Imagine this scenario…
You and a friend are cleaning up after a party. Your friend is very particular about the chairs being angled just right and the plate designs all facing the same direction. You jokingly raise an eyebrow at them, and they respond with, “Sorry, I’m super OCD. Everything has to be just right.”
How often have you heard things like that? How frequently do perfectionists or neat freaks casually and proudly claim to have OCD? I wonder how many of these people realize what the disorder really looks like.
Granted, some of these people might truly have OCD, but odds are, most don’t. I imagine they wouldn’t announce it as proudly if they did.
Why? Because OCD is a really distressing disorder that isn’t all about making sure things line up or you can’t see any dust. In fact, some people with OCD might not be all that organized. It just depends.
Since I’ve been on a roll with this mental health section, and since my goal is to discuss as many taboo or misunderstood topics as possible, I want to take some time to look at what real OCD is. Maybe then we can have a better grasp of what the disorder is and stop throwing the term around so casually, since that can really discredit the struggles people with it might be living through.
Ready? Let’s go.
What does OCD stand for, and what does it mean?
OCD stands for obsessive compulsive disorder. Obsessive here means something different than the everyday definition. Quoting from the NHS,
An obsession is an unwanted and unpleasant thought, image or urge that repeatedly enters your mind, causing feelings of anxiety, disgust or unease.
NHS
So an obsession isn’t a hobby you’re super devoted to. It’s a thought, image, or urge that you can’t escape. It can really mess with a person.
Other disorders, like anxiety or ADHD, for example, can also involve obsessions. I have them. They’re not fun. There’s nothing you can do to remove them from your mind, and they shape the way you act if you deal with them long enough.
Examples of obsessions can be thoughts like, “I’m going to be robbed”, or “I’m at the wrong place (when you realistically know you’re not)”. Images can be mild or graphic. One example is seeing someone speed-walking with a sharpened pencil and seeing in your mind what could happen if they tripped. (I won’t elaborate further on that one.) Urges can be unsafe or even criminal (though not always). Maybe you have an urge to curse at your boss or sleep with a friend. That urge can be nearly impossible to supress.
And calling these things ‘obsessions’ implies that you obsess over them. They’re in your head often, and your mind mulls them over, unable to let go.
With OCD, this then leads to compulsions.
A compulsion is a repetitive behaviour or mental act that you feel you need to do to temporarily relieve the unpleasant feelings brought on by the obsessive thought.
NHS
Compulsions are responses to obsessions. They’re the actions taken to avoid the obsession coming to pass. Someone with the obsessive thought that they’ll be robbed may check that they’ve locked their doors and closed their windows several times before going to bed. A person with the urge to curse at their boss may avoid speaking to their boss at all costs. Someone with the obsessive image of someone tripping while holding a sharp or pointed object might constantly warn people to be careful or remove such objects from any environment they possibly can. This barely scratches the surface of OCD, and different people will have different obsessions and compulsions.
Why does this concern me if I don’t have OCD?
It’s important to understand what people with different disorders may experience or struggle with in order to have empathy for them. This conversation also needs to happen more often so that people will stop bragging about “being OCD” when they don’t have a clue what that really means.
Again, sometimes neat freaks or perfectionists really are OCD. People like that are more likely to develop the disorder than most others, according to the NHS.
But it isn’t right to throw the term around like it means nothing. Unless you really have OCD, don’t tell people you do. If we casually use the term to only describe certain perfectionist or organized preferences, we reduce the term to a minor quirk instead of the serious disorder it is. Then, when someone really has OCD, those around them don’t understand what the problems are. They may even comment things like, “Oh yeah, me too!”
Honestly, a lot of what I want to do with this section of my blog is to increase understanding, awareness, and empathy. If we take the time to learn and to challenge stigma, then we’re so much better positioned to help and receive help.
So like the title suggests, being a neat freak does not make you OCD, and being OCD does not make you a neat freak. Any disorder can affect people differently. It’s our job to listen, not to judge or jump to conclusions.
This is where I’ll leave the conversation for now. Until I’ve done my own further research, I don’t want to make my own assumptions more than I may have already. So we’ll put a pin in it and come back another time. Until then, I wish you all the best.