Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ; My Explanation and a Study of My Symptoms











And a host of other facts about symptoms, comorbidity with drugs or alcohol, and what you can do to successfully cope and control this Anxiety Disorder

by john carcerano

http://www.newjourneyrecovery.com/







Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) has many similar symptoms. These symptoms often wax and wane over the lifetime of the sufferer. There is no cure for this debilitating disorder, but it can be managed to a high degree all depending on the severity of the symptoms and the steps taken by the sufferer to modify behavior, thoughts and stress. Most people with OCD are able to hide their illness from others. They suffer in silence. They rarely ever tell anyone that they have this disorder. Because to explain their symptoms to anyone would make them sound neurotic and crazy.The person with OCD experiences a sort of short circuiting of their thought processes. Especially in the area of the brain where thoughts of danger and the avoidance of calamities are generated. This area of the brain is called the basal ganglia.The OCD sufferer becomes plagued with a constant mental bombardment of extreme obsessions and compulsions. These obsessions and compulsions never go away. The obsessions the sufferer experience are of always feeling that a disaster is about to occur even under normally peaceful circumstances. Their mind is constantly bombarded with unwanted thoughts and images.






My onset of OCD
I too am a sufferer of OCD. The best way I could describe it to you is that it feels as if I have two brains. My regular thinking and functioning full brain, and also a brain that shoves unwanted thoughts into my mind at a rapid fire pace. I am unable to stop this “other brain of mine” from this non-stop bombardment of obsessive thoughts, worries and often times violent, crude and repulsive thinking. I have learned to control the severity and pace of these rapid fire thoughts. There is a war going on in my head at all times. “My other brain” keeps on telling me that certain things are one way, when my full rational brain knows that they are really another way. But there are always these strong compulsions to reduce the anxiety brought on by the danger signals from “my other brain”. The problem is that if I just ignore these obsessions, then there is a build up of anxiety until I recognize and acknowledge them in a certain way, by responding to them with a compulsive movement or mental ritual. If you suffer from OCD then you will understand what I have just described to you all too well.


                                                                                           OCD symptoms
                                                                                           OCD causes
                                                                                           OCD criteria
                                                                                           OCD facts
                                                                                           OCD videos