today i'm going to be talking about obsessive-compulsive disorder what it is
and just as importantly what it isn't hi everyone in today's video we're going to be talking about
obsessive-compulsive disorder or ocd and some of the the key characteristics of what defines ocd
and just as importantly some of the myths and misunderstandings of what ocd is or what it
isn't more specifically but before i get into that just a couple of disclaimers to go over
i'm a registered psychologist in the province of british columbia canada and this video is for
informational purposes only it is not intended as a replacement or substitute for advice from your
doctor or mental health professional now with those things out of the way let's start talking
about ocd now ocd at its core is a disorder of anxiety and usually with ocd it's associated with
a lot of anxiety related to and surrounding uh two things obsessions and associated compulsions
so obsessions are intrusive unwanted thoughts images or impulses that keep coming up for a
person even though the person finds these thoughts images or impulses to be really distressing really
upsetting really repugnant or nonsensical so these are thoughts that a person recognizes
either don't make a lot of sense or their thoughts that are really upsetting for the person
but they keep happening over and over and over again and the person can't stop having them
and so associated with these obsessions is a desire by a person with ocd to try and
suppress the thoughts try not to think about them or to try and neutralize
the thoughts in some way so uh there's these two various components to obsessions there's the the
thoughts and the images and the impulses themselves uh and also the desire to not
want to have these thoughts images or impulses and the distress that's associated with them
so uh with these obsessions they're not just thoughts that are running through
a person's mind they're associated with a lot of sort of anxiety or discomfort
and these obsessions tend to fall into sort of three categories or three themes of thought
so there's obsessions related to harm so harm towards myself harm towards other people
there's obsessions related to blasphemy or blasphemous thoughts and sexual obsessions
so really common obsessions are things like contamination i touch a surface and i feel that
my hands are contaminated or there's germs on them uh fears of doubt so uncertainty and doubt
as to whether or not i i turned off the stove or locked the front door um fears or obsessions
related to blasphemous thoughts so thinking badly about god or um cursing god or having
sort of blasphemous thoughts in church um there are obsessions around orderliness or symmetry and
these tend to be associated with that those fears related to harm because there's a sense of if i
don't do things in a certain way or if things are not in a particular order or if i don't sort of
count things or don't do things in a certain number of ways or a certain number of times
then something bad will happen either something bad will happen to me or
something bad will happen to someone else so they those orderly and orderliness and symmetry fears
those tend to be associated with fears associated with harm there can also be sexual obsessions
so uh obsessions about my sexuality so concerns about you know am i gay or um obsessions around uh
sort of cheating on my wife or cheating on my partner and having thoughts about that and
then feeling really badly and feeling really upset about having those thoughts and then
wanting to try and neutralize those thoughts or wondering why i'm having those thoughts so
you have these obsessions around these various themes
that really strike at the core of a person so these are are things that really get at um things
that a person really cares about so someone who is uh extremely uh conscientious and caring about
other people it's not uncommon to see those type of people have fears or obsessions related to harm
you have people who are are extremely religious or very spiritual will have obsessions related to
blasphemy or relationships uh you know they have obsessions about whether or not the relationship
is is the right one for me even though i love my partner and i really care about my partner
i still have these obsessions or thoughts about well maybe this isn't the right one well why would
i be having those thoughts if this wasn't the right one maybe this isn't the right one and then
start to obsess about it so all of these obsessions are really tied in with a great deal of
emotional distress or anxiety and so that's what i was saying earlier is at its core ocd
is a disorder of anxiety because you have these obsessions that bring up this distress and anxiety
and then they feel a need to do something about them so that's the obsession side of ocd so what
are compulsions well compulsions are repetitive behaviors or mental acts that a person will engage
in to try and neutralize or try to eliminate the distress that's caused by the obsession so
if i have uh an intrusive thought that i left the oven on and that the house is going to burn down
i'm going to feel compelled and the compulsion would be to go back and check to make sure that
the oven was off well then what typically happens with ocd is i check that the oven's off and then i
leave the house again and then i have doubt did i really check the oven and so i have to go back
and so these compulsions are things that a person feels driven to do in order to
