Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) symptoms: Do you have these symptoms? They may be of OCD
His mind is in a strange state when he comes for the treatment for the first time. A state like he has lost all hope in life. It is explained to him that his condition is the problem of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).‘It is not at all clean here’, he complains repeatedly. When called to eat at home, he takes the plate that is already washed and washes it again while scolding his wife about cleanliness. ‘Can't you keep this house clean?’ is his next scolding.
'No matter how clean I keep the house, my husband is never satisfied', says his wife and is always sad about it. Then, she gets a transfer in her job. She has a Government job and leaves after a few days to the place of her new job. Both the children are in the hostel. The husband’s tension doubles when he has to do the cooking and cleaning all by himself.
A situation where no matter how much he cleans the house and surroundings, he is himself not satisfied. Also, his wife also keeps saying these things when she calls him. He has now become less focused on his business. Now on many days, he does not even open his shop. Whether in the morning or evening, it is a feeling that something is dirty and not clean in the house and surroundings. He is also not getting any sleep even very late at night. A tiring situation where, even late at night he is able to get any sleep.
So, when he was cleaning the house late into the night without sleeping, many people saw it and his neighbours called his wife and informed her about his strange behaviour. This state continued even though his wife tried to calm him down. His feeling of uncleanliness became so aggressive to the point where he began taking five to six hours just for bathing itself. And, whenever he begins to make food, he begins to think that the knives and plates are dirty. And after that spends a lot of time unnecessarily to repeatedly wash them.
At night, he next began to have doubts if the windows and doors were closed. He repeatedly has the same doubts even after checking it many times. Sometimes it is the feeling that he has forgotten something. And he ends in big tension when he fails in all his attempts to remember what it is that he forgot. He knows it's only his feeling that nothing is clean and that he forgot it. But he is in a condition where he still cannot avoid those thoughts. In this way he is unable to finish any job he starts. Thus, he was in big agony as he had become unable to sleep. One day he even took a rope and thought of dying. And it was a friend who visited him at his house at that time, who told him to go for treatment. He was in a very tired state of mind when he came for treatment. He was explained to and made to understand that his problem is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or OCD.
The first step towards his treatment was Relaxation Therapy which is to help his mind relax. After that the mental health treatment method of Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) was started for him, to help him to gradually face each problem that he fears on a daily basis. Through that he was able to reach a mental stage where he believed he could bravely face anything that caused him tension. If one does not go for treatment, the over cleanliness that one takes as silly or the thought that one forgets, can lead one to the stage where the mind even gets very lazy or tired . Even though it may sound silly, this condition can turn out to be the villain in one's job and personal life, and can make one's life miserable. It is about eight to fifteen hours (at the rate of one hour per day) that most people will need for this treatment.
Written by: Priya Varghese
Chief Clinical Psychologist, Breathe Medical Care
