So many people don’t realize that they have OCD because act…

I think that a lot of people forget that OCD is a mental illness, emphasis on the MENTAL. When it’s portrayed on TV, it’s always shown as a very behavioral disorder. And while it’s true that overt behavioral compulsions are part of OCD, they don’t begin to tell the whole story

OCD stands for obsessive compulsive disorder. That’s obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors. The OCD cycle is the cycle of obsessions that lead to compulsions that lead to more obsessions that lead to more compulsions etc etc etc.

People with OCD experience intrusive thoughts (which become obsessions.) Intrusive thoughts are unwanted and invasive, and they’re generally REALLY disturbing. It’s a common misconception that people with OCD are exclusively concerned with tidiness and cleanliness. This is false

TW/ OCD subtypes

Intrusive thoughts can be about anything, but there are a few common “subtypes” of obsessions. These include harm OCD, self harm OCD, sexual OCD, pedophelia OCD, relationship OCD, contamination OCD, religious OCD, moral OCD, health OCD and “just right”

I’ve talked a lot about this before, but intrusive thoughts are ego- dystonic. That means that the things that people with OCD are worried about happening don’t align with their true values or intentions. In fact, OCD attacks the things you value most.

Next tweet: TW harm OCD

Ex: if I care about being a good person, my OCD might make me obsess over whether or not I’m morally corrupt. If family is one of my greatest values, I might have graphic intrusive thoughts about stabbing them to death. OCD is so distressing BECAUSE our thoughts are ego dystonic.

People with OCD are not at risk of acting on the things they’re scared of doing. Like I said, the thoughts are as distressing as they are BECAUSE they go against everything we want/stand for. But lots of people don’t understand that, which makes opening up REALLY hard.

Compulsions are attempts to get rid of obsessions. In essence, they’re anxiety behaviors. Compulsions may take the form of overt behaviors or covert mental “gymnastics.” The problem with compulsions is that they aren’t effective in relieving anxiety in the long term

Compulsions provide very immediate and very temporary, but in the long term they only strengthen obsessions and reinforce the obsessive-compulsive cycle. A lot of people don’t understand that compulsions can be mental, and thus are easy to go unnoticed.

Common mental compulsions include “self-reassurance,” checking bodily sensations, replaying memories, mental counting, and mental avoidance (“pushing away the thoughts.”) Even among people who know more about OCD, not everyone is aware of mental compulsions.

I guess the main takeaway here is that OCD is a very MENTAL disorder. It gets you stuck inside your head. It can be debilitating. I’ve heard therapists refer to it as the “doubting disease” because of the way it makes you doubt everything you care about. It’s always “what if?”

There is nothing about OCD that inherently involves cleaning or organizing. And even people who engage in cleaning and organizing compulsions suffer from the same obsessive-compulsive cycle. It’s still a mental illness. It’s still painful to cope with.

Please let me know if you have any more questions about what OCD actually is or how it can manifest. I’m happy to help in any way that I can. I just really wanted to put more basic and accesible information out there, because I think education is incredibly important.

Also important to note that severity differs and can also fluctuate over the years either its own or with treatment. So like, some people with OCD are so incapacitated at times that they can’t work or go to school, and some people experience little-to-no day to day interference

So many people don’t realize that they have OCD because actual obsessive compulsive disorder is rarely talked about openly. So here are the basics: 🧵(thread)

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