Skip to main content

5 Things Not to Say to People with OCD


  When you have obsessive compulsive disorder, or love someone that does, you know a whole lot more about how little people really know about OCD. You know that it's about a whole lot more than cleaning, and the jokes about being "so OCD" actually, aren't really that funny. 

OCD is hard to really understand, even for people with the illness. But knowing what not to say to someone with OCD is a great place to start helping. 

  1. "Everyone's a little OCD, really"
A lot of people have weirdly specific behaviours and their own way of doing something, but this doesn't mean they have OCD. OCD is made up of intrusive thoughts that cause a huge amount of anxiety to the sufferer, which drives them to carry out their rituals. Whether it's cleaning, seeking reassurance, or any other type of ritual, it is exhausting and miserable. The majority of people don't have OCD, but saying these things invalidate the people that do have to live with it. 

  1. "Your house must be so clean"
It's a common misconception, but also very wrong and frustrating. There are so many more forms that cause endless numbers of exhausting rituals, but people only ever really see obsessive cleaning as "real OCD". Millions of people with OCD carry out rituals an endless number of times, every single day, but unless it's cleaning, it stays invisible. People with OCD that are driven to obsessively clean by their intrusive thoughts don't enjoy it, either. 

  1. "You must love cleaning, then"
Like I said, people with OCD don't enjoy being forced by terrifying intrusive thoughts to carry out rituals. Think of it like this-if someone followed you around all day, everyday, threatening to do something you'd never want to happen if you didn't repeatedly do something you didn't want to do (e.g clean the bathroom sink twice an hour or touch everything you walked past 24 times) would you enjoy it? Didn't think so. 

  1. "Why don't you just stop doing the rituals?"
I'll say it over and over, nobody enjoys doing rituals. Spending hours and hours of every single day carrying out the same repeated actions is exhausting and frustrating, but if not doing the rituals didn't make me so anxious I felt like my heart would explode, whilst I'm screaming at a therapist that I have to do my rituals, I'd never do it again. Nobody would if it was easy to stop. 

  1. "Stop worrying about that, it's stupid"
It's hard enough to be tortured by intrusive thoughts all day everyday. Most people with OCD understand that their worries are irrational, or that their rituals don't control the likelihood of things, but it's a mental illness. The problem is in our brain chemistry, it's not a choice. We understand that our anxieties may sound stupid, or be hard to understand, but it's a mental illness and can't just be stopped. 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Trichotillomania- More Than Just a Bad Habit

Trichotillomania is a hair pulling disorder that is painful, frustrating and often chronic in its sufferers. Statistics suggest that around 2.5 million people living in the United States alone will be affected by the disorder in their lifetime, but it is hard to collect accurate statistics of the disorder as so many people live undiagnosed.  Trichotillomania can affect anyone, but is more common in people with anxiety disorders, and especially obsessive compulsive disorder.  What causes trichotillomania? Like with most mental illnesses, there is no single cause. Hair pulling disorder can affect anyone, but research shows up to 60% of people with trich also suffer from some other mental illness. Most commonly desperation, anxiety disorders (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder especially), impulse control disorders and substance abuse disorders (addiction). These mental illnesses may put you at a higher risk of developing trichotillomania, but there is still no single cau...
Post a Comment
Read more

Trichotillomania-Things Not to Say

With up to 4 percent of the population suffering from trichotillomania, it is shocking how little the disorder is talked about. Sufferers often face harsh comments due to lack of education and understanding. The first step in being able to help is knowing what not to say to someone with trichotillomania.  "Just stop pulling." If it were as easy as "just stopping", really, nobody would have hair pulling disorder. There are causes and reasons that bring a sufferer to pull, and telling someone to just stop can be embarrassing, hurtful and even drive the sufferer to pull more.  "You've ruined your hair." Telling a sufferer of trichotillomania that they're ruined their hair, or look bad as a result of their compulsive hair pulling, is damaging and unnecessary. Trichotillomania is draining and hard enough to cope with, and making someone feel even worse about the effect trich has had on them isn't helpful at all. They probably feel b...
Post a Comment
Read more