Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

What is OCD?

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, or OCD, involves having obsessive thinking patterns that can include unwanted thoughts, images, or urges that make a person feel anxious, uncomfortable or distressed (obsessions) and repeated mental and/or physical behaviors intended to reduce the anxiety or discomfort (compulsions). These obsessions and compulsions are time consuming and cause impairment in functioning and or excessive distress for the individual.

Common forms of OCD

• Uncertainty/Fear of Scary Outcome: Sufferer worries "What if [insert outcome] occurs?" The fear centers around a specific "theme" or multiple themes, such as one's sexuality, possibility of or desiring harm on others, being a "bad" person, and many more (the list is endless, as people with a predisposition for OCD equally have a predisposition for creativity!)
  
  It is common for an OCD sufferer with this form of OCD to avoid songs, articles, books, movies/videos, pictures, words, and situations associated with their theme of worry. While the list of possible compulsions is endless, common compulsions for this form of OCD are seeking reassurance from others that the feared outcome will not occur, self-reassurance, mental reviewing and checking, excessive researching (often on internet) about the validity of one's fears.