Symptoms of OCD in Adults

OCD is characterized by chronic obsessions and compulsions. Depending on the nature of the disorder, the symptoms of OCD vary and are often personal and unique to the person with the disorder. Symptoms include:

Obsessions

A person with OCD suffers from recurring and persistent intrusive thoughts, images, ideas or impulses over which they have little or no control and which cause considerable distress. The most common obsessions relate to the following themes:

• Aggressive impulses, or the fear that you’re going to harm someone
• Contamination; fear of germs or disease
• Sexual content
• The need for symmetry and order – often as a way of warding off bad luck or disaster

We all get the odd thought or idea that pops into our head from time to time. While most of us can easily dismiss it and carry on, for a person with OCD, there seems to be no escaping these thoughts or impulses. Imagine if the thing you feared the most was a thought! The more you try not thinking about the forbidden thought, the stronger it becomes. For example, if you’re trying not to think of stabbing someone with a knife, this image is the first thing that comes to mind. Teen OCD is especially isolating since the youngster may suffer from symptoms during class and extracurricular activities and may feel ostracized.

Compulsions

One way to relieve the anxiety associated with these obsessions is to act on compulsions. Compulsions are repetitive behaviors, often intended to produce or prevent some future event or situation. An obsessive concern of contamination would usually result in hand-washing compulsions, while obsessions with symmetry would result in re-arranging and ordering of objects.

In many cases the compulsion is totally unrelated to the obsessive thought, but the action becomes a ritualistic distraction. The individual may realize that these actions are senseless, but feel unable to resist them.

For example, where some of us may superstitiously avoid stepping on cracks in the sidewalk, people with OCD may feel extreme anxiety if they don’t give in to this compulsive behavior and often only feel relief when they have done so.

Common compulsions include:

• Washing hands over and over again
• Repetitive checking that appliances are turned off or windows are closed
• Frequently wiping objects before touching them
• Collecting and hoarding specific items
• Counting items over and over
• Repeating specific words and phrases in a particular order in ‘your head’
• Rearranging things endlessly to create ‘balance’
• Excessive list making
• Repeating actions in sets of three
• Having a strict ritual before going to bed that has to be followed exactly

Many of us have learnt about OCD by watching movies or plays about people who are ruled by compulsions such as hand washing, counting and other forms of compulsive behavior. Some examples are ‘Macbeth’, ‘Rain Man’ and Jack Nicholson’s ‘As Good As It Gets’.

Although compulsions are the most well known symptoms of OCD, many people with this condition suffer only from obsessive thoughts. In fact, compulsive behavior is not a prerequisite to the diagnosis of OCD.

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