People check things twice, but what if you feel the urge to repeat things ten times. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is an anxiety disorder that is characterized by obsessions and compulsions. People use obsessions and compulsions to relieve their anxiety. Without treatment obsessions and compulsions can eventually take over a person’s life. These obsessions and compulsions can be treated with medication or therapy making a person’s life more bearable. Dr. Dorothy Grice had said in an interview with Katie Charles, “There’s a wide range of severity, but in the most extreme cases, OCD can be extremely disabling especially when the compulsions become time-consuming and elaborate…”
There are several things that are included in OCD, including its symptoms, treatments and its involvement with the brain. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder recognize their symptoms to be ego-dystonic which are thoughts one would not usually have and not within one’s control but is still a product of one’s mind. The two common symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder are obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions take the form of persistent and uncontrollable thoughts, images, impulses, worries, fears or doubts. An anonymous writer wrote about his/her images, “These images included hitting, stabbing, poisoning and shooting people, even the people I loved the most…” However, compulsions are either repetitive physical behaviors or mental thought rituals that are performed over and over again to help relieve a person’s anxiety. Over time compulsions can become more elaborate and time- consuming. Shirley Brinkerhoff mentions in her book Amanda, a high school girl facing OCD, said, “Then I started having to count my steps. Like, 387 steps to the bus stop, and if missed one or lost count, I had to go home and walk it all over again until I was sure I got it right. There had to be 387, no more, no less…” There are diseases that are also believed to be linked to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and are called OCD Spectrum Disorders they include Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Compulsive Skin Picking, Tourette Syndrome and Trichotillomania. OCD Spectrum Disorders are similar to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder because they both include obsessive thoughts and/or compulsive behaviors.
There are two main treatments of OCD either pharmaceutical medicines or psychotherapy. There are currently six medicines that are approved by the FDA for OCD and they are put into two categories either SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) or TCA (Tricyclic Antidepressant). SSRI’s are the primary drugs for the treatment of OCD and include Paxil(paroxetine), Zoloft(sertraline), Prozac(fluoxetine), Luvox(fluvoxamine) and Celexa(citalopram). The common side effects are fatigue and agitation. TCA’s are antidepressants and are shown to work better than anti-anxiety medication and take about 10-12 weeks to start working. A common TCA is Anafranil(clomipramine) made by the pharmaceutical company Novartis and is the...
