What Mental Illness Causes You to Repeat the Same Day Over and Over Again

anxiety

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Are obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors interfering with your daily life? Explore the symptoms, treatment, and self-help for OCD.

Soapy hands under faucet, scrubbing clean

What is obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)?

Information technology's normal, on occasion, to go back and double-check that the iron is unplugged or worry that you might exist contaminated by germs, or even accept an occasional unpleasant, violent idea. Merely if you suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors go so consuming they interfere with your daily life. OCD is an feet disorder characterized past uncontrollable, unwanted thoughts and ritualized, repetitive behaviors you feel compelled to perform. If you have OCD, y'all probably recognize that your obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors are irrational—but even so, you feel unable to resist them and break free.

Like a needle getting stuck on an quondam tape, OCD causes the encephalon to get stuck on a item idea or urge. For instance, yous may check the stove twenty times to make certain it's really turned off because you're terrified of burning down your firm, or wash your hands until they're scrubbed raw for fear of germs. While y'all don't derive any sense of pleasance from performing these repetitive behaviors, they may offering some passing relief for the anxiety generated by the obsessive thoughts.

Yous may try to avoid situations that trigger or worsen your symptoms or cocky-medicate with alcohol or drugs. Only while it can seem like in that location'southward no escaping your obsessions and compulsions, there are plenty of things you lot can do to suspension free of unwanted thoughts and irrational urges and regain control of your thoughts and actions.

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OCD obsessions and compulsions

Obsessions are involuntary thoughts, images, or impulses that occur over and over over again in your listen. You lot don't want to have these ideas, but you can't cease them. Unfortunately, these obsessive thoughts are oft disturbing and distracting.

Compulsions are behaviors or rituals that you feel driven to act out again and over again. Ordinarily, compulsions are performed in an attempt to make obsessions become away. For example, if y'all're agape of contamination, you might develop elaborate cleaning rituals. However, the relief never lasts. In fact, the obsessive thoughts usually come up dorsum stronger. And the compulsive rituals and behaviors oftentimes stop upward causing anxiety themselves as they become more demanding and time-consuming. This is the roughshod bike of OCD.

Most people with OCD fall into one of the following categories:

Washers are afraid of contagion. They usually have cleaning or paw-washing compulsions.
Checkers repeatedly check things (oven turned off, door locked, etc.) that they associate with harm or danger.
Doubters and sinners are afraid that if everything isn't perfect or done just right something terrible volition happen, or they will be punished.
Counters and arrangers are obsessed with order and symmetry. They may have superstitions well-nigh certain numbers, colors, or arrangements.

OCD and hoarding

Hoarding used to be considered a category of OCD. While estimates suggest that upward to 25 percent of people with OCD feel compulsive hoarding, information technology can as well be a sign of a split condition, hoarding disorder.

Hoarders fearfulness that something bad will happen if they throw anything away and hoard things that they don't need or use. All the same, there are distinctions between OCD-related hoarding and hoarding disorder.

OCD-related hoarders tend not to accumulate so many possessions that their homes go unmanageable. Hoarding for them is usually unwelcome and distressing—a way to manage intrusive thoughts

Someone with hoarding disorder, on the other hand, experiences both positive and negative emotions. Acquiring possessions provides pleasance rather than simply satisfying a compulsion and they being surrounded by their things provides comfort. The distress in hoarding disorder stems more from the consequences of hoarding—the clutter and dangerous environment—forth with the feet of having to discard possessions .

Read: Hoarding Disorder: Assistance for Hoarders

OCD signs and symptoms

But because you have obsessive thoughts or perform compulsive behaviors does NOT hateful that you lot have obsessive-compulsive disorder. With OCD, these thoughts and behaviors cause tremendous distress, accept up a lot of fourth dimension (at to the lowest degree one 60 minutes per day), and interfere with your daily life and relationships.

Virtually people with obsessive-compulsive disorder have both obsessions and compulsions, simply some people experience just one or the other.

Mutual obsessive thoughts in OCD include:

Fear of being contaminated by germs or dirt or contaminating others.
Fear of losing command and harming yourself or others.
Intrusive sexually explicit or violent thoughts and images.
Excessive focus on religious or moral ideas.
Fear of losing or not having things you might demand.
Order and symmetry: the idea that everything must line up "just correct".
Superstitions; excessive attending to something considered lucky or unlucky.

