What is it like to have OCD?

Tell me so that I may understand what it is like to have OCD (I don't have it).

I have it but,I cant really explain it well.Its like u get a really strong urge to do something an exsessive amount of time until the feeling to do it stops.Like washing ur hands a certain amount of times,repeating a word in ur head a certain amount of times and stuff like that.Thats the only way i really know how to explain it.Sry if that didnt answer ur question.

It sucks, really bad.

I have OCD, mostly in my head. I HAVE to think certain things to cancel out bad thoughts, otherwise I'm afraid those bad thoughts will come true. I try not to do this, but the anxiety from not doing it finally compels me to just do it!

A few examples: Whenever anyone says god****, I have to think gosh darnit. When I have an image or thought of something bad happening, I have to think or say *that would suck* to make sure that it doesn't happen. I can't think that things are going well, ever, because that will jinx it and something bad WILL happen. I have to knock on wood frequently, to make sure nothing bad happens from what I've said.

On a daily basis, I have bits of songs, or phrases, repeating in my head non-stop. Just out of nowhere. They won't just go away, and are all I can think of while it's happening.

Sometimes, I type sentences out, in my head, according to where they are on a keyboard. Then I add up how many letters in that sentence are used by which hand. I do this very quickly.

I have to keep everything in a specific arrangement, or I have to fix it. Even if I'm sick or falling asleep, the anxiety from seeing something out of order will make me finally get up and fix it.

I quite easily obsess about problems that pop up(not everyday stuff, usually). The internet is VERY bad for me, as I can spend all day and night *researching* something I'm obsessed with. I can't stop either, I'll be miserable at the computer still reading and reading, wanting to get off but I can't.

I read about something bad, and that's it. I obsess about it. Last year I was obsessed with dust(after getting a vacuum demo in my home), this year I'm recently obsessed with not using cleaning chemicals or eating pork.

For six years, I obsessed about my breathing, convinced that I would stop breathing if I didn't breathe a *certain* way(thank GOD that's about gone!!!!!) Even though I *knew* that I wouldn't stop breathing, I couldn't stop doing it.

I'm still praying for a hitch hiker my husband and I gave a ride to two years ago. I refer to him as *that guy we met* in my prayers ( I don't even know his name). I'm afraid if I don't continue, something bad will happen to him the day I stop. Stupid, I know, but I haven't been able to successfully stop this.

Well, I hope this helps you, as it has helped me as I don't tell others in my life these things. Even my pdoc. It's too embarrassing. It feels good to put it out on a forum where no one knows me! But, from the things I have told my pdoc, she knows I have OCD and is trying to treat it.

Anyone else with OCD willing to share?

Jen

There are people here who could answer this question much better than I. I have read some of Maven's posts in which she has eloquently expressed what OCD feels like. Take a look for some of her posts. She has given me a lot of insight into OCD.

I had very, very mild OCD and it has gotten much better. It's something that only affects me when I'm extremely stressed out and am not distracted by other things. So, it usually just affects me when I'm trying to fall asleep. I count syllables and need them to end on a multiple of 5.

It started when I was a little girl. There were things I HAD to do and I KNEW that if I didn't do them, something horrible would happen. I would remember things people had said -- a phrase or a sentence -- and I would have to count out the syllables on my fingers until they ended on a multiple of 5. I also used to have to get the edge of my bedroom curtain to stay tucked behind my windowsill. I would give myself 5 tries to get it to stay and if it didn't, I would be filled with terror that something was going to happen to my family. I also used to do piano fingering while lying in bed or sitting and watching tv. It was always the same piece of music and I would "play" the right hand part while the left-hand "played" a mirror image of the same notes. If I made a mistake, I would have to start over. So, for me, it was my mind constantly telling me that I had to do these things. I couldn't NOT do them. I did them to make myself feel safe. If I didn't do them, or couldn't do them properly, I was terrified. It was an attempt to have some CONTROL in a world in which I can't control many things.

I am very fortunate that I have never had severe OCD though. It has never controlled my life like it does for some people. Agoraphobia, panic attacks and depression have been my main demons.

Here's just a few of my feelings/ experiences.

Starting when I was in first grade I can remember having to have all the desks lined up and spaced properly and my desk had to be aligned with the seams in the carpet.

Any area that is clean and organized must have the entire thing organized. If my desk is mostly straight then every object on it must also be straight. I can't calm down or think clearly if it's not.

I have a really hard time with change. Once I do something one way I need to keep doing it that way- this includes only using certain staircases and walkways depending on where I am going. (ie if I use a walkway to go to a certain class, I must use that walkway everytime I go to that class)

I've had problems in the past with door handles having to push down and open a certain way or number of times. If I don't then I feel all paniced and won't be okay until I've done it.

