Obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD, is a relatively newly recognized, if not all-together new, disorder that's effecting millions of people throughout the world. As a result, it's easier to find ocd help - be it psychotherapy, prescription drugs, support groups or holistic remedies - than it otherwise would have been ten or more years earlier. In fact, OCD help is just a google search away.
Put the phrase ocd help into the search engine and you'll come up with a nearly endless list of sites dedicated to OCD help, starting with mentalhelp.net. Their definition of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder reads as follows:
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder where a person has recurrent and unwanted ideas or impulses (called obsessions) and an urge or compulsion to do something to relieve the discomfort caused by the obsession. The obsessive thoughts range from the idea of losing control, to themes surrounding religion or keeping things or parts of one's body clean all the time. Compulsions are behaviors that help reduce the anxiety surrounding the obsessions. Most people (90%) who have OCD have both obsessions and compulsions. The thoughts and behaviors a person with OCD has are senseless, repetitive, distressing, and sometimes harmful, but they are also difficult to overcome.
OCD is more common than schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or panic disorder, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Yet, it is still commonly overlooked by mental health professionals, mental health advocacy groups, and people who themselves have the problem.
Are there ways to go about battling OCD on your own? A do-it-yourself program, if you will, designed to give people who need ocd help the structure and means to fight the disorder without outside assistance? According to ocdhope.com, there are. They state six principals for self-help, and their first principal reads as follows:
YOU MUST CHOOSE WHETHER YOU WANT TO BE AN ACTIVE PARTICIPANT IN SOCIETY OR BE ISOLATED FROM SOCIETY
Obsessive-compulsive symptoms, when allowed to run rampant in your mind, will isolate you from the world around you. To satisfy those compulsions it will require distance (first physically and subsequently mentally) from people. You must decide which way you will go: will you let OCD rule your life and cause you to give up relationships with family and friends, or will you work at making a happy, healthy and fruitful life for your family and yourself?
So in the end, it comes down to you if you're suffering from OCD. All the ocd help you need can come from within.
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