Mutual compulsive behaviors in OCD include:

Excessive double-checking of things, such every bit locks, appliances, and switches.
Repeatedly checking in on loved ones to make certain they're safety.
Counting, tapping, repeating certain words, or doing other senseless things to reduce anxiety.
Spending a lot of time washing or cleaning.
Ordering or arranging things "but so".
Praying excessively or engaging in rituals triggered by religious fright.
Accumulating "junk" such as old newspapers or empty food containers.

OCD symptoms in children

While the onset of obsessive-compulsive disorder usually occurs during adolescence or young adulthood, younger children sometimes have symptoms that look like OCD. However, the symptoms of other disorders, such as ADHD, autism, and Tourette'due south syndrome, can likewise look like obsessive-compulsive disorder, so a thorough medical and psychological exam is essential before whatsoever diagnosis is made.

OCD self-assistance tip 1: Identify your triggers

The offset step to managing your OCD symptoms is to recognize the triggers—the thoughts or situations—that bring on your obsessions and compulsions. Tape a list of the triggers you experience each day and the obsessions they provoke. Charge per unit the intensity of the fear or anxiety you lot experienced in each situation and then the compulsions or mental strategies you used to ease your anxiety. For example, if you lot have a fear of beingness contaminated by germs, touching a railing at the mall might generate a fear intensity of 3, whereas touching the restroom floor in the mall might generate a x and crave fifteen minutes of hand washing to ease your feet.

Keeping track of your triggers can help you anticipate your urges. And by anticipating your compulsive urges before they arise, you can help to ease them. For example, if your compulsive behavior involves checking that doors are locked, windows closed, or appliances turned off, try to lock the door or turn off the appliance with extra attending the first time.

Create a solid mental picture show and and then make a mental note. Tell yourself, "The window is now closed," or "I can see that the oven is turned off."
When the urge to check arises later, yous will find information technology easier to re-label information technology equally "just an obsessive thought."

Identifying and recording your triggers likewise provides an important tool for learning to resist your OCD compulsions.

Tip 2: Learn to resist OCD compulsions

It might seem smart to avert the situations that trigger your obsessive thoughts, but the more yous avoid them, the scarier they experience. Conversely, by repeatedly exposing yourself to your OCD triggers, you can learn to resist the urge to consummate your compulsive rituals. This is known equally exposure and response prevention (ERP) and is a mainstay of professional therapy for OCD.

ERP requires yous to repeatedly expose yourself to the source of your obsession—then refrain from the compulsive behavior you'd usually perform to reduce your anxiety. If you are a compulsive paw washer, for instance, that could mean touching the door handle in a public restroom and so not allowing yourself to wash your hands. Every bit you sit with the anxiety, the urge to wash your hands volition gradually begin to go away on its own. In this way, you lot'll learn that you don't need the ritual to get rid of your anxiety and that you lot have some control over your obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors.

Tackling your biggest fears straight off might be too extreme, so ERP exercises start with you against lesser fears and then working your way up the "fear ladder." Face those situations that generate a low fright intensity and one time you lot're able to tolerate the anxiety y'all can move on to the adjacent, more hard exposure challenge.

Building your fear ladder

Remember almost your end goal (to be able to employ a public restroom without fear of contagion, for example, or to bulldoze to work without stopping to check if you've hitting something) and so break down the steps needed to reach that goal. Using the information you recorded in identifying your triggers, make a list of situations from the to the lowest degree scary to the most scary. The get-go step should make y'all slightly broken-hearted, only non and so frightened that you're too intimidated to effort it.

Hither's a sample fright ladder:

Goal: To drive to work without stopping to check if you've hit something
Fear intensity	Situation
x	Drive all the style to work without stopping to bank check if y'all've hit something
8	Don't telephone your spouse to bank check they got to work safely
6	Leave the house, lock the front door and walk away without checking
4	Turn off the stove and leave the room without checking
2	Put milk in the fridge without checking the acme is secure

Using your fright ladder

Piece of work your way up the ladder. Starting time with the start step and don't move on until you start to experience more than comfortable doing information technology. If possible, stay in the situation long plenty for your anxiety to decrease. The longer you betrayal yourself to your OCD trigger, the more you'll get used to information technology and the less anxious you lot'll feel when you face it the adjacent time. Once you've washed a step on several separate occasions without feeling besides much feet, you can move on to the next step. If a step is too hard, break it downward into smaller steps or go slower.

