is an actual problem, it can disrupt daily activities which can cause you to start losing confidence and gaining anxiety. Research shows that anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S. OCD specifically is equally common in both men and women and affects up to 2.2 million adults.<\/p>\n

In some cases, those who show signs are advised to merely ignore it. When this happens, your mind triggers an effect to act out even more because the behavior eases you in some way. There are many forms of this syndrome. A popular one is the fear of germs. Usually, with this, people will constantly wash their hands.<\/p>\n

Here are a few symptoms that you can watch out for it you feel that you or someone you know has this syndrome.<\/p>\n

1. The Cleanliness Obsession<\/h3>\n

As with washing hands due to being surrounded by dirty or germs<\/a>, the same applies to your house, car, or even workspace. You will find that with these types of people, the areas in which they spend most of the time needs to be completely clean in every detail.<\/p>\n

Apart from being clean, they will constantly be cleaning the same areas. Although you may see an area as neat and tidy, they will continue to wipe over the same area several times. They may stop once their mind feels that it clean. However, after a few minutes or an hour, they will return to perform the same activity.<\/p>\n

One of the ways that you can use to tone down the repetitiveness is to work with your doctor to draw up routine plans. These plans will help to lower the tasks that you perform repeatedly. For example, they may draw up a calendar and, on each day split out the cleaning to perhaps five times a day. They will also provide the times that you can start the cleaning as well as end it.<\/p>\n

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2. Remembering to Remember<\/h3>\n

Another common symptom is when you switch off your stove after preparing a meal. At that moment you are aware that you have switched it off but yet your mind will reset to keep checking. Eventually, you will obsess about whether or not it was switched off.<\/p>\n

When you think about it being left on, your mind will run to many places where you will start to think the worse and eventually, panic. You may think that if you left it on, the food may burn<\/a> or you could mess up the wiring. In some cases, the anxiety gets worse and you will be having thoughts of the house burning down.<\/p>\n

For some people, this anxiety gets so bad that they rather not leave their home so that they can continuously check the stove to make sure that it is switched off after each time they cook. It is almost as if the mind doesn\u2019t register what you have done.<\/p>\n

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3. 1, 2 3<\/h3>\n

A familiar behavior<\/a> that you will find amongst people with this problem, and quite often in children, is the obsession to perform a behavior a certain number of times. This may even result in counting up until a certain number so that they can now move forward. For these people, this may either stem from something superstitious or maybe a belief. The person will each time before they speak perhaps, have to count until a certain number that makes them feel comfortable.<\/p>\n

On other occasions, if someone starts to fear something or someone, they will begin to obsessively count. The counting helps to ease the fear and make them feel safe. The upside to this is that if you want to count because it helps you to feel distracted so that you can get through the fear of climbing stairs, for example, it could actually end up helping you.<\/p>\n

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4. The Perfectionist<\/h3>\n

Many people feel that if something isn\u2019t 100% perfect, they need to keep doing it until it is. The sad part is that for some, making something perfect can never happen because they are always trying to redo it to make it better.<\/p>\n

There have been many instances where children for example would submit a project at school and they get it back with less than full marks. This isn\u2019t good enough and this is when the obsession kicks in. They could do three things in this situation; one could be that they will feel ashamed and attempt to redo it. Secondly, they could get home and start to hurt themselves because they let themselves down.<\/p>\n

Lastly, they could turn on the teacher for marking them less than the full amount. In their minds, what they have given is nothing less than perfect and for someone to mark them as less than that, is an insult. In severe<\/a> cases, people have become violent over this.<\/p>\n

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5. The Equilibrium Effect<\/h3>\n

In this case, a person may feel that they will not survive if the coasters, for example, are not stacked in a certain way. Perhaps the spices need to begin with the shortest one and end with the tallest. They sometimes couple this with threatening or fearful thoughts. They tend to say that if they don\u2019t rearrange it to be the \u201cright\u201d way, something bad will happen such as their pet may die.<\/p>\n

At other times, they will blame themselves for something being out of place even though there are other people in the home that could have moved it around unintentionally. When this happens, the person could say that every time it moves, they are to blame and should receive punishment in some way. This could be a form of self-harm<\/a> or perhaps performing a repetitive task such as staring at the wall for several hours or not eating for days.<\/p>\n

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6. The Fear of Violence<\/h3>\n

As with most people, thoughts of losing loved ones or being harmed is something that is thought about almost daily. For people with this syndrome, these thoughts are continuously played, resulting in them not being able to leave their home or calling certain people several times to check if they are safe.<\/p>\n

This is a typical example of daily life disruption. If you feel that you cannot leave your home or go to a certain place, like a shop, for example, it means that you are unable to live normally or go to work to earn a living. In these cases, it is best that you seek medical help.<\/p>\n

