Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Awareness

Hello everybody, I’ve actually posted all about this many months ago, but the topic closed because it had been so long! I find this topic important, so I’m making it again. I feel that it should be talked about more as well. :slight_smile:
One thing that really bothers me is the misuse of OCD. I’ve had OCD since I was 3 years old (which is very rare to be diagnosed with that young) and am very passionate about spreading awareness about the disorder. The term OCD is now more than ever used incorrectly just about everywhere I look.
OCD stands for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It is a debilitating mental illness that is often overlooked by people and not taken seriously. Social media, influencers, celebrities, etc, portray it to be a quirky adjective, or just something that everybody has. Almost every single one of my teachers has misused it. Let me start off by saying that not everybody has it. It is far more complex than what many people realize.
It is not a joke or something to be taken so lightly. It’s just as serious as other mental illnesses but due to the stigma around it these days, no one takes me seriously if I say I have it. I waste hours every day doing rituals and other things in my head. Somethings I do physical rituals that other people notice. Sometimes I’m accused of spacing out. Of course I take medication for it, which has helped me.
Myself, just like many other people who have been diagnosed with this debilitating disorder, get understandably annoyed and insulted when others use the term frivolously to describe being neat, or just wanting something a certain way. There are so many stereotypes around it too, such as being neat or being a perfectionist. Of course some people who have it have those traits, but it’s not the only determining factor. It’s how much these rituals and thoughts disturb your everyday life. Please don’t misuse it or say you have it without being diagnosed!! It’s debilitating and not “fun” to have! ( yes, people have told me I’m lucky to have it.) Also grammatically saying “I’m so OCD” makes no sense. OCD is not a word… it stands for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. You must be diagnosed. You cannot diagnose yourself. It’s not an adjective.
I know this is not in the promote your story section and the point of this thread is to talk about OCD… but adding to the topic, I did write something a long time ago to try to explain what I mean a little more. It’s called Truthfully Yours, OCD. It was just featured on the Voices of PWD shelf as well! It’s not written as well as my real stories, but I try to say as much info as I can. I’ll leave the link if you wanna check it out, because it’s kind a hard to think of everything I wanna say as I’m writing this. If you want to know more about it, that would be cool if you checked it out! I also encourage people to research it. Thanks for reading some of my thoughts.
My Instagram is @gabi.episode if you want to reach out.

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I have an issue where all the lightswitches have to be facing the same way. I have also never claimed to have OCD, because I know what it’s like to downplay the severity of an illness. I have epilepsy, and it’s irritating when someone sees flashing lights, then screams about how “I’m going to have a seizure!”. Yes. Hilarious.

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They’ve got medication to help OCD, but no medication to help stupidity :upside_down_face::upside_down_face::upside_down_face:

Congrats! :grin:

Tough that it was so evident at such a young age, and that even your teachers didn’t understand it. :disappointed: Glad to hear that the medication and treatment is helping, though. :slight_smile:

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Thank you so much!!

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:thinking: Out of curiosity, what are some of the things that you wish your teachers had done to help (other than, like the story said, not berating you in front of the entire class when you didn’t have the answer on the spot)?

I wouldn’t always tell them, but I wish they wouldn’t jump to conclusions so quickly. (Thanks for reading it!)

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bump :slight_smile:

I dated a girl once that was very OCD about almost everything. Literally before we could go anywhere, she made a check list of things to check before leaving. I was able to over time, get her to calm down a bit with that, and as far as I know to this day, she no longer does it. That check list made her late for everything, where as me, I’m always one to show up early. So you could see how that would drive me crazy.

Side note she even one time brought a coffee maker with her, because she was afraid she would forget to unplug it, and it would burn down her home. I was like why is this in the trunk? She told me because of that very reason.

While that story is funny, I am in no way making a joke out of any condition.

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dang there was this one time of period in my life when i thought i had ocd but i didn’t but i feel your pain boo :heart:

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Hi! I know what you are talking about. Not only OCD but several mental health concepts are misused. I’m talking not only as an OCD patient but also as a psychologist.

Having OCD is very incapacitating, your mind is full of unwanted thoughts and you have the idea that doing rituals will stop them. But it never ends, it starts again and it gets worse, taking your time and energy from doing other activities. It’s embarrasing to talk about it with your friends or family, you don’t want to be labeled as “weird” and it usually takes years to be diagnosed and not always you have the support of your surroundings.

So obviously, if you hear that someone says that he/she is “so OCD because they can’t stand mess or they order their books alphabetically” after suffering the real pain of this is very annoying but they talk from ignorance. There’s so much work to do about education in mental health issues.

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Exactly. (I’m currently studying psy in school🙂)

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