How OCD Works

Obsessive-compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder characterized by obsessive thoughts and compulsive actions. Check out this HowStuffWorks podcast to learn more about the effects of and treatments for OCD.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
from House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh. That's Chuck coming to you from
Studio one A. Yes, deep within the bowels of How
Stuff Works corporate headquarters, my spokesman. Boys. Yeah, that's a

(00:22):
pretty good Chuck, Chuck, do your best. Monk like a
Franciscan monk. Chant. I don't care now, I know what
you're talking about. You're talking about Monk the TV show. Yes,
one of my favorites, is it? Yeah? I love it?
You watch it? You don't? Yes, I do know it's good.
I watched Monk. Because let me go ahead and set

(00:43):
this up. I have in a very very off hand way,
no Monk, let's hear it, Chuck, I don't. I don't
know him. No, h'm I've met him a few times.
Tony shalub the actor, the great, great actor, Tony shalub Um.
And I'm not just saying that because i've met him.
I really a big fan of his work with the
Coen Brothers especially. Yeah, he's pretty good in their films.
They know how to direct that guy. Yeah. I met

(01:06):
Tony through a friend of mine who was a director
and uh, who had worked with Tony, and Tony's a
really good guy. Took a shine at my friend Jim
and went to his wedding, even which I went to.
And uh, Tony has read one of my screenplays, was
kind enough to do that. And you went to Monk's wedding, No,
I went to. My Frink was there. But when I
was there, I thought it was kind of funny that,
you know, I knew he was going to be there,

(01:26):
but there was a lot of you know, periphery family there,
and I just wondered if people just kind of flew
in from out of town and sat down there, like, hey,
you know, what's Monk doing here? But he's over there,
let's just see him. He's right there. Yeah, he's an
online registered minister. So I sort of have met Tony
a few times. He's a very nice guy. We were
we got way sidetracked here, Oh we did. We did

(01:47):
um And actually if we had O c D that
would not stand right man. That was good. Thanks, like
Monk O c D. That's what we're talking about. Yeah,
that's where Monk came from. So basically, um, let's let's
discuss o c D today, which stands for obsessive compulsive disorder.
I think most people probably realize that, yeah, which seems
kind of foreign to me. I've not me. I I

(02:09):
can I can kind of identify with it, But I
mean the thought of actually being clinically diagnosed with o
c D and living the way that that people who
have O c D live, I just I can't imagine
it being bearable. I guess that's probably what I should
have said, you can identify. Well. I've often say I
have o c D just to my wife as a joke.
But I do have a lot of really weird, quirky

(02:33):
compulsive habits. But after reading the article and doing a
little more research, I realize, unless it's an actual compulsion
that you have to do it over and over and over,
then it's not actually o c D. It's just weird
quirky habits. Boy. Really yeah, wow, I never really told
people a lot of these. Um, I don't step on
stairs to have something on them. I uh, I will

(02:57):
try to avoid cracks on the sidewalk. But not only that,
but if I step on a crack with my left foot,
then I have to step on the next one with
my right foot. Wow, I know I might have a
c D. Actually, that's entirely possible. It sounds like though
it's it's not. Um, it hasn't taken It doesn't run
your life. Well, that's the difference I think O c
D would be if I stepped on the crack with

(03:18):
my left foot and then miss the next one. All right,
but I have to go back and then do it
all over again and it it doesn't come down or
just chop both feet off and get it over. And
I don't always notice it either. It doesn't you know,
sometimes I'll do it, sometimes I'll notice it, and sometimes
you don't. I got it makes me wonder, Um, you
know what the conditions are when you notice it? Like
what is going on in your life? But your what's
your brain going through? That? Interesting? Um? So let's give

(03:41):
a little background on O c D. Like Chuck said,
it stands for obsessive compulsive disorder. Um. And uh, well,
the obsessive part is um. It's it's talking about the
the mental state. People with O c D obsess over
very slight things that seemed gigantic to them, right For example,

(04:03):
you think that your hands are dirty. That's a big one.
That's an obsessive thought. Uh, and you can't get it
out of your head. The only way to UM to
get rid of it is through compulsive behaviors, say hand washing. Right,
here's the problem for most of us. If we look
at our hands and go, oh, my hands dirty, I
need to wash it. You wash your hand and that's that.

