Symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

People with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) can experience multiple and frequent thoughts which are obsessive in nature and can show repeated compulsive behaviours in response to these thoughts.

Obsessive thoughts are anxiety-provoking and can cause people to feel ashamed or disgusted about something, fearful that something bad might happen, or generally unsettled or uneasy.  They come into your mind frequently and seem to keep occurring even if you try very hard to stop them.  Thoughts can be, for example fears of contamination or of harm coming to someone or of something bad happening

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As a result people will engage in behaviours to reduce the anxiety, fear or disgust that they are feeling.  These behaviours try to stop the unpleasant feelings or make them go away.  However, often doing the behaviour just once is not effective, so people feel they need to keep doing them to make the unpleasant feelings go away or to stop the obsessive thoughts.  The behaviours can be observable – something you actively do – or cognitive – needing to think a particular thought – which is not directly observable.   Compulsive behaviours can include repeated washing or cleaning or tidying, checking, or doing/thinking things a specific number of times.