❝In which a celebrity dials a random number in hope of finding one last thing to make him smile before he commits suicide at the end of the month.❞
"I'm going to commit suicide in one months time."
"I think you have the wrong number."
"It can't be t...
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Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Understanding what drives a person to continue performing the seemingly nonsensical and repetitive behaviours, that Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) creates, is difficult, but partly it is due to the perception of the perceived level of danger and threat that a person with OCD believes may cause harm to themselves or a loved one.
For many people with OCD there is also an overinflated sense of responsibility to prevent harm and over estimation about the perceived threat the intrusive thoughts bring. It is these factors which help drive their compulsive behaviours, because they feel responsible to try and prevent bad things happening.
For someone without OCD it may be difficult to fully understand how such an intrusive thought can have such power over a person. So for an example think of the person you love the most, picture them in your mind. Now imagine if we tell you that without a shadow of a doubt, convince you beyond question, the door handle you just touched was touched by someone before who had just been to the toilet and not washed their hands. So your hand is now contaminated with deadly germs and unless you remove the germs you will pass them on to your loved one who will get a disease and die. We have convinced you that your hand is covered in deadly germs and so you may have become a little anxious, but even if you believed me, the anxiety would soon fade after you washed your hands. For someone with OCD that sense of anxiety will remain.
The problem that OCD creates is an increase in anxiety. Whilst a normal response to an anxiety provoking situation is for the anxiety to slowly decrease after the initial event, for someone with OCD the anxiety is maintained and often increases, usually because of their overestimation of the perceived level of threat.
Imagine standing in front of a chalkboard, now place your hand at the top of the chalkboard and using your hand rub your fingernails all the way down that chalk board. Feel the intense knots in your stomach as the sound of the fingernails screech against the board. The noise and intense feeling makes it feel that something horrific is about to happen, even though deep down you know nothing will. That intense feeling is overwhelming you, it's going right through you, you just want it to stop, you want to pull away.
Now multiply that feeling many times, and that may offer a small insight into the intensity that the unwanted intrusive thoughts and feelings bring to someone with OCD.
The reality is that OCD is like a pair of Chinese handcuffs, the harder you pull to get away from the compulsions, the tighter the grip becomes on the obsessions.
