Stop Obsessing! How to Overcome Your Obsessions and Compulsions

Do You Have Obsessions or Compulsions? Most of us are familiar with how unpleasant worrying can be. Driving down the highway, heading to the beach for vacation, you think, Did I remember to unplug the iron? You reassure yourself that you did. Seconds later, though, the question returns, unabated. Did I really? Now the consequences rise to the surface of your mind. If I left it plugged in, it could overheat. It might fall on the floor and catch the rug on fire. Then the house would burn down! For minutes, no matter how hard you try, you cannot shake your uncertainty. Worries involve thoughts that produce distress and anxiety. But the specific uncomfortable thoughts involved in worrying change from one day to the next. If your boss passes you in the corridor without smiling at you, you may worry, "Maybe she's angry at me." You might even ruminate about it for several hours that day. But the next day you forget this worry and move on to another one. Obsessions, on the other hand, are relatively stable worries: The same thoughts, images, or impulses come again and again and are distressing, frightening, and often shame-producing. The individual's attempts to dismiss them are mostly unsuccessful. The content of obsessions varies from one individual to another. Some obsessions, like Fred's, are persistent worries about becoming sick. Others, like Paul's, are about neglecting one's responsibilities and thus causing harm: failing to turn off a stove burner and setting the house on fire, or forgetting to lock the house at night and having a burglar assault one's family. More severe forms of obsessions, like Robin's, are about contamination, such as contact with germs through picking up objects or touching someone. Still others involve concern about unwillingly committing violent acts, such as poisoning one's spouse or stabbing one's child. It is no surprise that most of us will seek ways to get relief from our worrying and obsessing, if only temporarily. We hope to undo the obsessions and prevent the terrible, feared consequences from occurring. Perhaps you are like some people who adopt certain behaviors or thoughts called compulsions, or rituals, to gain relief. Although such behaviors can be persistent, repetitious, unwanted, and hard to resist, they are the only way you've learned, so far, to control the worry. So each time the worries begin, you feel an urge to perform the ritual. Simply put, obsessions are thoughts or images that produce your distress; compulsions are any actions or thoughts that reduce this distress. We have illustrated this sequence in the diagram on page 5. For example, after Paul closes his front door, he begins to doubt whether he actually locked it. An unlocked door means that someone could walk in and steal the family possessions, or could be waiting to harm him or his children when returning home. To ensure his safety, he jiggles the locked doorknob four times before he walks away. Compulsions can be a simple nuisance like Paul's door checking or can be as devastating as Robin's hand washing. Other rituals include cleaning, touching, or checking objects, placing them in an exact order, and repeating actions, words, sentences, numbers, or prayers -- all meant to reduce distress. Obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD, is considered an anxiety disorder. This family of psychological problems includes people who experience general anxiety, phobias, and fears. In order to be diagnosed as having OCD you must have symptoms that fit the criteria of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; a mental-health professional can help you make this diagnosis. By this definition your obsessions or compulsions are severe enough to interfere with your daily social and worFoa, Edna B. is the author of 'Stop Obsessing! How to Overcome Your Obsessions and Compulsions', published 2001 under ISBN 9780553381177 and ISBN 0553381172.