As you're resisting your compulsions, focus on the feelings of anxiety. Instead of trying to distract yourself, let yourself to feel anxious every bit you resist the urge to engage in your compulsive behavior. You may believe that the discomfort you're feeling volition go along until you lot engage in the compulsion. Merely if you stick with information technology, the feet will fade. And you lot'll realize that you're non going to "lose control" or have some kind of breakdown if you don't perform the ritual.

Practice. The more often you practice, the quicker your progress will exist. But don't rush. Go at a stride that yous can manage without feeling overwhelmed. And retrieve: you will feel uncomfortable and anxious as you face up your fears, just the feelings are but temporary. Each time y'all expose yourself to your trigger, your anxiety should lessen and you'll start to realize that you lot have more than control (and less to fear) than y'all thought.

Tip 3: Challenge obsessive thoughts

Everyone has troubling thoughts or worries from time to time. But obsessive-compulsive disorder causes the encephalon to get stuck on a particular anxiety-provoking thought, causing it to play over and over in your head. The more unpleasant or lamentable the thought, the more likely yous are to endeavor to repress it. Only repressing thoughts is nearly impossible and trying usually has the opposite effect, causing the unpleasant idea to resurface more oft and go more bothersome.

As with resisting compulsions, you can overcome disturbing, obsessive thoughts past learning to tolerate them through exposure and response prevention exercises. It's also important to remind yourself that just considering you have an unpleasant thought, that doesn't make you a bad person. Your thoughts are just thoughts. Even unwanted, intrusive, or violent thoughts are normal—it's only the importance you adhere to them that turns them into damaging obsessions.

The following strategies can aid you come across your thoughts for what they are and regain a sense of control over your broken-hearted mind.

Write down your obsessive thoughts. Keep a pad and pencil on you, or type on a smartphone. When y'all begin to obsess, write down all your thoughts or compulsions.

Go along writing as the OCD urges continue, aiming to tape exactly what you're thinking, even if you're repeating the same phrases or the same urges over and over.
Writing it all downward will help you see just how repetitive your obsessions are.
Writing downward the same phrase or urge hundreds of times volition assistance information technology lose its power.
Writing thoughts downwards is much harder piece of work than simply thinking them, and then your obsessive thoughts are likely to disappear sooner.

Create an OCD worry menstruation. Rather than trying to suppress obsessions or compulsions, develop the habit of rescheduling them.

Choose one or two 10-minute "worry periods" each day, fourth dimension you tin can devote to obsessing.
During your worry period, focus only on negative thoughts or urges. Don't try to correct them. At the end of the worry flow, have a few calming breaths, allow the obsessive thoughts go, and return to your normal activities. The rest of the solar day, nonetheless, is to be designated free of obsessions.
When thoughts come up into your head during the day, write them down and "postpone" them to your worry menses.

Challenge your obsessive thoughts. Use your worry period to challenge negative or intrusive thoughts by asking yourself:

What'due south the evidence that the thought is true? That it'southward not true? Take I dislocated a thought with a fact?
Is in that location a more than positive, realistic style of looking at the situation?
What'south the probability that what I'thou scared of will actually happen? If the probability is low, what are some more than probable outcomes?
Is the thought helpful? How will obsessing about information technology assist me and how will it hurt me?
What would I say to a friend who had this idea?

Create a tape of your OCD obsessions or intrusive thoughts. Focus on i specific thought or obsession and tape information technology to a record recorder or smartphone.

Recount the obsessive phrase, sentence, or story exactly as it comes into your mind.
Play the record back to yourself, over and over for a 45-infinitesimal period each day, until listening to the obsession no longer causes you to feel highly distressed.
By continuously confronting your worry or obsession you volition gradually become less anxious. You lot tin then repeat the exercise for a different obsession.

Tip 4: Accomplish out for support

OCD can get worse when you feel powerless and alone, so information technology'south important to build a strong support system. The more connected yous are to other people, the less vulnerable y'all'll feel. And just talking to an understanding person near your worries and urges tin can make them seem less threatening.

Stay connected to family unit and friends. Obsessions and compulsions can consume your life to the point of social isolation. In turn, social isolation will aggravate your OCD symptoms. Information technology's important to invest in relating to family and friends. Talking face-to-face up virtually your worries and urges tin can make them feel less real and less threatening.

Join an OCD support group. You're non alone in your struggle with OCD, and participating in a support group can be an effective reminder of that. OCD support groups enable y'all to both share your own experiences and learn from others who are facing the aforementioned issues.

