OCD: it’s not always about cleanliness
In honour of OCD Awareness Week last week, it seemed fitting to write about one of the most misunderstood mental health disorders today.
What is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (‘OCD’)?
Looking at it from a medical perspective, OCD is “an anxiety disorder in which people have unwanted and repeated thoughts, feelings, images, and sensations (obsessions) and engage in behaviors or mental acts in response to these thoughts or obsessions” (Psychology Today).
However, the reality is that most people will use their own social understanding to inform definitions of OCD. This does involve our personal interactions with others but, most significantly, involves our interaction with the media.
Unfortunately, media representations of OCD are few and far between. The majority are largely stereotypical, with certain behaviors written off as merely a ‘cute quirk’ instead of the symptoms of what can often become a debilitating mental disorder.
Therefore, the media is largely responsible for creating some of the most common misconceptions about OCD which urgently need to be debunked. The most recognized is the assumption that OCD is solely based around cleanliness.
We are consistently fed images of people in TV and films thoroughly washing their hands or organising objects into a symmetrical order so it isn’t a surprise that many believe somebody with OCD is simply a ‘germaphobe’ or a ‘neat-freak’.
Debunking the misconception:
Contrary to popular belief, organising and cleaning are just two forms.
The main forms of OCD include:
- Intrusive thoughts/ruminations
- Checking
- Contamination
- Hoarding
It is also often believed that people with OCD like tidiness and cleanliness when, in fact, cleaning rituals are no fun at all. On a personal note, I remember not caring about whether something was clean but needing to clean as a short-term solution to rid myself of intrusive thoughts.
As we are largely informed by the media, it’s no surprise that doing anything remotely ‘odd’ is deemed #soOCD as Mara Wilson states:
What separates a sufferer from a non-sufferer are the intrusive thoughts – the belief that you are a terrible person, that you will never stop feeling this way and the compulsive behaviors that provide some relief from your anxiety. It often becomes a vicious cycle where everything is suddenly a superstition or a ‘what if?’ and the quickest route out is to perform certain rituals.
While Obsessive Compulsive Disorder can and often does involve cleaning rituals, these do not provide the basis of what is ultimately an anxiety disorder. It is increasingly frustrating to see people, both online and in the public eye, using it as a fashionable adjective to describe what is merely a pet peeve or quirky habit.
OCD is the fourth most common mental health condition so we can only hope that the social representation on the condition moves away from its current misunderstandings and negative labels. Hopefully, the ever-present stigma surrounding mental health issues can finally be resolved.
By Kirti Shah.
Images are screenshots sourced from: http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-things-no-one-tells-you-about-having-ocd/