OCD Awareness Week 2025: What Is OCD?
Today marks the beginning of OCD Awareness Week 2025, a week to try and end the stigma, stereotypes and misconceptions surrounding OCD and bring awareness to this debilitating and disabling mental illness.
What is OCD?
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a serious mental health disorder that affects approximately 1.2% of the UK population. OCD is ranked by the World Health Organisation in the top 10 most disabling illnesses, due to loss of income and decreased quality of life. OCD is characterised by recurring, unwanted and intrusive thoughts, images and / or urges (obsessions) and rituals carried out by the sufferer to reduce the anxiety caused by the obsessions (compulsions) - these can be physical or mental.
Below is a video by the UK OCD charity OCD Action, explaining what OCD is:
Obsessions & Compulsions.
OCD can present itself in many different ways, so is a different experience for everybody, but in most cases OCD latches onto the things that are most important to the sufferer. OCD is an ego-dystonic condition, meaning the obsessions the sufferer is experiencing are often about things that go against their morals, values and core beliefs (e.g. worries about harming someone, or intrusive thoughts about sexual misconduct), and this is one of the things that can make the condition so distressing for the sufferer.
Below are some examples of OCD obsessions and compulsions, but please note that OCD is not limited to these things, it really can present in so many different ways.
OCD Obsession and Theme Examples:
- Fear of germs, illness, feeling unclean and contamination.
- Fear of causing yourself or others harm.
- Fear of engaging in sexual misconduct, including with children.
- Fear of going to hell or violating religious morals and beliefs.
- Fears of harming your child or not parenting well.
- Doubting if you've done something wrong in the past and forgotten.
- Intrusive questions and doubts about the meaning of life and death.
- Feeling overly responsible for the safety and protection of others and worrying that you may unintentionally cause harm to others.
- Worries about your relationship and if your partner is right for you, if they're cheating on you, if you really love them, etc..
OCD Compulsion Examples:
- Avoiding ~ Certain people or places, 'unlucky' numbers, colours or items.
- Excessive handwashing, cleaning or showering.
- Reassurance Seeking.
- Excessive prayer.
- Performing rituals to 'protect' others or 'prevent' bad things from happening.
- Doing something repeatedly until it feels 'right'.
- Hiding / avoiding sharp objects.
- Checking ~ Locks, roads, switches, etc., that everything feels 'right'.
- Repeatedly researching illnesses and symptoms.
- Reviewing memories.
- Counting.
- Repeating certain phrases out loud or mentally.
Although everyone may have these worries and may even engage in compulsion-like behaviours at times, what makes it OCD is the frequency of these thoughts and behaviours, the impact they have on the sufferer's day-to-day life and the distress it causes the suffer.
OCD Misconceptions.
Unfortunately there are a lot of misconceptions around OCD and it is often trivialised by people using the term to describe liking things to be neat and tidy. Many people misuse the term OCD and say they're 'a bit OCD' and some people even make money by selling T-shirts, mugs, coasters, etc. that say things like 'I have OCD - Obsessive Cat Disorder' or 'I have CDO, it's like OCD, but the letters are in alphabetical order, as they should be' - this is not what OCD is! These misconceptions and comments are extremely harmful to OCD sufferers, as OCD is a serious mental disorder that greatly impacts on the quality of life of the sufferer - it's definitely not a phrase that should be thrown about lightly or turned into a joke.
In the below diagram, I have explained what OCD really is, in comparison to common stereotypes and misconceptions.
Common OCD Myths - BUSTED!
Below are some OCD Myth Busters created by the charity OCD UK.
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