What Is It Like to Have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder?
Key takeaways:
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental health condition. People who have it experience recurrent thoughts or repetitive behaviors.
OCD often occurs in tandem with other mental health conditions, such as anxiety and depression.
OCD is treatable with therapy, medication, and lifestyle changes.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental health condition when a person has recurring thoughts that lead to repetitive behaviors.
These thoughts are unwanted and involuntary. They can create a cycle of behaviors that can significantly affect daily life.
Common themes in OCD include being afraid of dirt or germs or needing things to be perfectly lined up. Some people have frightening thoughts about hurting someone. Others have upsetting thoughts about religion or sex. These themes make people do repeated actions to feel less anxious. That can include things such as ritualistic handwashing and repetitive counting.
Four people talked to GoodRx about what it’s like to have OCD and how they live with the condition.
Before his OCD diagnosis, he got stuck in his thoughts
Kyle Elliott is a career coach from California. He has a doctorate in education and specializes in helping people in the tech field land their dream jobs.
His journey to being diagnosed with OCD started with migraines. While he was in college, a doctor he was seeing about his migraines also referred him to a psychiatrist.
“Within maybe 2 minutes, [the psychiatrist] said, ‘It sounds like you have generalized anxiety disorder and OCD.’”
That was a turning point, Kyle says. Before being diagnosed, he says he did not fully understand what OCD was and how it could present. “I was one of those people who thought [OCD] was just a lot of handwashing or that kind of thing.”
His symptoms involved intrusive thoughts. “It was less about compulsive actions and more ruminating thoughts. Over and over, and not being able to think about other stuff,” he says.
When he was younger, Kyle says, his parents would notice behaviors that seemed odd or repetitive. “In our living room, I would walk five times around the table one way and then the other way,” he recalls. “Or when I walked up the stairs, I would touch a certain brick. In the bedroom, frames had to be a certain way. Or I’d touch the light switch on and off.”
But mostly, he says, obsessive thoughts bothered him. As he got older, the intrusive thoughts started to affect his quality of life more severely. He would often think obsessively about tasks and felt like he was forgetting something. Or he’d get stuck in a loop thinking about abstract concepts like infinity. “Whereas someone else might explore a topic, for me, I would just go down this rabbit hole and get stuck,” he says.
Once diagnosed, his treatment included a combination of medication, therapy, and self-care practices. He noticed his migraines became more manageable, and he wasn’t as stressed.
In some ways, he says, his OCD has been a good thing. He says that his intense ability to focus and plan has helped him succeed in his career. He has been able to manage his OCD by building a support system and creating a work-life balance. He also adds physical activity, medication, a good sleep routine, and therapy.
Is there more than one type of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)? Yes, various types of OCD can manifest in different themes.
What are the biggest signs of OCD? OCD is characterized by intrusive thoughts and repetitive rituals.
How do you know if you need help for your anxiety? Here are some signs to watch for.
Her cleanliness has become more of a habit than a compulsion
Rosa Talavera-Kaufman, a life coach and a meditation facilitator in Colorado, has dealt with OCD and anxiety since she was young.
She found it easier to recognize and understand her feelings of anxiety than some of her compulsive behaviors. She recalls always being very particular about things being “just so.” Everything had to have a place, and everything had to be perfectly in order.
As an adult, Rosa still likes to keep her living spaces tidy and clean, but these have become more of a habit than an obsession. In addition to themes of cleanliness and order, Rosa says she also sometimes has intrusive thoughts of intense worry.
“If I worry about something, it’s not just worry,” she says, “I obsess about it, and that’s when the anxiety episodes slowly start to creep in as well.”
When Rosa was diagnosed, she says she recognized that her mind was in a constant battle with her thoughts.
“Even if nothing stressful was going on, I was in a state of constant emotional turmoil,” she says.
Today she takes a holistic approach to managing her symptoms. She takes medication as needed to treat her symptoms. But she relies more on things like yoga, mindfulness, deep breathing, and meditation. She also says it’s important to have a support system.
“Having somebody who will listen to you and who can be there for you and say, ‘I’m here for you; just talk to me’ — I think that makes a really huge difference.”
Poetry is one tool she uses to manage her mental health
When Maria Scazzero was 12, she was diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Six years later, she was also diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. At age 34, she was diagnosed with OCD.
When her OCD symptoms started to appear, she had already started dialectical behavior therapy. It’s a treatment that teaches skills to handle intense emotions — and her severe intrusive thoughts.
“I was afraid of myself,” she says. “Those thoughts didn’t feel like they were mine because they were so intrusive and so dark. … They wouldn’t stop. It was the most frightening thing I’ve ever endured.”
Maria, who’s now a recruiter in New York City, says therapy helped her feel validated. She also enrolled in an exposure and response prevention therapy program.
“I came face-to-face with my intrusive thoughts and learned they were not going to hurt me or others,” she says. “My OCD has not magically disappeared, but I no longer go down a dark rabbit hole.”
Maria credits a combination of medication, therapy, and support groups as being major factors in managing her mental health conditions. She also uses poetry as an outlet to express her emotions.
She learned to cope with intrusive thoughts, such as health fears
Sarah Noll Wilson says she’s likely had OCD most of her life, but she was diagnosed in 2023.
Sarah owns a leadership coaching and consultant practice in Des Moines, Iowa. She says symptoms can be easy to miss because they are so internal.
“It was a lot of internal compulsions and a lot of internal reassurance seeking,” she says. “I started developing really intrusive thoughts.”
Through therapy, Sarah says she had developed coping strategies to help manage anxiety and panic attacks. But the intrusive thoughts were new and began to take control of her life. She says receiving an OCD diagnosis helped her start to address where her symptoms were coming from.
She realized many of her intrusive thoughts had to do with health — and in recent years, fears about COVID-19. She realized she would fixate on health worries. Just having a minor scratchy throat would lead to obsessing over it.
“My brain immediately went to, ‘Oh, are you sick?’ Then came the compulsive checking,” she says. “I was catching myself swallowing constantly to see if my throat was getting worse.”
The constant cycle became exhausting.
Since then, she says, a combination of medication, mindfulness, and therapy has helped her manage her symptoms. She tries to get enough sleep, eat regular meals, and stay hydrated.
She also says her husband is one of her biggest supporters in managing her mental health. “Our relationship is the best it’s ever been, in large part because of how we’ve been navigating it together,” she says.
Frequently asked questions
OCD thoughts are intrusive and distressing ideas, images, or impulses that cycle through your mind, provoking anxiety. It can lead to compulsive behaviors to alleviate the anxiety.
Overthinking can be a common symptom of both anxiety disorders and OCD. While overthinking is more often associated with generalized anxiety disorder, it can also be a feature of OCD.
The bottom line
OCD is characterized by two main components: obsessions (recurring, unwanted thoughts) and compulsions (repetitive behaviors). If these symptoms significantly interfere with your daily life, it may be time to seek professional help.
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