try and reduce the distress or to reduce the anxiety or the fear that the obsession brings up
oftentimes these behaviors have to be done in a particular way
um in a in either a just right way or in a particular sort of sequence or series of events
in a way for the person to try and make sure that they've done it or that they've done it right
or that they've done it in a way to ensure that they'll remember that they've done it
but in turn that typically doesn't work and so they have to do it again and again and again now
compulsions aren't just behaviors they can also be mental acts so it can be things like counting
numbers in your head in a particular way to try and neutralize something bad from happening it can
be things like saying prayers repeatedly you're saying prayers a certain number of times or saying
prayers in a way that until they feel just right or that you've done it right to try and neutralize
the blasphemous thought that you've had so you have these obsessions you have these compulsions
with ocd these mental acts these behaviors these thoughts they tend to take up a lot of time so
it's not ocd to sort of go back and check whether or not i locked my car door once
these obsessions and these compulsions take at least an hour a day so they're taking up a lot of
time and these are are really repetitive behaviors and really intrusive repetitive thoughts that come
up for a person throughout the day and take up a lot of their mental energy and take up a lot of
their physical energy as they have to engage in these behaviors or mental acts to try and
stop this dialogue and this chatter that's going on in their head so if you can imagine
you spend over an hour a day doing these things that are extremely distressing or upsetting
for you you can see how how distressing and interfering ocd can be in a person's life
and so that's kind of the nature of ocd and that sort of ties into what i wanted to talk about ocd
what ocd isn't now somewhere along the line uh ocd kind of picked up this sort of quirky funny
sort of um persona in media or popular culture people will say things like oh you're just being
ocd um the friends character monica and everybody talked about her being you know having ocd monica
in friends did not have ocd she was organized she liked being organized she liked being liked having
her house clean but that's not an obsession right if you think about what obsessions are
these are intrusive recurring unwanted thoughts and distressing thoughts monica wasn't distressed
by the fact that she wanted to have a clean house she enjoyed it that was part of who she was
that's how she defined herself in ocd people with ocd don't define themselves
by what their intrusive thoughts are they actually are upset and distressed by the intrusive thoughts
the intrusive thoughts and the obsessions go against how they view themselves so this isn't
something that they want this isn't something that a person with ocd takes pride in so it's not
that clean organized uh you know superstitious have to do things in a certain way because that's
the way i like to have it ocd is much more driven by anxiety and distress more recently
you have public personas and characters like khloe kardashian making
making fun or making light of ocd in 2018 she had a series called close cd so uh using her name
and branding it with ocd because she wanted to show people how she organizes things and how she
keeps her fridge uh organized and her shoe closet organized it's this type of thing that is so
um that's a real big pet peeve for me because ocd isn't something that is funny
or quirky it's not something that should be used as a kind of a cutesy branding for a video series
because just because khloe kardashian enjoys having her closet organized that's not ocd and
what it does is it trivializes what people are suffering when they're actually experiencing ocd
she may take great pride and she may want to brag about how organized her closet is
that has nothing to do with ocd so somewhere along the line ocd has become part of our public
vernacular in terms of someone who's organized or clean or likes things done in a certain way
that's not ocd and if you ever catch yourself saying oh that's so ocd of you or you're just
being so ocd think about what that means and think about what you're saying and would you
ever say something like oh that's so cancer of you or don't have such a heart attack about it
we tend not to make fun of serious physical illnesses and diseases we shouldn't be
making fun or making light of serious mental health conditions and mental
mental health problems such as ocd it's not funny it's not cute and it's not something that
a person with ocd takes great pride in or wants to brag about on their instagram or a video series
so uh i hope that gives you a better understanding of some of the the nature and the characteristics
of obsessions and compulsions and how they work together in ocd and and and what ocd isn't um
ocd is a really big topic i'm going to be doing a lot of videos on different types of ocd
why ocd happens different models of ocd and some treatment approaches and tools that a person can
use for better managing symptoms of ocd so i hope you'll keep an eye out for those if you're
interested in this topic if you've been finding my videos helpful uh please hit that subscribe
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you for making it all the way to the end of this video and i will see you in the next one