I use to have to count ceiling tiles whenever I went into a room. This included rows and columns and number of columns and number of individual squares. I wouldn't be able to pay attention in class until this was done.

I also use to count cracks in side walks and many other things too.

One of the major problems with OCD is that you don't feel "right" unless you give in and do it how you feel you have to. Usually it feels like it's a waste of time to sit there obsessing about doing something when you know you won't get anything else done until you just do what you're obsessiing over. However, giving in sometimes leads to the development of having to do other things also.

It's a vicious cycle.

I'm doing a bit better now after having therapy for four years now and being on meds, but I still really struggle with not giving in sometimes. I tend to go into a quick downward spiral if I don't watch myself from giving into certain temptations (especially counting and organizing).

These are just a few things that I've experienced as a result of OCD. I hope that helps some.

Thanks for the compliment, Juliana.

Everyone's described OCD very well. When I'm having especially bad OCD and anxiety, thoughts just swim very fast in my head. Like a few days ago, when I was hot, because it was hot and the air conditioner wasn't up enough. My thoughts were going basically like this, with a lot of irritability, upset and on the verge of crying:

I hate being so hot, why do I have to be so hot? I hate being hot because I feel so skanky and I want a shower but I don't feel like going through everything I have to take a shower. I told my bf over and over that being too hot affects me this way, why won't he listen? I hate not being able to feel clean and that makes me feel more irritated and that makes me upset and getting upset makes me sweat and then I get hotter and more upset and more irritable and I can't feel clean, why do I have to be like this? D*** it! I just want to f***ing be left alone and just have some peace and do stuff and relax. Why couldn't my bf just do this one little thing, open the window so I could be cool and relax, he just doesn't understand, and it's so simple and now I just spend all this time feeling dirty and my shirt is sweaty and I'm skanky and it's awful!

Just on and on like that.

When I do my rituals, I have to concentrate so as not to make a mistake, or I might have to start over or do that part over. I used to spend hours washing, but luckily, I'm much better now, so it only takes a few minutes. Still, my OCD affects just about everything, including wiping gunk out of my eyes (I have dry eyes), so I have to do it a certain way, in certain numbers, and I try not to touch my eyes until I'm going to be washing my hands, because the stuff in my eyes makes me feel dirty if I get it on my hands or other places.

Just the way I look at some things is affected by my OCD. I might feel I have to look away to the left a couple of times, to a certain point, and if I look too far or not far enough over, I have to correct it and do it again, but it has to be a number of times that feels "right" to me.

(((Maven)))) That sounds awful. I'm glad you're better than you used to be, though. It must be exhausting to feel that way all the time.

I just remembered something else I used to do when I was a child. The church I went to preached that you shouldn't recite prayers. You should pray directly to God, from your heart and not just recite the same words all the time. I HAD to cover everything in my prayers, though -- and they were the same things. I had to make sure I got EVERYTHING into my prayers because if I missed something horrible, God would notice and then he would let that thing happen... because I had been so careless and forgotten to ask him NOT to let it happen. So, I had every horrible contingency planned out in my mind. How to avoid the recitation, though? What I did was organize everything I needed to pray about into little categories. In my mind, they were in little boxes -- arranged in a spiral. I had to make sure that each night, I switched all the boxes around in a different order. I did a clockwise rotation -- one step. The one in the centre of the spiral would move to the first step on the outside of the spiral. The categories inside the boxes were vertical and they had to be switched one step down too each time... the bottom would move to the top. That way, I wasn't reciting the same prayer, but I was getting in everything that needed to be covered. Sometimes, I would finish my prayer, and then immediately start to worry that I had missed something. So, I would turn all the boxes clockwise one step again, shift the order within the boxes and start my prayers again. I sometimes did that many, many times before I was convinced I had done it right and only then could I go to sleep.

I find my OCD to be strange and my doctor hadn't heard of it before. I have 2 things that I do. number 1 is I count on my hands, but its not exactly counting, people can be talking in movies or to me and the words they are saying I get each letter from the word and put it on each finger back and forth on my hand. And I like it if the words end on the end of my hand otherwise I have to find one that does. Sometimes its worse than others, especially when i'm stressed. The second thing I do is I pick my skin in my ears. It builds up to like this white flaky skin and I just pick it out of the edges until its all gone to the next day. And I cant stop no matter how I try. Gets annoying!!!

hmm, to describe OCD..so many of us have it, and yet the description for each will vary in so many ways.

OCD is urgency, unrelenting fear, uncertainty, repetition, checking, rechecking, counting, repeating, time consuming.

For myself, OCD is: imagine having a thought pop into your head that made you feel uncomfortable. In order to turn this thought "off", you had to repeat it exactly (and i mean EXACTLY) the way you thought it the first time, and if you didn't then you'd have to start over. However, you can't start over with the original thought, you have to start over with the NEW modified thought, complete that one first, and then go back to the original thought. Sometimes it's hard to control your mind, so you cannot force your mind to think the thoughts exactly the same each time, so you end up with a spiral effect of thoughts that just grows and grows until you can get each and every one of them completed perfectly until you get to the original one.

