Ocd — Why Hollow Things Often Get On Our Nerves?

The OCD-ed, thus, are often worn out, distressed by the dismal fact that they are in no control of themselves. On the other hand, unless pulling off such coercive behaviors, these individuals would run themselves into extreme anxiety. The vicious cycle of obsession — anxiety — compulsive behavior, therefore, is unceasingly perpetuated.

11 min readMar 14, 2024

I have earned myself quite an eccentric habit (which must be woefully common, I reckon): keeping my desk spick-and-span: my keyboard is always located amid which, flawlessly parallel to the computer display. In the corner are candy bottles, eye drops and hand sanitizer, correspondingly arranged from low to high — an order akin to the bookshelf in my bedroom. To the right side of which lays the notebook, whose square edges must, as a rule, conform to those of the desk. Given a such locale, I can thereby repose the wallet without the help of any other tools. Lucky me, eh?

Staying organized in turn earns me every ease in ferreting out stuff, alongside every working comfort. Also, the “impregnable territories” of the pitcher and cup(s) are marked up by their pads. After all, it is my orderly arrangement of things that wins me back every succor — even though researchers have evidenced that cluttering may somehow catalyze our human creativity [1] .

In this manner, even though I always take pride in my persnicketiness, someone mocking “abearing OCD, eh?” often sounds all too vexatious. This is, after all, kindred to deriding those in depression or grief. Nevertheless, such an outrage rarely hails from their ascribing some mental illnesses to me — my every vehement rage ascribes to the fact that this very joke is indirectly belittling the severity of which.

Which is, to all appearances, never a should. The “should”, instead, must have been we equipping ourselves with some bits of knowledge to stave off such a horrible mistake. This article, thus, is homing in OCD to offer some righteous insights into this psychological cataclysm.

1. What is OCD?

On the whole, anxiety, fear, alongside every other defensive behavior serve as every critical mechanism to human evolution [2] . They have got us all ears, and attentive enough to remain within safe states.

What if any of which fails?

As its name would suggest, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) has somewhat accurately described the disease itself. Accordingly, the situation wherein a person is perpetually burdened with intrusive thoughts, against-the-will images and impulses (note that it must be against-the-will), is collectively coined obsession. In all likelihood, phobias are inherently negative, taboo, dreary or hollow. They perennially pop by irregardless of every conscious effort to ignore, repress or govern, accompanied by multiple anxiety levels [3] .

Violently quelled by obsession and anxiety, the OCD-ed turn to compulsive behaviors as somewhat reliefs to which. These, accordingly, are to fence off the situations seemingly dreadful to the hosts — even when they are de facto heedful of how drab their behaviors might seem [4] . Given the perpetuations of which, patients also coerce themselves to engender compulsive behaviors corresponding in frequency.

The OCD-ed, thus, are often worn out, distressed by the dismal fact that they are in no control of themselves. On the other hand, unless pulling off such coercive behaviors, these individuals would run themselves into extreme anxiety. The vicious cycle of obsession — anxiety — compulsive behavior, therefore, is unceasingly perpetuated.

That someone pleasantly eyes the order, or satisfactorily smiles at orderly arranged pens, nonetheless, is by no means an OCD symptom. In fact, neither cleanliness nor persnicketiness could evoke any positive emotions in OCD sufferers, who, on the other hand, are left with no other choice — to eventually do away with the obsessive frustrations storming their minds [all the time].

Hand-washing somewhat alleviates their fears of getting contaged, or infecting others. Regularly checking locks and switches is to fence off thefts, or any incidents. Forasmuch as they know all too well that hand-washing every 30 minutes is drearily dull, seldom could OCD-ers restrain themselves from which. In a like manner, albeit having manually pulled the key off the lock, witnessing the lights go out with their bare eyes; seldom could they do away with their insecurity and multiple-checking behaviors.

Simply put, OCD-ers are much akin to the pitiful, desperate villagers, who count on every repetitive “ritual” to alleviate their inward self-made monsters. Since those monsters can morph in a host of shapes, so are respective coercive behaviors (conceivably superpositioned) [5] .

Withal locks or switches, those in Checking OCD may read every sentence in the draft email a thousand times to assure none of which sounds offensive. Insomuch as the ordinary also commit such behaviors, their OCD-ed counterparts are obsessed with running over which again and again. Others even drum into driving on a street to assure they do not collide, constantly checking the crash sign (if any) on the car to alleviate the fear of having accidentally hit someone.

