While many individuals who have been diagnosed with OCD do consider themselves neurodivergent, you do not have to use this label or apply it to yourself if you do not feel comfortable. Neurodivergent is not a medical term, condition, or diagnosis and is not something that needs to be “treated.”
Some people would consider OCD to be a neurodivergent condition, while others would not. OCD can affect the brain's circuitry, influencing social communication, judgment, planning, and body functioning. If “neurodivergent” simply means having a brain different from the most common brain type, then OCD would qualify.
“Neurodivergent people identify as having a different way of existing in the world.” Besides autism, ADHD and dyslexia, other types of neurodivergence you might have heard of include dyspraxia (difficulty with movement and coordination), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and Tourette syndrome (TS).
Neurodiverse conditions include ADHD, ASD, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, Developmental Language Disorder, Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, Tourette's and Tic Disorders, and more! [1] They tend to be co-morbid with many conditions, including addictions and anxiety disorders such as OCD.
Neurodivergent individuals often experience differences in mental function, learning styles, sensory processing, communication styles and behaviors. They may struggle with soft skills such as emotional intelligence, social interactions or the ability to work effectively in a group.
Other types of neurodivergence include Tourette's, dyspraxia, synesthesia, dyscalculia, Down syndrome, epilepsy, and chronic mental health illnesses such as bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, borderline personality disorder, anxiety, and depression.
People struggling with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) are often misdiagnosed as having other psychological conditions. One of the most common misdiagnoses for this population is Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). This diagnostic problem arises for two reasons.
Yet clinicians and researchers have found an overlap between the two. Studies indicate that up to 84 percent of autistic people have some form of anxiety; as much as 17 percent may specifically have OCD. And an even larger proportion of people with OCD may also have undiagnosed autism, according to one 2017 study.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder can also clearly meet ADA's requirements as the condition can substantially limit one or more major life activities. In fact, OCD is listed by the Social Security Administration (SSA) as a disability that qualifies for Social Security disability benefits.
"The disorders are thought to lie on a spectrum from impulsive to compulsive where impulsivity is said to persist due to deficits in the ability to inhibit repetitive behavior with known negative consequences, while compulsivity persists as a consequence of deficits in recognizing completion of tasks." OCD is a mental ...
The number one difference between OCD and autism is that a person with OCD is participating in their behaviors consciously, while people on the spectrum may display obsessive behaviors without self-awareness.
So OCD is listed under F40-F48 – Neurotic, stress-related and somatoform disorders (F40-F48), a category which includes: F40 – Phobic anxiety disorders including Agoraphobia, Social phobias, Specific (isolated) phobias, Other phobic anxiety disorders.
DSM-5-TR explicitly categorizes ASD and ADHD as neurodevelopmental disorders whereas OCD, which also commonly presents during childhood and adolescence, is not “officially” considered a neurodevelopmental disorder.
Even if you are of sound mind and free of any serious mental health issues, it's possible to be struck by intrusive thoughts out of nowhere – and this is not something you should feel too concerned about. If you only have periodic intrusive thoughts and have no urge to act on them, this is completely normal.
ADHD and OCD are two mental health conditions that may appear to share some symptoms. However, ADHD is externalizing in nature, affecting how individuals relate to their environment. By contrast, OCD is internalizing in nature, meaning individuals respond to anxiety by turning inward.
Most research has studied the prevalence of ADHD in patients with OCD rather than the inverse, with diagnosis rates mostly falling around 30 percent. Comorbid OCD and ADHD enhance the symptoms of each other, though the presence of OCD may attenuate hyperactivity in some ADHD patients.
If you haven't guessed, OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) wins the award for the anxiety category most of us would relegate solely to the violent criminals of this world. Unless of course, you suffer from OCD, and then you'd likely fear that wishing that may result in becoming a violent victimizer yourself.
Pedophilia OCD
It can occur in people who have their own history of childhood abuse, because they may have been told somewhere along the way that being a victim of abuse means they will go on to abuse someone else.
This means the person has different strengths and struggles from people whose brains develop or work more typically. While some people who are neurodivergent have medical conditions, it also happens to people where a medical condition or diagnosis hasn't been identified.
“With this definition, anxiety can be considered a form of neurodivergence, although it may not be as commonly recognized as ADHD, autism, or trauma,” she says. Many people utilize self-identification to categorize themselves as being neurodivergent, explains Claney.
The vast majority of neurodivergent adults are self-diagnosed in the first instance: in other words, we figure things out for ourselves, do the research and then go looking for a professional to confirm it.