{"id":149881,"date":"2022-01-07T14:53:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-07T14:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/archives\/149881"},"modified":"2022-01-20T18:23:50","modified_gmt":"2022-01-20T23:23:50","slug":"ocd-and-anxiety-disorders-crash-course-psychology-29-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/archives\/149881","title":{"rendered":"OCD and Anxiety Disorders: Crash Course Psychology #29"},"content":{"rendered":"Ever heard a really good joke about polio?\r\nOr made a casual reference to someone having hepatitis? Or maybe teased your buddy by saying\r\nhe has muscular dystrophy? Of course you have never done that, because\r\nyou are not a terrible person. You’d never make fun of someone for having a physical\r\nillness, but folks make all kinds of offhand remarks about people having mental illnesses\r\nand never give it a second thought. How often have you heard a person say that\r\nsomeone’s psycho, or schizo, or bipolar, or OCD? I can pretty much guarantee that the\r\npeople who used those terms had no idea what they actually meant. We’ve talked about how psychological disorders\r\nand the people who have them have often been stigmatized. But at the same time, we tend to minimize\r\nthose disorders, using them as nicknames for things that people do, think, or say, that\r\nmay not exactly be universal, but are still basically healthy.\r\n\r\nAnd we all do it, but only because we don’t\r\nreally understand those conditions. But that’s why we’re here, because as we go\r\ndeeper into psychological disorders, we get a clearer understanding of their symptoms,\r\ntypes, causes, and the perspectives that help explain them. And some of the most common disorders have\r\ntheir root in an unpleasant mental state that’s familiar to us all: anxiety. It’s a part of being human, but for some people\r\nit can develop into intense fear, and paralyzing dread, and ultimately turn into full-fledged\r\nanxiety disorder. Defining psychological disorders again: a\r\ndeviant, distressful, and dysfunctional pattern of thoughts, feelings, or behaviors that interferes\r\nwith the ability to function in a healthy way. So when it comes to anxiety, that definition\r\nis the difference between the guy you probably called phobic because he didn’t like Space\r\nMountain as much as you did, and the person who truly can’t leave their house for fear\r\nof interacting with others. It’s the difference between the girl who’s\r\nteased by her friends as being OCD because she does her laundry every night and the girl who\r\nhas to wash her hands so often that they bleed.\r\n\r\nStarting today, you’re going to understand\r\nall of those terms you’ve been using. We commonly equate anxiety with fear, but\r\nanxiety disorders aren’t just a matter of fear itself. A key component is also what we do to get\r\nrid of that fear. Say someone almost drowned as a kid and is\r\nnow afraid of water. A family picnic at the river may cause that\r\nanxiety to bubble up, and to cope, they may stay sequestered in the car, less anxious\r\nbut probably still unhappy while the rest of the family is having fun. So, in clinical terms, anxiety disorders are\r\ncharacterized not only by distressing, persistent anxiety but also often by the dysfunctional\r\nbehaviors that reduce that anxiety. At least a fifth of all people will experience\r\na diagnosable anxiety disorder of some kind at some point in their lives.\r\n\r\nThat is a lot\r\nof us. So I want to start out with a condition that\r\nused to be categorized as an anxiety disorder but is now considered complex enough to be\r\nin a class by itself, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder or OCD. You probably know that condition is characterized\r\nby unwanted repetitive thoughts, which become obsessions, which are sometimes accompanied\r\nby actions, which become compulsions. And it is a great example of a psychological\r\ndisorder that could use some mental-health myth busting.\r\n\r\nBeing neat, and orderly, and fastidious does\r\nnot make you OCD. OCD is a debilitating condition whose sufferers\r\ntake normal behaviors like, washing your hands, or double checking that you turned off the\r\nstove and perform them compulsively. And they often use these compulsive, even ritualistic\r\nbehaviors to relieve intense and unbearable anxiety. So, soon they’re scrubbing their hands every five minutes, or constantly checking the stove, or counting the exact number of steps they\r\ntake everywhere they go. If you’re still unclear about what it means\r\nfor disorders to be deviant, distressful and dysfunctional, OCD might help you understand. Because it is hard to keep a job, run a household,\r\nsit still, or do much of anything if you feel intensely compelled to run to the kitchen\r\ntwenty times an hour. And both the thoughts and behaviors associated with\r\nOCD are often driven by a fear that is itself obsessive, like if you don’t go to the kitchen\r\nright now your house will burn down and your child will die which makes the condition that\r\nmuch more distressing and self-reinforcing.\r\n\r\nThere are treatments that help OCD including certain\r\nkinds of psychotherapy and some psychotropic drugs. But the key here is that it is not a description\r\nfor your roommate who cleans her bathroom twice a week, or the guy in the cubicle next to\r\nyou, who only likes to use green felt tip pens. And even though OCD is considered its own\r\nunique set of psychological issues, the pervasive senses of fear, worry, and loss of control\r\nthat often accompany it, have a lot in common with other anxiety disorders.\r\n\r\nThe broadest of these is Generalized Anxiety\r\nDisorder or GAD. People with this condition tend to feel continually\r\ntense and apprehensive, experiencing unfocused, negative, and out-of-control feelings. Of course feeling this way occasionally is\r\ncommon enough, but feeling it consistently for over six months – the length of time required for\r\na formal diagnosis – is not. Folks with GAD worry all the time and are\r\nfrequently agitated and on edge, but unlike some other kinds of anxiety, patients often can’t\r\nidentify what’s causing the anxiousness, so they don’t even know what to avoid. Then there’s Panic Disorder, which affects about\r\n1 in 75 people, most often teens and young adults. It’s calling card is Panic Attacks or sudden\r\nepisodes of intense dread or sudden fear that come without warning. Unlike the symptoms of GAD which can be hard\r\nto pin down, Panic Attacks are brief, well-defined, and sometimes severe bouts of elevated anxiety. And if you’ve ever had one, or been with someone\r\nwho has, you know that they call these attacks for good reason. They can cause chest pains and racing heartbeat,\r\ndifficulty breathing and a general sense that you’re going crazy or even dying.\r\n\r\n
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