Living with unmanaged obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is miserable—I know because I’ve likely had it since I was a teenager and was officially diagnosed in 2014. No, it’s not merely having “you’re-so-OCD” perfectionism or organization skills ascribed to the condition on TV and in movies. And given that an estimated 2.3 percent of the population deals with OCD over the course of a lifetime, chances are you know someone suffering from or managing OCD, so it’s important to understand what the condition is and what it isn’t.

Clinical OCD, contrary to the whimsical quirk often depicted in the media, is characterized by intrusive, disturbing thoughts (obsessions), and repetitive, ritualistic behaviors (compulsions) that temporarily alleviate the distress.

The OCD reel might go a little something like this: “You might experience a frightening or horrible thought, feeling, or sensation of ‘not-just-rightness’ or a sense of dread, and so you might do a ritual—like check for safety, or ask for reassurance—to make yourself feel better for a bit,” Lisa Coyne, Ph.D., a licensed clinical psychologist and assistant professor of psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, tells SELF. “And it works. That’s why people do it. The downside is that it only works for a short time, and the more you engage in rituals, the more it feeds the OCD.”

For instance, fighting to appease distressing visions of my infant daughter dying in a fire, I would stand in front of the stove touching the knobs in repetitions of five, never quite sure that it was truly off, doubting my own senses. “There’s nothing wrong with checking the stove once, but the problem with OCD is that once is never enough,” Jenny Yip, Psy.D., a clinical psychologist and institutional member of the International OCD Foundation, who also has OCD, tells SELF. “OCD thrives on doubt, and it demands black-and-white certainty. The problem is that having complete certainty on anything in our world is not realistic.”

Fortunately, OCD is treatable. The recommended evidence-based first-line treatments for OCD include cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), a type of psychotherapy that trains the mind to react differently to intrusive thoughts, and other related psychotherapies like exposure and response prevention (ERP) and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). Medication can also be helpful, particularly serotonergic antidepressants. The medication I started in 2011 has continued to help alleviate my symptoms, and working with a CBT provider following my diagnosis in 2014 has given me tools to manage them. But OCD never really goes away, ebbing and flowing with the stressors of life. “OCD sufferers have to come to terms with the fact that intrusive thoughts will still happen even after treatment,” Yip says.

That’s where loved ones come in: Having a strong support system can be key to dealing with a mental illness. But, with my OCD, what I didn’t realize is that the way my loved ones—my spouse in particular—responded to my behaviors played a huge role in my ability to manage my symptoms.

In retrospect, back when we were dating and during the first few years of marriage, my husband Jesse’s understanding and reassurance reinforced many of my symptoms.

“Jesse! Don’t forget to make sure the stove’s off and the door’s locked,” I’d yell from the bedroom, after reluctantly tearing myself from the stove (and the door lock, and the light switches) so I could make my way to bed. When he turned in for the night, I’d ask if he checked the stove, the door, and more. Sometimes exasperated but never cruel, he’d reassure me that he did check and, yes, the stove’s off and the door’s locked.