OCD

Maybe you have thoughts that are scary and you feel like you have no control over them. Perhaps you feel emotionally distressed and have trouble carrying out day-to-day tasks because of how much your negative thoughts consume you. Sometimes, you might even worry that you’re a bad person or that there’s something wrong with you. For instance, if you’re a new mom, you might have an irrational fear of hurting your baby—even though you know that you would never do such a thing. The more overwhelmed you feel, the more you may be considering therapy for OCD.

The intensity of OCD makes it hard to stay focused and be productive.

OCD symptoms look different from person to person, but for the most part, the condition is characterized by thoughts and compulsions that are so intense they make it difficult to do your job, perform daily tasks, and regulate your stress levels. You might become so preoccupied with rituals—checking with other people to make sure you didn’t say the wrong thing, going to extreme lengths to ensure your safety, ruminating about what someone said—that you have little time or energy left for anything else. Yet the more you try to satisfy your compulsions, the more powerful your anxiety grows.

If you want to get control of your OCD symptoms and break out of the behaviors that reinforce them, we encourage you to pursue counseling with us. At the Therapy for Women Center in Philadelphia, our mission is to help you gradually reduce your fears so that you can feel more empowered and stop letting OCD get in the way of your best life.

OCD is one of the most widely misunderstood mental health issues.

The term OCD is constantly thrown around in casual conversation, but few people actually realize that it’s a serious mental health disorder. For many, OCD simply means being obsessed with cleanliness. Think of Khloe Kardashian and other public figures saying, “I’m so OCD,” because they like cleaning.

While being preoccupied with cleanness and contamination is a subset of OCD, the condition is so much more than that. Many people with OCD suffer from disturbing and upsetting thoughts that create severe anxiety and emotional distress. They might worry about hurting others, worry about their own safety (or the safety of their loved ones), or worry about contracting serious illnesses. The spectrum of OCD-related anxieties is far and wide, yet because of how misunderstood OCD is, very few people get the help they need.

In fact, the average person with OCD spends 17 years struggling with the condition before they are properly diagnosed (1). Many of them are misdiagnosed with anxiety, depression, and other mental health disorders that overlap with the symptoms of OCD. This is why it’s so vital to seek professional support. A therapist who specializes in treating OCD can help you understand both what OCD is and what it’s not. And once you have a better understanding of your symptoms, managing them becomes much easier.