Is your struggle with OCD taking a bad turn? For this, you need a detailed OCD guide.
Do you often worry about your house burning down? Do you compulsively perform certain tasks to ensure your safety? Does it bother you to throw things away? Do you find it hard to stop doing something over again and again? The symptoms of OCD or obsessive-compulsive disorder are manifold.
Many people include certain things in their daily routine as rituals so that bad things do not occur. On the other hand, many people feel that something bad will happen if they do particular tasks. From undergoing repeated pangs of cleaning to frantically thinking of something you do not need to – there are different types of obsessive thoughts or compulsions a person with OCD suffers from.
So, how do you know you have OCD? A detailed OCD guide mentions that there are four types of obsessive-compulsive disorder symptoms: Doubting, Washing, Slowness, and Checking. OCD is a mental health condition and may affect any group of age. Obsessions take the form of intrusive thoughts, unwanted images, and distressing feelings. Studies show that general people have intrusive thoughts at any point in their lives. Compulsions are the tasks people perform to eliminate OCD thoughts.
OCD varies from one person to another; we shed light on the condition in order to offer a better understanding.
Understand the Causes
You can go through different theories to figure out the causes, but experts are yet to pinpoint the matter. Some investigations refer to genetic causes and some indicate behavioral causes. One of the studies refers to people performing particular rituals to avoid the perceived tasks.
Also, people feel intrusive thoughts that are a part of cognitive causes. Such unwelcome thoughts often come with a degree of intensity. For instance, you compulsively check the locks and stove to repeatedly make sure nothing bad happens to your property when you are out.
Apart from genetic causes, behavioral causes, and cognitive causes, there are environmental causes. Under stress, OCD thoughts become prevalent. Severe conflict, traumatic brain injury, childbirth, or critical illnesses are commonly found events to irk the thoughts.
Seek the Right Treatment for OCD
Obsessive-compulsive disorders can be treated with counseling, medications, or both. Cognitive-behavioral therapy is considered the most effective method. It happens to leave a long-lasting impact and helps people act fast on their thoughts and compulsions. Many research studies also show that the rate of relapse is lower in this therapy.
The therapy has two parts: Cognitive Therapy and Behavioral Therapy. The former is associated with common thinking patterns that people experience to have an understanding of their thoughts. The therapy aims at alleviating symptoms and calming your inner self.
Behavioral therapy puts the focus more on impulsive behaviors. Your therapist may take experiential and experimental elements for helping you tackle the rituals. Exposure and response prevention is a successful technique to witness the triggers and refrain yourself from acting upon them. Through cognitive-behavioral therapy, a person finds out how to handle real-life situations without falling into the prey of anxiety.
In the End
In your battle with OCD, you can seek family therapy and group therapy to find support from the people who love you and fight back social isolation. Counseling is also a key part of the recovery program. Another thing you can do is to check out the blog, TheStrugglingWarrior, dedicated to giving you the strength to overcome compulsions. So, let’s go through the guides on this blog!
Author bio: Teresa Thomas runs a blog about obsessive-compulsive disorder. Here, she mentions an OCD guide that may help you show light at the end of the tunnel.