Unusual repetitions of hand-washing, or tooth-brushing, after all, is merely a mild sign of “contamination”. Those in woefully severe states, on the other hand, even overpass shared items, crowds, or sensual behaviors. OCD for fear of “mental contamination”, albeit manifesting in [excessive] bathing or hand-washing, actually hails from past mistreats or insultations [6] . Whereas, those abearing “hoarding” OCD often brush off throwing away decrepit, valueless things (of which they know all too well) [7] .

That said, victims of aforementioned types of OCD should be “grateful” for they themselves are heedful of relievers to their pains (i.e. to shower, or to hoard). Those in Pure O — the bearers of harmful intentions (violence or p-e-d-o-p-h-i-l-i-a), abnormal s-e-x-u-a-l orientations (heterosexual having qualms that they might be not-that-straight and vice versa) or skepticisms about personal values (puzzling over their morality/piety) — in contrast, are either heedless, or incapable of commiting pain-relieving behaviors (which are inherently inhibited by social and religious institutions).

Rather, oftentimes, these individuals ruminate their every negative thought, or perennially bird-dog reassurance from others — to somehow alleviate their self-doubts, even when this means to risk their identities revealing their dark, unconventional, or blasphemous thoughts to the outsiders. Due to such indeterminate behavioral latency, this OCD type is somewhat undetectable and intractable. Worse still, even the sufferers are, thus, afraid of seeking help or treatment, placing themselves under more crippling, disquieted stress and anxiety [8] .

That said, there have also been OCD-ers with unknown fears and unanticipatable behavioral motivations [9] . After all, the vehemently deriding overly orderly arranging, wiping things, or every other repetitive behavior are actually cataclysmic OCDs that the deriders are heedless of. Worse still, those with such monstrous illnesses rarely hold any valid explanation to which, except for “to alleviate my disquietnesses” [10] .

2. By no means is it a hoax

In short, our human thoughts are inherently unpredictable. Every norm can morph into obsessions or fears that engender abnormal behaviors. The perpetuation of the alleged “extreme” behaviors, after all, is solely a self-made reliever to OCD patients, which, however, also is a double-edged sword. It hobbles their daily life, which in turn is contorted to the hollow, time-consuming “rituals”, let alone the constant spiritual tensions. OCD, in this manner, has urged some to overly hand-wash until their skin is horribly damaged, or at least bled.

A such disastrous illness can pop by anyone’s life, regardless of age, gender, religion or political stances.

At-risk-lies-everyone, obsessed-of-everything.

To Hilary Zurbuch, to opt for which attire to work every morning is a poignant burden [11] . She, however, is rarely afraid of “nothing to wear”. Her utmost dread is that what she is ironing would gain herself a 12-year-old-girl appearance. Such a thought reins in the woman, who thereafter has to take out another set(s) of outfits, pressing them under the iron, ironing her perennial anxiety — that unless she dresses properly, she would run her life into dead ends.

The next two hours passes by, and the woefully uptight is still at her house, hardstuck in the vicious circle of choosing a set — ironing it — changing her mind — repeating the previous steps. She even runs short for breakfast-preparing time, thus having to ask her colleague to help her out. Hilary is a master, a regular golfer and traveler, a somewhat community worker, DOES smile a lot; and is bearing with OCD.

To a beautiful woman like Rose Bretécher (altered name); no one thought she was a victim of Pure O, tortured by the image of n-a-k-e-d c-h-i-l-d-r-e-n since 15 [12] . Her fear of being a p-e-d-o-p-h-i-l-e is so haunted that during the GCSE exam, every time she pressed the tip of the pen on the paper, obscene things were recalled so vividly in her mind. The ritual of confession was the worst part, she had to be pious and honest with the church’s sins, which meant repeatedly saying “I am a sinner” even though it was just because the illness affects the way she thinks. “Mea culpa — my guilt for bad images and words…”, which was not supposed to be for a child but was repeated by her throughout her teenage years, and continues every Sunday night, even though she had long since stopped going to church.

By the age of 17, the latent child m-o-l-e-s-t-i-n-g obsession disappeared; leaving every room for self-doubts about her s-e-x-u-a-l orientations. Indecent images and thoughts overwhelmed her mind as Rose met other girlfriends, leaving her to wonder if she was gay. It was not until she saw that the male singer’s face in a MV gradually transformed into the image of female genitals, Rose had the courage to seek out a therapist.

Perhaps only the insiders fully understand the evil of this disease. Only those who have spent more than 20 years to get rid of their self-image holding a knife to their neck like Aaron Harvey do find it necessary to become an activist and propagandist about the real danger of OCD [13] .