Then..sometimes you have to do this in certain numbers...or patterns of numbers. For me, a 1 is on and a 2 is off, but I often have to work in "sets" so a 1 and a 2 is a "1" and another 1 and a 2 is another "1" which would equal a 2 overall.

Not completing these thoughts makes you feel like nothing will be right until you get through them. For me, if I just half way complete one, or don't complete it exactly, then I get this unshakable feeling like my fears are true, so I have to give in and work the problem until I get the desired result.

Problem is, I can spend hours just repeating thoughts in my head, and my mind can't focus, so I have a real problem trying to repeat images with precise exactness, which means there are alot of variations in the images, which I have to systematically repeat in a certain order so that I can end up back to the original thought, and try to complete it so I get some relief from my anxiety.

Here's the kicker. Myself, and probably everyone else with OCD KNOWS that this behavior is senseless and not necessary, yet we cannot simply let it go. For some reason, our minds tell us that we MUST do these things, even though our rational brains tell us that we dont have to, but fear and anxiety takes over and controls us in a way that causes us to lose precious time in our lives. It distracts us from work and causes us to miss out on life, and the things in life that really matter. It causes us to miss out on fun things that we could be doing, and if we are doing activities that would normally be fun, we are hindered because we don't seem to get the joy out of it like everyone else.

Take me for example. My OCD stems from the fear of being homosexual. I know I like women, but not knowing if I like men or not triggers alot of unwanted thoughts and triggers alot of thought patterns in order to clear anxiety I am feeling. If I see a good looking guy, then I have to check myself to see how that makes me feel. I often then put myself in sexual situations with guys in my mind, to try to see how I react to that, to see how it makes me feel. If it doesn't affect me, or if I feel indifferent toward it, then I begin to worry because I think I should have gotten a grossed out or repulsive feeling toward it. The problem is, when I envision those sexual situations, I have to repeat them (as described above), and if I don't, then, ill feel like my fear is true.

anyway, you wanted to know what OCD is like....i'm sure there is no ONE way to explain it, but im sure all of us could give you some examples that will give you a taste of what it's like.

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Gaston said:
hmm, to describe OCD..so many of us have it, and yet the description for each will vary in so many ways.

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that is so true....

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It causes us to miss out on fun things that we could be doing, and if we are doing activities that would normally be fun, we are hindered because we don't seem to get the joy out of it like everyone else.

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not even the checking does this.. but the worrying.. having your mind caught up on everything else that it is hard to get it on what is going on in front of you.

me.. i haven't been to anyone about my anxiety, but everyone i tell my troubles to, they have told me it might be OCD and it makes sense.

in my head, there is constant doubt.. constant.. i repeatedly have to check for my keys/purse/money, etc until I am sure it is there. i havent noticed a pattern of amount of times. Sometimes, with my keys, i have to actually be holding onto my keys so that when I leave my dorm, I dont worry about them. the same goes for my purse in the car if i am a passenger. i'll put it around my knee so i wont lose it.

i am not sure if this is all OCD, but no matter what i do i have to check it.. there is always doubt or i have to have conversations planned out in my head so i dont look stupid when i actually have the conversations.

sigh.. anxiety..

(((Juliana))) I understand the scrupulosity thing. I have issues like that. I used to have special ways to pray, felt guilty if I didn't read the Bible when I was trying to read a chapter every day, etc. It doesn't help when your parents and others instill guilt (not just religious, but that, too) in you and use guilt to control you.

I have "weird" things with my OCD, too, nicole. Many of my therapists have given me strange looks and said they didn't get it. I don't always get it.

I do some things that don't fit in with the way other people with OCD act, or things that seem logical. I obsess about cleanliness, yet I don't clean my house perfectly, nor do I spend hours and hours cleaning. I do wash my hands many times a day. I can touch my boyfriend (but not as much as I used to be), but not other people. I can shop and buy things that other people probably touched (although I do try to take items from the back, so as to avoid things more likely touched by many people), but I don't like anyone touching my stuff, or touching most stuff other people have touched.

I always worry people won't believe me, because of these inconsistencies. And it makes me mad that lawyers and judges usually won't take our unique needs and lives into consideration when we have to turn to the courts. For example, if somebody robs my house, do you think the judge or the police will tell the person he has to buy me a new computer, because I can't touch the one the police gets back, or get a used one? I'd usually get my computer back, even if I can no longer use it. And if I got money for it (like if it were damaged), it would be the value of the computer at the time it was damaged. If I have difficulty meeting obligations because of my OCD, they're not going to accept that. Plus, many courts will force people to take medications, or require it as a choice to get something the person wants, and I feel we shouldn't be forced to put medications in our bodies, because these are OUR bodies. Furthermore, we don't know what those medications might be doing. I used to have breakdowns every month and my heart used to skip beats or something much more. Reducing my meds to near nothing has stopped or reduced those problems. I should be able to make my own decisions about medications, without special conditions being put on them.

