Most people with OCD recognize that the rituals (visible or mental) do not make much sense. They would like nothing more than to become free from being consumed by those compulsions. Telling them to just stop is not going to work.

This misconception can, of course, only be held by a person who never experienced the agony, horror, unbearable anxiety, never-ending distress, and shame that people with OCD struggle with daily.

Thinking a positive thought in order to “neutralize” or “cancel out” a bad thought.

Reassurance seeking – asking for people’s opinions, or surfing the Internet trying to figure out whether the fears are justified.

Mental review – trying to gain certainty about things, going back in memory checking to make sure no harm was caused.

You can avoid knives (so you don’t stab), heights (so you don’t jump), being alone with kids (so you don’t harm them), etc.

This is actually a very common misconception even among doctors and mental health professionals. The absence of visible rituals does not mean the person does not have OCD. Often, people may have frequent intrusive disturbing thoughts that cause anxiety and they cope with their distress by “invisible means,” such as:-       Avoiding places, objects or situations that may lead to distress. You may avoid children if your obsessive fear is being a paedophile.

If those behaviours are part of your daily routine and you feel productive, or at least neutral doing them – those are probably not compulsions.If, however, you are doing them in order to find relief from your distress or anxiety, you’d much prefer not to do them, and they take a great deal of time – those are likely compulsions.But what if you experience unwanted intrusive thoughts, which cause you enormous distress, but you don’t have any behaviours to reduce the distress? You don’t clean, wash, knock, tap, check, or repeat. Does it mean it’s not OCD?

The bottom line is that it is not the content of the thought that distinguishes between people with and without OCD. The thoughts are the same, even though some of them may be pretty quirky.  It’s the interpretation you give the thought that matters. If you are able to shrug an intrusive thought off (maybe even thinking – wow, even a good person like me can have a weird thought like that), then you do not have OCD.If, on the other hand, those thoughts cause you extreme anxiety and you start engaging with the thoughts and take various precautions which takes a great deal of your time and energy – you may have OCD.

When a person with OCD has a thought, they will likely become very concerned, wondering why on earth they would have a thought like that. They’ll think, “Oh no! What does that mean? Does it mean that I may harm my baby? This is very dangerous! I should probably not be left alone with the baby as it is not safe.” They may then put precautions in place to prevent the catastrophe from happening, such as avoid being left alone with the baby or stay away from the stairs. They may try to neutralize the thought by thinking a “good” thought

We may all have those thoughts on occasion. Usually, they will be related to the things or people we value and cherish the most.So what is the difference between people with and without OCD in regard to those thoughts?It’s pretty simple. If a person without OCD experiences a thought like that, they will probably shrug, think, “Well, that was a weird one,” and forget about the thought pretty quickly.

What If I swerve the steering wheel onto the oncoming traffic?

If I come close to the railing of the balcony, I may jump.

What if I drop my newborn baby down the stairs?

Basically, OCD “attacks” anything and everything that may be of high value to a person, such as their morality, religious beliefs, their loved ones, their health, and even their relationships (this is also a common obsession – fear of the relationship being a “wrong one,” or falling apart).You may have one (or more) type of obsession, but not have the others. That means that you may be preoccupied with doubts whether you may be gay, or whether you are likely to accidentally stab a family member with a knife, or if you were involved in a hit-and-run accident and drove away without noticing – and yet have absolutely no concerns about cleanliness.

“Just Right” obsessions, and awareness of an object or behaviour that is not symmetrical, not “right” or not “correct”.-       Sensorimotor or hyper-awareness obsessions – fear of being unable to stop attending to blinking, swallowing, breathing, body positioning, physical sensations, memories, or thoughts.

Even though a fear of contamination is a common obsession in OCD, there are other obsessions that include:-       Fear of harming self or others, or being responsible for causing a horrible event or making a dreadful mistake.-       Unwanted sexual thoughts - often about changing sexual orientation or fear of being a paedophile.

As discussed above, a common misconception is that a person with OCD is a super-organized, perfectionistic clean freak who is preoccupied with making sure that everything is sterile and in place. People tend to believe that messiness and OCD don’t go together.This is a misunderstanding I witness quite frequently in family members of a newly diagnosed OCD sufferer. A typical dialogue may look like this:Me: Your son’s symptoms are consistent with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder – OCD.Patient’s mom: This just can’t be! You gotta see his room! And I have to make him shower, otherwise he won’t!