(04:24):
You know, you may not wash your hand again for
several days. Um with if you have O c D, uh,
you wash your hand over and over, and that that
obsessive thought that your hands still dirty, uh is still there. Right,
And from what I understand it may vary with some
some people with O c D, but it's not necessarily

(04:45):
that you get to the point where you actually think
your hands are clean. A lot of times will be
a specific number in your head, like I have to
wash my hands ten times, the magical number, right, yeah,
the magic number, and then I can move on with
my life. And you'll see that more often with UM
P poole. Maybe locking and unlocking doors three times or
ten times every time, or opening and shutting or touching

(05:06):
a door knob or something like that, Right, David saderis
the comedian and author David SADERA and not comedian but
funny man David us he uh some of his books.
He touches on some of his O C D. When
he was a kid, was really funny, licking light switches
and licking mailboxes and things like that. It's really good.
I don't I didn't know that licking. There's a licking compulsion,

(05:28):
well touching, and I guess he's just licking. Is just
touching with your tongue and get down to it. I'm
gonna have to try that line sometimes. So um okay,
So that's the background on O c D. Um that
this the the obsession though they can generally be categorized
into four categories appropriately enough. Um, you've got germs which

(05:52):
would account for the hand washing, right, their symmetry, which
is keeping things in place, right, that's where mine figures
in a little bit order. Yeah, when I'm when I'm
cleaning the house and things, I can't just put the
remote control on the TV. I have to put it
at a certain in a certain spot. Yeah. Okay, Now
there's um doubt. This doubt is the one I think

(06:13):
I can most identify with. Apparently, if you have O
c D. This doubt is overwhelming, and you will keep
going back home, back home, back home, to check on
the espresso maker or whatever. I wrote an article in
the New York Times about UM O c D in restaurants.
Apparently it doesn't matter how your O c D manifest.
A restaurant is a nightmarish, hellish place. Uh, there's just

(06:37):
so many problems if you if you're paying attention, you're
going to really flip out. Well, you got someone handling
your food first of all that, and you're eating with
utensils that are shared. I mean they're washed in theory,
but shared utensils. Uh. You know the Jack Nicholson movie,
as good as it gets, the restaurants seen in there,
I think it's pretty indicative of what the hell you

(06:57):
could suffer through. Yeah. Well, the the author of the
New York Times article that read, he um he was
never certain that he had actually signed the check when
he's a credit card so he'd look again, see that
he'd signed it, and within seconds opened again and saw
that he signed it and opened it again. He would
drive himself crazy like and also he had what I

(07:18):
think is one of the more interesting um UM I guess.
Manifestations of O c D is reporting compulsion. I love
this thing. This is pretty cool. Basically, Um, if if
let's say you're seated at a table at a restaurant.
This is the example of the New York Times guy uses,
if you're seated at a table in a restaurant and
it's maybe a little loose, you're suddenly overcome by thoughts

(07:41):
of you know, either yourself or somebody else down the
line who will be seated at that table being crushed
by the weight of it when it falls over, and
you are overcome with the compulsion to tell somebody, um,
the restaurant manager, a waiter or something. And the problem
is is they never really appropre appropriately react. So I

(08:02):
think if you feel that something's enough of a danger
that it must be reported, actions should be taken immediately.
So the fact that the waiter doesn't immediately take that
chair and like from the rest yeah, or evacuate you
from the table or something like that, Yeah, it's kind
of gotta be a downer. And the other problem with
restaurants is that it's it's a very public forum. And
so if you have to like touch something several times

(08:24):
before you sit down, or you change tables several times
because they're not entirely stable. Um. People notice that kind
of thing, and all of a sudden, you're fairly embarrassing
disorders put on on display. Right. So I think for
that reason, a lot of times people find themselves trapped
in their homes and give a little bit of agoraphobia

(08:44):
going out. Apparently oh c D can very easily lead
to a gooraphobia and baldness. Yeah, this is awful from
from what chuck from pulling your hair? I mean, come on, like,
what kind of an affliction is this? Right? This is awful, um,
And it's all in your head. That's the worst part.
And I think people with O c D realize even

