October is obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) awareness month, and there are a lot of people out there—right now—who don’t even know they have it. They think they have anxiety instead. It’s not such a surprise; the two mental health diagnoses have some overlap.
For example, part of having OCD is experiencing feelings of anxiety, Simone Leavell-Bruce, PsyD, a psychotherapist who specializes in OCD, previously told Women’s Health. If you ask her, “OCD is like anxiety on steroids.” Meet the experts: Simone Leavell-Bruce, PsyD, is a North Carolina-based psychotherapist who specializes in OCD. Levi Riven, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and founder of Riven Psychology.
There’s just one major thing: OCD requires entirely different treatment than anxiety, and the traditional therapy for anxiety could actually make OCD worse. So, it’s definitely worth knowing the difference between the two. About one in 40 adults in the United States has OCD, with signs most commonly appearing at ages 7 to 12 and in early adulthood, around age 20, per the International OCD Foundation.
Women also appear to be more susceptible to the condition; one review concluded that women may be 1.6 times more likely to have OCD than men. Here are the core signs therapists look for when diagnosing OCD and how they tell it apart from anxiety. While generalized anxiety disorder tends to focus on everyday fears, OCD worries—or obsessions—are more out-of-the-box, especially to those who don’t have the condition.
Take this as an example: The night before a big presentation at work, someone with anxiety might be kept up all night with racing thoughts about all the ways it could go wrong the next day. I hope I can pull it off. For someone with OCD, the worries are less rooted in everyday reality.
Instead of being kept up by thoughts about preparedness or worrying if people will like their presentation, they might get intrusive thoughts about impulsively swearing or saying a racist slur while presenting. Have I done anything like this before? Obsessions can also often be outlandish, surprising, and taboo.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
