Top Five OCD Misconceptions
Author: Megan Kelly
Tags: ocd, mental illness, mental health awareness
OCD stands for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and it’s a type of anxiety disorder that affects many individuals in the United States. Usually, it manifests in a person through negative thoughts or obsessions that they believe will come true if they do not complete an action, called a compulsion. For example, someone with OCD may believe that if they don’t make their bed ten times, something bad will either happen to themselves or to others.
However, many people don’t have a good grasp on what OCD is, so I decided to take the opportunity to dispel some common misconceptions.
1. Having OCD does not automatically make you a cleaning freak.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people wrongly assuming having OCD gives you some type of Mr. Clean-esque ability. From my personal experience, OCD does not make me want to clean any sort of mess I see. Actually, sometimes it makes me arguably messier. For example, I’ll leave unfilled water bottles out for weeks because my OCD told me I had to or something horrible would happen. So, no, just because I have OCD isn’t going to make me scramble to clean up a mess.
2. Having OCD does not make you want everything to be in a very specific order.
This is, again, untrue, as having OCD does not necessitate that you want everything to be in order. I do not throw a fit if my textbooks are not color coded or in alphabetical order and I probably won’t scream at you for leaving anything out of order.
3. You are probably not so “OCD”.
Photo by Soragrit Wongsa on Unsplash
Every person with OCD knows the struggle of listening to someone explain that they are “so OCD” because they like things in order, or they don’t like to leave their room a mess. Multiple times I’ve heard someone explain that they’re so “OCD” because they always have to make their bed, when in reality, they just enjoy having an organized room.
This phrase can be especially demeaning to people with OCD, as it reduces the illness to simply liking things to be in order, when it is much more than that.
4. “Wait, you know your thoughts are weird?”
This is another common misconception. People that don’t have OCD will often react with shock when I explain to them that yes, I am not only aware of my intrusive thoughts and compulsions, but I know the thoughts and worries themselves are just my illness, and doing a certain task will not affect whether they happen or not.
In reality, it’s difficult to explain. I am aware that if I don’t re-make my bed seven times, nothing bad will happen, but intrusive thoughts that tell me a friend or family member get sick still ‘force’ me to complete the actions multiple times to keep them ‘safe.’
5. You can’t tell a person with OCD to “stop thinking about it”.
When my intrusive thoughts or compulsions are very bad, people will often tell me to ‘stop thinking about it.’ This fails to help me because the statement itself usually only aggravates me, because if I could simply stop thinking about it, I would.
If you notice someone with OCD is allowing their thoughts or compulsions to get more noticeable, the best thing to do is to allow them to finish the compulsion they’re working on, and to then distract them by watching a movie or tv show. Remind them often that they’re not their thoughts; it’s an illness, and they don’t truly want others to get hurt. Be available for them to talk to.
Follow Her Campus @ Geneseo on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.