It’s Mental Health Awareness Week this week, and I wanted to take this opportunity and use this platform to talk about a particular mental health disorder which has found its way into the media quite a lot lately.

OCD, or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, is a clinically recognised disorder which affects around 1-2% of the population, characterised by intensely negative, repetitive thoughts. Obsessions are intrusive thoughts, which are battled with compulsions, or physical actions/rituals.

People suffering from OCD not only have to deal with the stigma that comes from ill mental health, nor the effect OCD has on their ability to function - they also have to deal with peers, colleagues, and even friends who see OCD as a cute, quirky quality, which has no real negative impact on a person’s life and is nothing more than washing your hands or aligning your pens on your desk. At some point, you will probably have been in a conversation where a person says something along the lines of “so, I’m a bit OCD, so please can we have all the mug handles facing this way…”, and it can get pretty infuriating.

Mental health disorders are not a quirk to make light of. They have serious effects on people’s lives (did you know that the average time between OCD onset and treatment is 12 years? I wonder what makes people so embarrassed?). I believe that the best way to address disparities between groups is through education (and AWARENESS… see where I’m going with this?), so let’s talk about: the FIVE TYPES OF OCD.

1. Contamination

This is the most well-known aspect of OCD. People affected by contamination symptoms often focus on feelings of discomfort, associated with contamination, and they will wash their hands or something similar to get rid of this feeling. It is a similar process to one where you’ll wear a charity shop jumper, but not if you hear it was owned by Hitler - the negative feelings associated with touching that may feel like you’ve been contaminated and the only way to fix that is by burning the jumper. Extreme, but somewhat relateable.

2. Harm obsessions with checking compulsions

This is where you have frequent thoughts and fears around harming yourself or others, and it’s quelled with checking things. A person may need to check doors are locked or appliances, such as straighteners, are off several times daily for fear of burglary or fire. Also in this category: the intense tendency to believe that thinking about an event increases the likelihood of it happening.

3. Pure obsessions



This type doesn’t present itself in the form of any physical compulsions. It is about unwanted, intrusive and obsessive thoughts which surround sexual, religious or violent themes. A person suffering from this type may have involuntary and strong thoughts about attacking someone. Rituals like reciting words or counting can relieve the anxiety from this. A person will avoid triggers as much as possible.

4. Symmetry

Another one of the more public types. this refers to arranging things til they’re ‘just right’. Sometimes this need is attached to an action, e.g. ‘if my pens are straight I won’t get ill this week’ but not always.

5. Hoarding

Recently added to the DSM 5 as a diagnosis, hoarding involves the obsessive and unstoppable collection of items which a person holds value in. This can become as extreme as a person being unable to live in their home. Hoarding often comes with intrusive thoughts and fears about losing an item which might be needed one day. Emotional attachments are also more prominent.

OCD is treated with therapy and/or antidepressants (SSRIs). Cognitive behavioural therapy is the main therapy of choice - this method identifies a person’s train of thought as irrational with an ABC method (activating negative event, or reading news about a house fire caused by straighteners; belief, or ‘if I leave my straighteners on, the house will burn down’; consequence, or in this case, intrusive anxiety about checking everything is unplugged. The idea is to turn this train around, by reacting to A with positive thoughts in B and C, ultimately replacing how a person chooses to deal with negative actions with a more proactive approach. This method is favoured, with one study citing a significant help for 75% of participants with OCD. It can take 2 years to complete.

SSRIs prevent the brain from reuptaking the ‘pleasure’ neurotransmitter serotonin, effectively giving it more to play with. This can reduce the frequency of negative thoughts, potentially reducing the risk of negative ties between events and actions. Treatment this way can take up to a year, but people can have trouble with moving off of medication.

I’ve not posted this for fearmongering - drawing conclusions about yourself from this is tempting, but I’m not the NHS (and the NHS website isn’t as reliable as an actual doctor) so please don’t take any of this as diagnostic. I’ve just written this for awareness, and I hope to do another one on a similar subject before the week is up.

Take care, will post again soon :)





Support for OCD can be found at OCD Action