Do You Have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder?

Below are some questions for you to answer. Although this is not a substitute for talking with a mental health professional, you’ll get an idea if this is an area you might need to address.

1. Do you experience obsessions, as defined below:

  • recurrent and persistent thoughts, impulses, or images that are experienced as intrusive and inappropriate and cause a great deal of distress.

  • the thoughts are not simply excessive worries about real-life problems

  • the thoughts are extremely difficult to ignore or suppress

2. Do you experience compulsions, as defined below?

  • repetitive behaviors, such as hand washing or checking, that you feel driven to do in response to the obsession

  • the compulsions are aimed to reduce distress or prevent some dreaded event from happening, and are clearly excessive

3. Do you spend a significant amount of time dealing with your obsessions and compulsions (more than an hour per day)? Or, do your obsessions and compulsions interfere with your day-to-day functioning and relationships?

If you answered yes to each of the above questions, you may have obsessive-compulsive disorder.

RESOURCES

For more information about OCD, visit the Anxiety Disorders Association of America.

I was interviewed by Insider’s online magazine for this article:

5 Myths about OCD We Need to Stop Believing

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