Rated as one of the top 10 risk factors for mental disability by the World Health Organization, the monstrous illness engenders poignant income losses and severe impairment of the illed’s “living experience” [14] . Statistics from the US indicate that one every forty adults and one every a hundred children are OCD-ed, accounting for a total of 1.2% of the population — with the UK attaining the kindred rate [15] . Millions of people with mental illness should be seen as a problem, rather than the potential market for “hand sanitizer for people with OCD”, which propagate such sublime instructions as: “Open cap. Sanitize. Close cap. Open cap. Sanitize. Close cap. Make sure the cap is firmly closed. Recheck Cap. Are you sure it’s closed?” [16] .

Never has consumer capitalism let us down in how it yields profit at all costs, and from every “potential customer”.

3. What to do once one starts abearing OCD?

Further delving into the illness, the internal mechanism engendering OCD involves the three brain subdivisions: (1) the orbital frontal cortex, (2) the anterior cingulate cortex and (3) the caudate nucleus [17] .

The orbital frontal cortex is the brain’s reward center, functioning as the thought regulator in assessing the behavioral righteousness. Research on macaque monkeys evidences that this brain area is active once a rewarding task is accomplished. Changing the reward from fruit juice to a brine can, researchers noticed even stronger activity of the cortex — and for a longer period [18] . In other words, this local area serves as a filter that detects behavioral errors and alarms that “there must be something wrong”.

Capturing this signal, the anterior cingulate cortex — which is responsible for the human emotions, amplifies that feeling of “wrong”, prompting us to take action to correct which. Once completed, the caudate nucleus, which coordinates the free movements of the body, thereafter acts as a gear lever, which, once flipped, turns off the brain’s active state, which in turn automatically ignores the solved problem to move on to the next tasks. Forgot to lock the door — return to lock — lock it and head back to work (normally some 15 minutes late) is indeed what should take place.

It, however, is not the case of OCD-ers. Even though it is some trivial mistake, for example a smudge, or a slight disorder, is enough to stimulate the frontal and anterior cortex with abnormally strong intensity as if a such mistake were horrible, or capable of yielding no less crippling consequences. In addition, the gear lever — caudate nucleus — of OCD-ers also malfunctions — it gets stuck and can barely perform state transitions, locking the brain in escalating anxiety, urging it to constantly correct the order, which are inherently repetitive compulsions.

Those with OCD also have abnormally low serotonin levels — the chemical serving as a neurotransmitter to mediate communication between different divisions, let alone its commitment in such critical mental processes as melancholy, anger, self-control, sleep regulation, taste stimulations, body temperature regulation and physical pain relief. Many OCD medicines, thus, zero in every mechanism that accelerates serotonin levels within patients.

Withal drug treatment, cognitive behavioral therapy, one of the few applicable treatments, homes in exposing patients to obsessions until they themselves realize the absurdity of which. These therapies, however, are still constrained in efficacy and fiercely time-consuming.

That said, these constraints can only subsist since science has yet unveiled the causes of OCD. Brain activity and structure as aforementioned, is purely one of the risk factors behind OCD, in addition to genetics and living environments. The illness evolves from past traumas or horrible experiences; strikingly enough, streptococcal infection can also bring about OCD symptoms, yet only on children [19] .

After all, the crippling issue of psychology is that, even though brain activities can be zoomed in at cellular levels; seldom could psychologists spell out the exact causes of psychological issues. Straightforward as it might sound, science has even failed miserably to unveil oblivion — all what they have come up with are pure models and predictions. Until science advents are all-powerful, rarely could we brag of what actually taking place within the human brain, or how far-flung human thoughts could de facto get.

Insofar as OCD patients are woefully hurting for a cure, by no means should others keep deriding, soft-pedalling the severity of a such cataclysmic mental illness.

By the same token, to swat at others about depression does sound intriguing, should it zero in a way out for those in depression, or somewhat professionally discussed.

To crow over which, on the other hand, gives me dEpReSsIoN instead.

(Every such one-liner, I reckon, may also turn out somehow conducive to message spreading).

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References:

[1] https://www.apa.org/monitor/2013/10/messy-desk

[2] https://www.nationalgeographic.org/.../how-fear-and.../

[3] https://www.britannica.com/.../obsessive-compulsive-disorder

https://www.nimh.nih.gov/.../obsessive.../index.shtml

[4] https://www.popsci.com/ocd-understanding-compulsions/

[5] https://www.ocduk.org/ocd/types/

[6] https://ocdclinicbrisbane.com.au/mental-contamination-2/

[7] https://www.ocduk.org/related-disorders/hoarding-disorder/