OCD — It Is Difficult To Recognise, Harder To Cure
Tuesday, March 24th, 2009
photo credit: King Chung Huang
OCD stands for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and if health care professionals are to be believed it is men, more than women who are susceptible to it. The reason is that most of us find it difficult to express our emotions and would rather try to vent our frustrations by sweating it out in the gym or swallowing it down with a few pints of beer. This is how OCD begins to gain ground — emotional distress that is slowly building up, eventually takes the form of this psychological problem.
The biggest symptom of OCD is a tendency to repeat things to a maddening extent. Yes, people with OCD are known to wash their hands every 20 minutes or check their parked car a dozen times before they can let it out of their sight. As it would be obvious by now — being obsessive is what this problem is all about. However, this isn’t your conventional pre-occupation with some thing that lasts for a few days or weeks. With OCD you feel forced to do something and worry yourself sick with nearly every hour that passes by. This is why it is also called a compulsive disorder — patients of OCD might realize the problem they are suffering from but just can’t break any established ‘pattern’ which might include doing several things over and over again during the day.
There have been suggestions that this psychological problem might persist within the same family or gene pool but there are growing numbers of absolutely healthy-looking men without any trace of OCD in their family history showing early symptoms by the time they are in their mid-twenties.
The even bigger problem lies in treating OCD after it has been detected. Most people find it hard to believe that just because some individual is prone to repeating certain things, like a ritual, it can be equated with being a problem. However, what such folks fail to understand is that people suffering from OCD can gradually becomes self-destructive or even suicidal, if left untreated.
It’s never too late for help, learn more about OCD from Wikipedia and get help from foundations such as Obsessive Compulsive Foundation.
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Tags: men OCD, Obsessive Compulsive DIsorder, OCD, treatment