If, on the other hand, your urge to clean is a response to a strong feeling of fear, distress, or disgust and you feel that you just have to do it – otherwise you won’t be able to go on with your day - then it may be a sign of OCD.It is, of course, important to get properly diagnosed by a psychologist or a medical doctor to know for sure.

If you take great pride in being a neat and organized person, feel a sense of accomplishment after you are done, and secretly suspect (or openly declare) that others are just clueless in matters of personal hygiene and housekeeping, chances are you do not suffer from OCD.

This is a tricky distinction as people suffering from OCD do often engage in excessive cleaning or organizing. However, not all people who wash or clean excessively suffer from OCD, and not all people with OCD feel the urge to clean (as explained in the next section).

e all know what someone means when they say they are depressed, even though that person may be simply feeling sad. But, it’s nothing like that with the word “obsession.” When we say we are obsessed with our new friend, or a podcast, or our new shoes, we mean that we can’t get enough of that; we love it, and derive great pleasure from thinking about, listening to, wearing, or otherwise indulging in our “obsession.”This feeling could not be more different for a person who experiences obsessions as part of their OCD. Those (true) obsessions are totally unwanted and disturbing intrusive thoughts, images, or urges. The key word here is unwanted. Far from being pleasurable, those thoughts or images cause OCD sufferers great distress, anxiety, disgust, or even shame.As you can see, our everyday use of the word “obsession” is actually the opposite of what people with OCD experience.

You may have intrusive thoughts and may even perform some rituals; but your room is unbelievably messy, and you don’t feel the need to wash your hands all the time. Can you have OCD and be messy? Even though your thoughts are driving you nuts, they are actually about realistically dangerous things, ones that most people would be scared of. Plus, nobody even notices your rituals.And yet, you find yourself being consumed by those thoughts.  As if that's not bad enough, the thoughts are so embarrassing that you prefer to suffer alone than tell anybody about them.Given the relatively high prevalence of OCD (about 2.3% lifetime prevalence), it is unfortunate that this disorder is still largely misunderstood. This confusion seems to be one of the factors that lead to people with OCD not being properly diagnosed and not seeking treatment

The impact of misconceptions and trivializing languageThere are so many common misconceptions about OCD. Often, the term is used trivially.Most of the time, OCD is conflated with cleanliness and neatness. We refer to pedantic friends as being OCD. If we go out of our way to clean our houses, we might refer to ourselves as OCD.Though you may not intend to belittle anyone, language matters. These expressions dismiss the complexity of OCD symptoms. They may also perpetuate the idea that OCD is only about cleanliness or wanting to be neat.This could marginalize many people with the condition who may or may not know they have it. For example, if you live with OCD but don’t fit into this stereotype, you might find it difficult to figure out or accept your diagnosis. In fact, you might not identify your compulsions as compulsions in the first place. This, in turn, could lead to you not seeking or accepting help.People with OCD who aren’t focused on cleaning might also become hesitant or frustrated if others don’t believe their diagnosis because they don’t meet the condition stereotypes.

Everybody experiences OCD differently. For some people, it might involve compulsions that relate to cleaning, order, and symmetry. For others, it can look totally different. In this sense, it’s possible to have OCD and be messy or have what may be considered a regular approach to cleaning.

If someone is particular about the positions of items on a desk or in their home, it might just be that they’re meticulous, but it might also be that it’s a compulsion.

There are so many common misconceptions about OCD. Often, the term is used trivially.Most of the time, OCD is conflated with cleanliness and neatness. We refer to pedantic friends as being OCD. If we go out of our way to clean our houses, we might refer to ourselves as OCD.Though you may not intend to belittle anyone, language matters. These expressions dismiss the complexity of OCD symptoms. They may also perpetuate the idea that OCD is only about cleanliness or wanting to be neat.This could marginalize many people with the condition who may or may not know they have it. For example, if you live with OCD but don’t fit into this stereotype, you might find it difficult to figure out or accept your diagnosis. In fact, you might not identify your compulsions as compulsions in the first place. This, in turn, could lead to you not seeking or accepting help.People with OCD who aren’t focused on cleaning might also become hesitant or frustrated if others don’t believe their diagnosis because they don’t meet the condition stereotypes.