(09:06):
before they are ever really treated, that this is all
in their head, right, Um, And that just has to
make it all the more all the worst, right. I know.
There was a basketball player in the I guess it
was the eighties and nineties. His name was Chris Jackson.
I don't know if you remember him. I remember him yet. Well.
He played for L s U in college and I

(09:26):
can't remember we played pro. But he had O c
D and I think would tie his shoes, tie his
basketball shoes up over and over and over and liked
be late for practice and uh leaving the house. He
had problems leaving the house. And I'll have to look
into this. I just this just hit me actually, but
I believe it actually had something to do with the
early end of his basketball career. I may be wrong there,

(09:49):
so well, well I'll look into that. Yeah, hopefully Jackson
still playing because that stuck. Well, he definitely not still
playing now, just because he'd be old, but like Dr
j Old, uh no, not Dr jail Magic Johnson old
little younger than maybe he still could be playing. Actually,
Latrelle's pretty well old. Yeah, okay, I've stumbled upon it.

(10:12):
See that was the magical number three. There's one more
category that obsessions can be lumped into, and this is
kind of the darkest of them all. Um, disturbing thoughts yea.
And these are thoughts that you can't get out of
your head, um, and that if they lead to compulsive behavior,
it's probably going to be violent, like violent sexual thoughts. Um,

(10:33):
you know, other acts of violence, um, maybe self inflicted
or on other people. And actually I found a study,
a case report. Actually, uh, did you know that nymphamania
is often linked to O c D. Really, yeah, that
makes sense. Compulsive behavior. Um, there's this woman who's uh,

(10:54):
whose case was in extremist though it's a two thousand
two UM case study. Uh. And there was a woman
who's twenty three and she was a daycare worker, but
she became unemployed because her sexual activity was she was
so prolific that, um, she couldn't hold the job down

(11:17):
she had sex too much. And uh, she's in the
wrong line of work. Well, yeah, okay, let's just settle down, chuck. Um.
So this woman, actually, this is a self reported she
commonly had thirty She had sexual intercourse thirty times in
a twenty four hour period, several times a week. You

(11:39):
sent me this in an email. I didn't realize. I
thought it was just here's an interesting fact. But she
had O c D. Yeah, all right, I should I
be amazed at the thirty times. Can you imagine having
sex thirty times in twenty four hours in doing it
several times a week? No, I can't. So this woman
also had other compulsions as well, But um, that was

(12:00):
a it was a pretty a pretty interesting compulsive behavior.
She was doing it to her own detriment. She derived
no sexual pleasure from having sex um and she reported
that you know, she was afraid of being abandoned by
by these people, which that's took over her life, for sure,
it did, it did, and uh, happily enough, she went
under a cognitive behavioral therapy and is working it out,

(12:23):
which is one of the treatments along with I believe
antidepressants is one of the things they can prescribe sometimes. Yeah,
there is treatment. Take hope all ye who have O
c D and are just finding this out. Um, there
there is treatment for this disorder, and cognitive behavioral therapy
is the UM is the chief method of curing. You

(12:45):
want to tell them about the CBT, Well, yeah, I know.
One of the methods they use in the CBT is
called exposure and response prevention and basically that's, uh, from
what I can gather, that's showing someone or putting someone
in front of their fear or in this case, or
obsession and just saying you can't do it. Yeah. Imagine

(13:06):
tying somebody to a chair, right, yeah, and then putting
like I don't know, a dirty towel on their hand
and not letting them wash it. Yeah, And basically you reinforce. Look,
you're not dying, your hands not falling off, you're not
getting sick. And it doesn't just happen one, you know,
it takes a series, but it's like breaking a wild horse,

(13:26):
right and and again through therapy and often in conjunction
with any depressants. Uh, this, this disorder can be licked,
not like David Sedaris like, yeah, not licking being a
form of touching the full circle. Yeah, nice one by accident.
All right, Well, thanks for joining us. U This this
timeline stuff you should know and you can learn a

(13:48):
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(14:10):
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