Obsessive compulsive disorders is one of the lesser understood mental health disorders and dual diagnosis with substance use disorder.
We’re all a little OCD
Trying to identify with and understand someone who has a mental health disorder can be difficult especially when you don’t have one. Trying to normalize a mental health disorder like obsessive compulsive disorder doesn’t make it feel more normal. In fact, it will probably make someone feel even more abnormal. People can have neurotic tendencies. People can even have a little obsessive quality and a little compulsive quality. However, OCD as a mental health disorder is not about tendencies and qualities. It’s about living with an obsessive, ruminating mind which demands compulsive behaviors to compensate. There’s simply a difference between someone who can sleep knowing there are clothes in the dryer and someone who cannot.
People with OCD really love to clean and organize things
Popular depictions of obsessive compulsive disorder usually involve some kind of habitual cleaning behavior or being unable to sit in a restaurant where a picture frame is hanging crooked. The way that an individual’s OCD manifests is not dependent on cleaning, organizing, and fixing. Sadly, some research has found that OCD is born out of trauma or bearing witnessed to imperfect, uncontrollable events. OCD is a way for people to cope and maintain a semblance of control and order in their lives.
Symptoms of OCD aren’t always obvious
People who live with OCD don’t always live with it out loud. Behaviors are not directly obvious. There could be dozens of things that they wait to do in the privacy of their homes, cars, or other areas of their lives where you aren’t involved. Far too many people avoid seeing a mental health professional for an evaluation and assessment because they don’t their symptoms are obvious enough to necessitate professional help.
OCD can’t just be shut off
Anyone who has experienced a persistent worry understand that until some kind of action is taken, it cannot just be shut off. OCD, and any mental health disorder, can’t just be switched. If they could, many people would probably have figured out how to do so by now! Unfortunately, OCD is something that has to be lived with, through therapeutic methods of management, self-care, and control.
Your life will have balance again. The primary mental health treatment program at Avalon By The Sea balances clinical care with holistic healing modalities to provide total recovery in mind, body, and spirit. For a confidential assessment, call us today at 1 888-958-7511.