Yes, you can have OCD and be messy or untidy. Everyone’s different, so this behavior might result from the disorder or just an aspect of your personality. As a formal diagnosis, OCD is characterized by two main symptoms: compulsions and obsessions. Obsessions or obsessive thinking refer to intrusive, unwanted, and distressing thoughts, images, or urges.In response to these persistent thoughts, someone with OCD feels the need to repeat certain actions to decrease the distress. This could include cleaning, arranging objects in a particular order, or repeating mantras (mentally or out loud). These would be compulsions.If you live with OCD, you might think that following your compulsions will stop obsessive thoughts, neutralize a potential threat, or relieve anxiety.

There are many pervasive myths about obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). One of the most common ones is that every person with this mental health condition is extremely focused on cleaning and organizing everything around them. But this isn’t accurate. In fact, many people with OCD are quite the opposite. You wouldn’t realize this if you learned about the condition from movies and television shows. A classic example is a character like Adrian Monk from the television series Monk, who compulsively washes his hands, maintains symmetry, and struggles to cope with the disorder. This portrayal of the condition might have influenced how some people sometimes trivialize it in everyday scenarios. They might tease their ultra-neat friends as being “so OCD,” or they could refer to their own cleaning habits as OCD. Inadvertently, this distorts and dismisses the complexity of the condition’s formal symptoms.Some people with OCD do have compulsions around cleanliness and order. However, this is not a diagnostic requirement nor the only way OCD manifests. It’s important to acknowledge this because people living with OCD who aren’t focused on cleaning might find it difficult to look for and accept their diagnosis.

You’ve probably heard that people with OCD clean compulsively, and are extremely neat, and orderly. This is not always the case.

Scenario 2:  While watching the nighttime news, a person is spotlighted for being a sexual deviant. You view his mugshot and keep listening to the news anchor, but as the segment continues, you become increasingly angry.  Not only do you find his perverse actions disgusting, but you’re also infuriated by his cavalier response to his many offenses. The circumstance causes you to quickly change the channel and turn on your favorite comedy to forget about the uncomfortable news you heard.  Or, what if you could never change the channel? Additionally, what if you replayed the segment in your head repeatedly, to purposefully try to find 100 percent certainty that you weren’t like the predator on TV, due to how uncomfortable it made you feel?  Taking it one step further, what if you identified one potential item of uncertainty while replaying the events – a feeling in your stomach that made you question if your reaction was rooted in full disgust or only “nearly-full” disgust? You begin to feel extreme anxiety from being unable to tell if you felt “fully disgusted,” and you begin to decipher the thought further to guarantee that you had the right level of disgust, to completely guarantee that you aren’t like the guy on TV.  However, the more you analyze the thought, the more questions emerge over time. The more questions arise, the more anxiety you feel. Now, you’re beginning to question if you really know yourself and whether you can fully trust your brain. The anxiety heightens as the questions broaden in scope.  Your logical brain and your emotional brain feel out of sync, and you become beyond terrified, since you don’t want to be a monster. OCD has misattributed the perceived uncertainty for being a truly alarming situation, even though you logically understand that your thought process is completely irrational. The emotional response mirrored that of a real situation, ultimately causing confusion.

One way that can help people understand the difference between OCD and everyday thoughts and behaviors is whether something is “ego-syntonic” or “ego-dystonic”. Something that is “ego-syntonic” truly aligns with one’s values, identity, core beliefs, and desires. Something that is “ego-dystonic” does not — it is separate or opposite of what someone truly agrees with, desires, believes in, and values. The obsessions and compulsions of OCD are ego-dystonic, as people with OCD are distressed by the content of their intrusive thoughts and would truly prefer not to do the compulsive behaviors or have the compulsive thoughts that keep their distress at bay for a moment.