But I'm veering off-topic. OCD is hell.

Another problem for me with OCD is its contribution to me not wanting to go anywhere. Leaving my room means there are more triggers and more things I may have to do or repeat or chances I'll discover a new ritual that I have to do. It seems like such a waste of time to face any of these triggers and have to deal with all this but I can't let myself give in to staying in my room because it isn't practical and it just lets fear take over my entire life.

OCD is so complicating

I know what you mean. I really enjoy going to the book stores, but there are lots of fears to deal with. I always worry I won't be able to get my hands washed and dried the way I need them to be, and then I'll be stuck "not clean enough" to touch and buy books, let alone do other things, like buy stuff I might need later that day. If the store doesn't have handsoap, I have to ask, and sometimes they're not very speedy in getting it in there. That's rare that I have that problem, but it's happened. One store we frequent only has one hand dryer, and I can't wait to get my hands dried; I have to get my hands dried as soon as possible after leaving the water, and I can't stop until I'm finished (I mean, I can't step away from the hand dryer so someone else can use it, then go back to it), and I have to get my hands completely dried before I can go out and enjoy my shopping experience.

If everything goes okay, I still have to calm down once I start shopping. I just have to relax, now that everything is done and I can focus. But I also have to worry about bumping into people and having "accidents" where I'll need to wash my hands again. And that's just in the book store...going to dinner has its worries and rituals, too. *Sigh!*

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Maven said:
(((Juliana))) I understand the scrupulosity thing. I have issues like that. I used to have special ways to pray, felt guilty if I didn't read the Bible when I was trying to read a chapter every day, etc. It doesn't help when your parents and others instill guilt (not just religious, but that, too) in you and use guilt to control you.

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Most of my messed up depressed and anxiety-ridden thoughts as a child came from things I heard in church. The church my family went to messed with my young mind in a big way. My mum still goes to that church, but my dad stopped ages ago. When I was 12, he told me I was intelligent enough to make up my own mind about what I believed, so I decided to stop going. A lot of the stuff that was put into my head -- and the behaviours I developed to deal with all those fears -- stayed with me for many, many years though. Not sure they're all gone yet.

Too many people don't realize that religion can harm, even if they don't intend it to, when certain parts of it are exposed to children. Most parents limit what they tell of sexuality and the way things are in the world to their children until they feel the children are of an age where they can handle the info, but those same parents will tell them things from their religion that will harm the child's mind.

It's true. My mum had no idea that I was listening so closely and taking it all in and processing it. She didn't think little kids were smart enough for that and she has apologized many times. I know she didn't mean any harm... and of course I never told her what was going on inside my head at the time. My church preached a lot of doom &amp; gloom stuff -- impending famine and drought, saving food, surviving the end of the world, etc. Scary stuff.

My parents didn't even go to church much, but I had relatives who did, and my parents and others talked about the Apocalypse and all that doom and gloom stuff. Messed me up.

Everyone here's done a pretty good job of explaining OCD, but like some have already mentioned it is very different for different people. I guess the best way for me to describe OCD is having a very strong urge to do something and it can drive you insane if you don't do it (at least in my experience). I was very interested to read nicole84's post because it's similar to what I go through. I'm always counting on my fingers or toes all the time. It exhausts me. I find it very hard to get through a page in a book because I find myself counting every letter and all the spaces in between. Counting is definitely one of my biggest problems (everytime I see a square/rectangle or anything with four corners, I have to count somehow inside that object to come up with the number 17... sounds confusing huh?), but the second thing that I find so unnerving is that I constantly have to touch the center of things. For example, last night when I was going to sleep I was laying in bed going crazy because I didn't touch the center of the switch/knob on my bedside lamp enough times. Thirdly, I need things to be in a specific order... it doesn't matter if there's a pile of junk on the floor (which there never is as long as I live here ) but I'll have to have that pile of junk in some sort of order, whether it's small items on bottom, large items on top or vice versa. When I was little I would wander the house all day making sure everyone's shoes were lined up in a certain order, all my stuffed animals were in their proper places, and check often to see if the toilet seat was down. Sorry for the long post, but I hope this gives you a little more insight on what it's like to live with OCD.

If I'd known about the woman who was on Dr. Phil today, I'd have told you to watch the show. She's a good example of someone with extreme cleaning OCD. In my area, they repeat the shows the following week at 10:00pm eastern. If your area is like that, you might be able to catch it on Tuesday next week.