Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

      Psychology always seems attractive to us. People are interested in it and its diseases. Psychological diseases are very various and so many people are curious about that subject and from many years they research it by wondering. Everybody has a fear about something and sometimes this fear may become a sickness. That way,  psychological diseases and disorders are with us since old times. It’s not right if we say every fear is a sickness. This is actually wrong.

Psychological diseases are very serious and sometimes it’s so scary. We shouldn’t take it easy in that way. Also it’s called Mental Disorders. It includes Neurodevelopmental Disorder which means insufficiency of brain, Bipolar and Related Disorders which means two character in one person, Anxiety Disorders which means too anxious for something or everything, Agoraphobia which means that fears for to go outside, Trauma and Stressor-Related Disorder, Feeding and Eating Disorders and one of them is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or shortly OCD is a very serious psychological disease. People ,who are with OCD, have sickly thoughts which are all-consuming. This thoughts become an obsession. Actually OCD is an anxiety disorder but some people thinks that OCD worse than an anxiety disorder. People with OCD has uncontrollable and unwanted behaviour.

The English term obsessive-compulsive comes from the translated term used to describe the first conceptions of OCD by Carl Westphal, “zwangsvorstellung”. Westphal’s description went on to influence Pierre Janet who further documented features of OCD.(1) It’s not known when actually this disorder came out but it is very common recently times. At least anyone knows something about that disorder but nobody knows actually how or what disorder it is. In early times, treatment of OCD is not totally scientific in the world but now people with OCD can be better and increase their life style with psychological treatment or drug treatment. People with OCD can be a child or an adult so no matter how old s/he is.

The disorder is not about sex, too. Any sex can be catched by the disease. Women and men have the same ranks in OCD that means two sex take risk equal. One of the reasons of OCD is being genetic. Psychiatrist says that not known what actually reasons behind the disease. But person with OCD affect by that in their social life and lifetime always because ,normally, their obsession and uwanted behaviour has a cause and effect in their life. 

Members of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder have more difficult life than other regular people. They always think about something and  keep to think unwillingly. This affects their social life, living and themselves. Also it affects in their relationship, on their work or their study in a bad way. People with OCD can not focus on their own life. When the disorder starts in childhood or adolescence, young people may avoid socialising with peers or become unable to live independently.(2) The World Health Organization ranks OCD as one of the 10 most handicapping conditions by lost income and decreased quality of life.(3) Some psychiatrists say that cultural factors affect who gets OCD. For example, religious reasons or some place where not enough modern can be reasons of OCD.

The term “Ritual” is a very important word for OCD because people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder have behavior which become a riual by unwillingly, even they try, they can not stop thinking and these behaviours. The simpliest sample is one normal person checks stove once before going out but the person who with obsessive compulsive disorder checks stove over and over and it may be a hundred times. They always feel responsible to think or check or say something and of course it effects their life. Most of the time they think more than one hour a day. If a person washes or cleans a lot, checks things a lot, has any thought that keeps bothering but cannot rid of, cannot finish daily activies or list and upsets by mess, most probably s/he is with OCD. Most people believe that reasons behind of OCD are emotional,sexual abuse, physicial, teasing, social isolation factors. 

 The person with OCD can not start something new just because s/he has fears to do mistake. So s/he waits a long time to do something and always thinks and fairs. S/he checks doors, stoves a million times. For example, a women with anxious obsession and control compulsion, every morning, she fears to forget something in house while going somewhere and she comes back home.  And if a person with infection obsession and cleaning compulsion always cleans his/her hand, s/he fears microps or diseases, thinks that if keeps to clean s/he can escape. S/he thinks that she shouldn’t shake hands with someone else because if s/he does, s/he would be ill. People with OCD take a shower frequently in a day. 

Other most believed factor is depression. Sexual abuse, lost someone be loved, illness, anxiety about relationships can become a depression and depression can be cause of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. People with OCD are in a condition which includes fear to harm other people, phobia of social life (asocial), fear to think bad things like sin and evil, need to set aright something, obsession of order like counting while doing routine job like eating. They  pay attention while they are doing something.They think that they are always in dangerous and nobody knows that. They feel insecure themselves. A girl with sexual obsession can fear men just because fears to rape. Religious obsessions affect a person with religous emotions like questioning to believe the God. These people are disturbed by their own thoughts. The person with symmetry/order obsession and compulsion needs to set aright unnecesessary things. Counting compulsion is that some OCD patients counts numbers by thinking cannot do it if s/he doesn’t count numbers. So even in their routinal things such as eating, showering, they count numbers frequently. The person with gathering and storage compulsion can even store items with the idea of “may be necessary in the future” even these are not needed. Most people may have some beliefs, behaviors, numbers and colors that they regard as auspicious or ominous as part of their cultural characteristics. Not to go under the stairs, not to jump over the children, not to get out of  house on the right foot, not to get up on the left side of the bed. Such beliefs can be assessed at the disease level if they are too frequent and intensive to interfere with daily life activities or restrict our daily routin. 

In conclusion, many people can be harassed, worried and obsessed with various issues from time to time. But most of the day, we can meet with these emotions that emerge in our lives and we can reach our solutions before reaching the points that affect our lives. OCD, obsessive thoughts, called obsessions, is a mental disorder consisting of ideas and impulses with the compulsion named by repetitive behaviors or mental acts. Despite winning any certainty as the cause of OCD, it is focused on a few assumptions.OCD is a disease that seriously restricts activities of daily living, leading to significant loss of function in family, occupation and social life, and decreasing quality of life. The high likelihood of chronicity increases the importance of cure. There are several methods used in treatment; drug treatment and  psychological treatment. Family members should help a person with OCD about compliance treatment. 

References 

(1)   Veale,David and Roberts, Allison (2014) Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: a review. British Medical Journal, 348. ISSN 0959-8138 

 (2) Ruiz, P; Sadock, B; Sadock, V. Kaplan and Sadock’s Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry (10th ed.). 95218: LWW. ISBN 978-1-4511-0047-1. 

(3)Kessler RC, Chiu WT DSM-IV disorders in the National Comorbodity Survey Replication. Arch Gen Psychiatry 2005;62:617-27