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Due to misrepresentation and common misunderstanding, people with telltale signs of OCD often go decades undiagnosed and untreated. This is a thread of underrepresented types of OCD for anyone who suspects they might be suffering, undiagnosed:
Oftentimes the portrayals we see on TV are overt depictions of âJust Rightâ OCD. People with Just Right OCD often feel the need to have everything just so, in order to achieve a Just Right feeling. These feelings might accompany intrusive worries or may exist on their own.
For example, someone with Just Right OCD might feel the need to repeat a task over and over again until they âfeelâ as though theyâve done it âright.â Just Right OCD might also manifest as the need to organize things in a particular way, so that everything is âjust so.â
Media portrayals of Just Right OCD tend to neglect the distressing mental symptoms and dysfunction that accompany it. For example, people with Just Right OCD tend to be late to events because they âhaveâ to redo tasks over and over.
In addition, Just Right OCD might be accompanied by magical thinking. The Peace of Mind Foundation describes magical thinking as âthe belief that oneâs thoughts, actions, words, or wishes can alter the course of events in the physical world.â
Ever heard the phrase âstep on a crack, break your motherâs backâ? Thatâs an example of magical thinking. Someone with magical thinking might take this saying to heart and avoid sidewalk cracks for fear of causing the death of a loved one.
People with Just Right OCD often experience magical thinking. For example, they might think, âif I donât do this task perfectly, my parents will die.â As with all OCD, people with magical thinking generally recognize the irrationality of their thoughts.
âPure Oâ is a phrase commonly used to refer to cases of OCD where overt compulsions arenât present. The name âPure Oâ can be misleading, because studies show that the same obsessive compulsive cycle still exists. The only difference is that the compulsions are mental.
Common mental compulsions include self-reassurance, body scans, mental replaying, praying and neutralizing. For example, someone with an obsession about killing her mother might reassure herself by mentally searching for reasons why she would in fact not kill her mother.
Common Pure O themes include pedophelia OCD, religious OCD, relationship OCD and existential OCD. Iâm not going to go into detail about these individual subtypes, but Iâll link to some credible articles about them for those of yâall who are interested (next tweet)
Pedophelia OCD: https://iocdf.org/expert-opinions/am-i-a-monster-an-overview-of-common-features-typical-course-shame-and-treatment-of-pedophilia-ocd-pocd/
Religious OCD: https://www.madeofmillions.com/ocd/religious-ocd#:~:text=Religious%20OCD%2C%20also%20known%20as,an%20expression%20of%20God's%20love.
Relationship OCD: https://iocdf.org/expert-opinions/relationship-ocd/
Existential OCD: https://iocdf.org/expert-opinions/to-be-or-not-to-be-that-is-the-obsession-existential-and-philosophical-ocd/#:~:text=Existential%20OCD%20involves%20intrusive%2C%20repetitive,or%20even%20one's%20own%20existence.
Religious OCD: https://www.madeofmillions.com/ocd/religious-ocd#:~:text=Religious%20OCD%2C%20also%20known%20as,an%20expression%20of%20God's%20love.
Relationship OCD: https://iocdf.org/expert-opinions/relationship-ocd/
Existential OCD: https://iocdf.org/expert-opinions/to-be-or-not-to-be-that-is-the-obsession-existential-and-philosophical-ocd/#:~:text=Existential%20OCD%20involves%20intrusive%2C%20repetitive,or%20even%20one's%20own%20existence.
If you think you have OCD but you canât identify any of your compulsions, you might be experiencing Pure O. You can check out this article by Made of Millions to learn morw: https://www.madeofmillions.com/articles/pure-o-an-exploration-into-a-lesser-known-form-of-ocd
PHOBIAS CAN MANIFEST AS OCD!!! One of the most common examples is emetophobia, which is the fear of throwing up. The difference between a normal phobia and OCD is the obsessive-compulsive cycle.
For example, someone with emetophobia OCD might have intrusive thoughts (obsess) about throwing up, and wash their hands excessively (the compulsion) to prevent themselves from getting sick.
While phobias and OCD are already both treated with exposure therapy, a phobia that has manifested as OCD should be treated with exposure AND RITUAL PREVENTION therapy. If the compulsions are not actively prevented, the OCD cycle will persist.
A lot of people know about contamination OCD but not a lot of people know about EMOTIONAL CONTAMINATION OCD. People with emotional contamination tend to avoid things that they associate with âbadâ events or people that make them feel âemotionally contaminated.â
They might avoid places, activities, or even words with these negative associations. A lot of people with emotional contamination have the compulsion to wash their hands or cleanse themselves after having come in contact with an âemotionally contaminatedâ object.
If you think you might be suffering from emotional contamination OCD, check out this @iocdf article: https://iocdf.org/expert-opinions/emotional-contamination/
Finally, Real Life OCD is a subtype of OCD where the sufferer obsesses about past events rather than hypothetical future situations. Real Life OCD often leads people to think that they are bad people, and that their âmistakesâ are accurate representations of their character.
Real Life OCD is accompanied by a tremendous amount of guilt and can be incredibly debilitating. If you think youâre suffering from Real Life OCD, check out this article by @TheMightySite : https://themighty.com/2019/10/real-life-ocd-feel-guilty-past-events/
I hope this thread will help people recognize some of their own symptoms. Having OCD can be incredibly scary and isolating, and even just KNOWING WHAT IT IS can be a TREMENDOUS RELIEF.
I think that my next thread will be a ânext stepsâ thread for people who want to seek help for their OCD. Please let me know if this is something that yâall would be interested in.