Putting things in order or arranging things until it "feels right" Telling, asking, or confessing to get reassurance Avoiding situations that might trigger your obsessions

You did not/will not harm others You did not/will not harm yourself Nothing terrible happened You did not make a mistake

"Cancelling" or "Undoing" (example: replacing a "bad" word with a "good" word to cancel it out)

Mental review of events to prevent harm (to oneself others, to prevent terrible consequences)

Washing hands excessively or in a certain way

Similar to obsessions, not all repetitive behaviors or “rituals” are compulsions. This depends on the function and the context of the behavior. For example, bedtime routines, religious practices, and learning a new skill all involve some level of repeating an activity over and over again, but are usually a positive and functional part of daily life. Similarly, arranging and ordering books for eight hours a day isn’t a compulsion if the person works in a library.  The feelings associated with a behavior also indicate whether it is compulsive. If you are just a stickler for details or like to have things neatly arranged, you might consider these things to be “compulsive” behaviors, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are symptoms of OCD. In these cases, “compulsive” refers to a personality trait or something about yourself that you actually prefer or like. In most cases, individuals with OCD feel driven to engage in compulsive behavior and would rather not have to do these time-consuming and often torturous acts. Rather than being a source of pleasure, people with OCD perform compulsions because they believe they are necessary to prevent negative consequences and/or to escape or reduce anxiety or the presence of obsessions.

Compulsions are repetitive behaviors or thoughts that a person uses with the intention of neutralizing, counteracting, or making their obsessions go away. People with OCD realize this is only a temporary solution, but without a better way to cope, they rely on compulsions nonetheless. Compulsions can also include avoiding situations that trigger obsessions

Emotional contamination obsessions (e.g., fear of "catching" personality traits or personal characteristics of other individuals)

Real event/false memory obsessions (e.g., excessive concern about things that happened in the past and what impacts they may have had)

Obsessions about death/existence (e.g., excessive preoccupation with existential and philosophical themes, such as death, the universe, and one’s role in “the grand scheme.”

Relationship-related obsessions (e.g., excessive concern about whether one’s partner is “the one," the partner’s flaws and qualities) These types of obsessions can center around romantic partners, relatives, friends, and other relationships.

Fear of making mistakes

Fear of losing or forgetting important information when throwing something out

“Obsessing” or “being obsessed” are commonly used terms in everyday language. These more casual uses of the word mean that someone is preoccupied with a topic, an idea, or even a person. To be “obsessed” in this everyday sense doesn’t mean that a person has problems in their day-to-day living — there may even be a pleasurable component to their experience of being “obsessed.” For example, you can be “obsessed” with a new song you hear on the radio, but you can still meet your friend for dinner, get ready for bed in a timely way, get to work on time in the morning, etc., despite this obsession.  The content of an everyday “obsession” can be more serious: for example, everyone might have had a thought from time to time about getting sick, or worrying about a loved one’s safety, or wondering if a mistake they made might be catastrophic in some way. While these thoughts look similar to what you would see in OCD, someone without OCD may have these thoughts, be momentarily concerned, and then move on. In fact, research has shown that most people have unwanted intrusive thoughts from time to time, but in the context of OCD, these intrusive thoughts come frequently and trigger extreme anxiety, fear, and/or disgust that gets in the way of day-to-day functioning.

Obsessions are thoughts, images, or impulses that occur over and over again and feel outside of the person’s control. Individuals with OCD do not want to have these thoughts and find them disturbing. In most cases, people with OCD have some insight - they realize that these thoughts are illogical.  Obsessions are typically accompanied by intense and uncomfortable feelings such as fear, disgust, uncertainty, and/or doubt

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental health disorder that affects people of all ages [1] and walks of life, and occurs when a person gets caught in a cycle of obsessions and compulsions [2]. Obsessions are unwanted, intrusive thoughts, images, or urges that trigger intensely distressing feelings. Compulsions are behaviors an individual engages in to attempt to get rid of the obsessions and/or decrease distress. Most people have obsessive thoughts and/or compulsive behaviors at some point in their lives, but that does not mean that we all have “some OCD.” In order for a diagnosis of OCD to be made, this cycle of obsessions and compulsions must be so extreme that it consumes a lot of time (more than an hour every day), causes intense distress, or gets in the way of important activities that the person values[1].

Sexual Obsessions Unwanted thoughts or mental images related to sex, including: Fears of acting on a sex-related impulse Fears of sexually harming children, relatives, or others Fears of performing aggressive sexual behaviors towards others

Violent Obsessions Fear of acting on an impulse to harm oneself Fear of acting on an impulse to harm others Excessive concern with violent or horrific images in one's mind