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Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

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OCD What is OCD? OCD stands for obsessive compulsive disorder. This is a chronic disease that a person will have uncontrollable repeated thoughts and actions/behaviors. These are split up into two different categories, obsessions and compulsions. An obsession is when a person have images, thoughts, and impulses that take place multiple times, and that person feels that they can’t stop it. Usually, people with OCD have an uncomfortable feeling of doubt, fear, and the feeling that everything has to be right. These obsessions get in the way of daily life activities and are time-consuming. These things will differ, which will rule out whether or not the type of OCD a person has is a psychological or an obsessive compulsive disorder. Some people …show more content…

The first category is washing/cleaning. Washing your hands, taking a shower, even brushing your hair, cleaning your house. These are all things that everybody does. However, people with OCD have a certain way of doing these things. They might spend 5 minutes washing their hands, or brushing their hair 300 times in the morning, 200 times in the evening, and 300 times at night. People may repeat things such as writing or reading. This usually leads to a routine of doing things. You might say something before you go through a doorway. This also includes people doing things in multiples of a number. They’ll do a task, say 4 times, because it feels right and safe. Checking is another common thing. People will check to see that they have not caused harm to themselves or others. They might also check to make sure that they haven’t made any mistakes or that nothing bad happened. One of the last things on the compulsion list is mental compulsions. This one isn’t as common as most. These people may pray of harm coming to them, and try to do everything a certain way or else they believe that something bad will happen. A few other compulsions would be telling confessions that they feel guilty about. People feel that if they don’t confess, they will be punished. People also try to avoid situations that may provoke their obsessions to come into mind. A common compulsion is having to …show more content…

They’re theories because nobody actually knows what causes OCD. A lot of studies point to that the brain and genes of an OCD person are different than a normal healthy brain. The front part of a brain of an OCD person has more difficulties communicating to the deeper part of the brain. Serotonin, a neurotransmitter, goes through the brain sending the commands and what they have to do. What feelings they feel, even how safe you feel somewhere. That’s the thing about OCD though. OCD messes with your mind, and makes you feel unsafe and uncomfortable all the time. Other studies show that the brain looks more normal after taking medication to make serotonin levels to rise. It has been shown that OCD is more common to run in families. However, that only accounts as part of causes of OCD. Nobody knows how people get OCD, but studies also show that OCD appearing in childhood is different than OCD appearing in adulthood. It’s believed that OCD starting in the childhood period is more severe than OCD in adulthood. It’s also been shown that children who experiences abuse when they’re young have more of a chance of having OCD than non-abused

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