Tip 5: Manage stress

While stress doesn't cause OCD, it can trigger symptoms or make them worse. Physical do and connecting with another person face-to-confront are ii very effective ways to at-home your nervous system. You tin can also:

Apace self-soothe and save feet symptoms by making apply of one or more of your physical senses—sight, smell, hearing, affect, gustation—or movement. You might attempt listening to a favorite slice of music, looking at a treasured photograph, savoring a cup of tea, or stroking a pet.

Practice relaxation techniques. Mindful meditation, yoga, deep breathing, and other relaxation techniques tin can assistance lower your overall stress and tension levels and help you manage your urges. For best results, endeavour practicing a relaxation technique regularly.

Tip half dozen: Brand lifestyle changes to ease OCD

A healthy, balanced lifestyle plays a big role in easing feet and keeping OCD compulsions, fears, and worry at bay.

Exercise regularly. Practice is a natural and constructive anti-anxiety treatment that helps to control OCD symptoms by refocusing your mind when obsessive thoughts and compulsions ascend. For maximum benefit, try to become 30 minutes or more than of aerobic activity on virtually days. 10 minutes several times a twenty-four hours tin can be as effective every bit ane longer period especially if you lot pay mindful attention to the motility process.

Get plenty sleep. Not just can feet and worry crusade insomnia, but a lack of sleep tin also exacerbate anxious thoughts and feelings. When you're well rested, information technology's much easier to keep your emotional residuum, a key gene in coping with feet disorders such equally OCD.

Avoid booze and nicotine. Alcohol temporarily reduces anxiety and worry, but information technology actually causes feet symptoms as it wears off. Similarly, while it may seem that cigarettes are calming, nicotine is actually a powerful stimulant. Smoking leads to higher, not lower, levels of anxiety and OCD symptoms.

Treatment for OCD

Cerebral-behavioral therapy is the most effective treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder and mostly involves ii components:

Exposure and response prevention, which requires repeated exposure to the source of your obsession, as explained higher up.
Cognitive therapy, which focuses on the catastrophic thoughts and exaggerated sense of responsibility yous feel. A big part of cognitive therapy for OCD is teaching you healthy and effective ways of responding to obsessive thoughts, without resorting to compulsive behavior.

Other OCD treatments

In addition to cognitive-behavioral therapy, the following treatments are also used for OCD:

Medication. Antidepressants are sometimes used in conjunction with therapy for the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder. However, medication alone is rarely effective in relieving the symptoms.

Family Therapy. Since OCD often causes problems in family life and social adjustment, family therapy tin help promote understanding of the disorder and reduce family conflicts. Information technology can also motivate family members and teach them how to help their loved i with OCD.

Grouping Therapy. Through interaction with fellow OCD sufferers, group therapy provides support and encouragement and decreases feelings of isolation.

Is unresolved trauma playing a role in your OCD?

In some people, OCD symptoms such as compulsive washing or hoarding are ways of coping with trauma. If you have post-traumatic OCD, cognitive approaches may not be effective until underlying traumatic issues are resolved.

How to assistance someone with OCD

The way you react to your loved i'due south OCD symptoms tin have a big impact on their outlook and recovery. Negative comments or criticism tin can brand OCD worse, while a at-home, supportive environment tin aid better the upshot of handling.

Avoid making personal criticisms. Remember, your loved i's OCD behaviors are symptoms, not character flaws.

Don't scold someone with OCD or tell them to stop performing rituals. They tin't comply, and the pressure to stop will merely brand the behaviors worse.

Be as kind and patient equally possible. Each sufferer needs to overcome problems at their own pace. Praise any successful endeavor to resist OCD, and focus attention on positive elements in the person's life.

Do non play along with your loved one's rituals. Going along with your loved i'southward OCD "rules," or helping with their compulsions or rituals volition only reinforce the behavior. Support the person, non their compulsions.

Keep communication positive and clear. Communication is important so you lot can find a residual betwixt supporting your loved ane and standing upwardly to the OCD symptoms and not further pitiful your loved 1.

Observe the humor. Laughing together over the funny side and absurdity of some OCD symptoms tin can help your loved i get more discrete from the disorder. Just brand sure your loved ane feels respected and in on the joke.

Don't let OCD take over family life. Sit down downwardly every bit a family and decide how y'all will work together to tackle your loved one's symptoms. Attempt to continue family unit life every bit normal as possible and the domicile a low-stress surround.

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Source: https://www.helpguide.org/articles/anxiety/obssessive-compulsive-disorder-ocd.htm