There are also plenty of ways that you can learn to suppress your thoughts but it will take practice and time. If you have a sturdy support system you may be able to lighten the load on yourself. Part of that support system should be someone in the medical field who is familiar with this specific symptom<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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7. The Broken Connection<\/h3>\n

When someone goes through a breakup or perhaps loses their job, the feeling of loss is normal and the thoughts of what could have been will still linger for some time. When the person takes it to another level which we can now label as stalking, it is obvious that may be suffering from OCD<\/a>. It is common to assume that stalking is merely stalking however, many skilled doctors and psychiatrists may advise otherwise.<\/p>\n

Signs to look for are when someone is taking the time to follow their previous partner to see what they are doing. If that person has now moved on, the compulsion could turn violent as the person would assume that they have been betrayed. As with workplace obsessions, they may have lost their jobs, and instead of leaving peacefully, they will show up to work at their usual hours and continue with their work as if nothing ever happened.<\/p>\n

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\"\"8. Unwanted Desires<\/h3>\n

A common and rather embarrassing compulsion is unwanted thoughts, ideas, or desires. Popular amongst these are the thoughts of sexual needs. This doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that you will want to be sexual at that point in time, but you may begin to rethink your sexuality. Perhaps you will have thoughts of experimenting with someone who is the same gender as you. In your mind, you already know which you prefer but the curiosity takes over.<\/p>\n

This could vastly disrupt daily living especially if your job entails communicating with people regularly and on a daily basis. Some cases involve people bringing up the topic of sex<\/a> to colleagues, friends, or family, making the situation awkward. Although unintentional, those who are unaware that you have a problem would assume that you are forward or prefer speaking about such topics. This could also get you into trouble with management if colleagues complain about you. It could get even worse if someone decides to charge you for harassment.<\/p>\n

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9. Food Phobia<\/h3>\n

A sad reality is that disrupting daily life such as losing a job or people is only one aspect. In rare cases, people develop a fear of food. They can eat or consume beverages but not food or rather certain foods. How they survive is by mashing certain foods so that they can be drunk rather than chewed. Otherwise, they live on protein shakes or raw vegetables<\/a>. Even when they do consume this, they are in smaller portions so that there is less feeling of something in their mouth and a reduction in chewing.<\/p>\n

This could extend further to wanting to eat only specific meals or ingredients. For example, you may feel that you cannot keep anything down unless it is water with vegetables. This eliminates every other food group and can result in you losing weight and developing other illnesses due to malnutrition. You may also be eating foods that you shouldn\u2019t be because of an illness you already have and this could further harm them.<\/p>\n

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10. Self-harm<\/h3>\n

Violence is something that doesn\u2019t necessarily happen with other people in these cases. It can very much happen to yourself, by yourself. Unfortunately, the thought of harming someone else is common for people with this disorder<\/a>. If that is the case, some people are able to overcome the actual violence by inflicting the harm onto themselves instead. This is almost as if they are condoning the harm to themselves so that they don\u2019t hurt others.<\/p>\n

Due to the fear that you may do something, this acts as reassurance. Some people perform actions whilst unaware or perhaps whilst sleepwalking. What helps them to stop and realize that they are in reality, is when they take a look at their arm for example, and see the cuts. This means that they don\u2019t have to hurt anyone because they have already done so to themselves. Sometimes, doctors would have a certain script playing from a recorded tape, reassuring the person whilst they sleep, that they don\u2019t have to do anything bad.<\/p>\n

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11. The Hoarder<\/h3>\n

Other forms of the disorder are hoarding items in your home or car. These items could range from everyday material or perhaps something specific such as newspapers or food. There are three types of hoarding<\/a>. The first case is where the person has an obsession to keep buying items and storing it whether they are used, expired, or not.<\/p>\n

The other case is when the person keeps items from all their life or perhaps for many years and refuses to throw or give it away. The third is the collector. This person will intentionally collect a certain item such as the newspaper and keep it around them.<\/p>\n

The result of this could get quite bad where the person cannot move because there are so many items around them. The smallest of places like the inside of a shoe may have these items in them. The surrounding acts as a safety net.<\/p>\n

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12. Preventing The Disease<\/h3>\n

The fear of picking up diseases or infections are a real deal. Many people will not enter certain places such as a medical center or hospital because they feel that they may get a disease. This poses a serious problem because when they get sick from something minor such as the flu<\/a> or an injury, they would rather self-medicate than visit the doctor. This could also mean that they are taking the wrong amounts because of assuming how bad a certain illness is or isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

This could also severely interrupt relationships. You may feel that if you become intimate with someone, they may pass on a disease to you. This means that you could easily upset someone and make them feel as if they are better off without you. It also depends on how deep the fear is. It could be a fear of one disease and in other cases, many diseases which will restrict you more. \r\n

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