When someone with OCD has too little stimulation in their lives, OCD typically spikes. OCD also spikes when there is too much stress. I tell my patients to aim for an optimal level of stress and stimulation in their lives not too much or too little. Vacations can disrupt that balance.
Often, OCD symptoms get worse when there is a flare-up of anxiety or stressors. When one is in a stressful or anxiety-inducing situation, the urge to decrease that discomfort with compulsions or rituals gets stronger and harder to control.
OCD symptoms can worsen if left untreated. Likewise, stress and other mental health symptoms like trauma, anxiety, and themes of perfectionism, can aggravate OCD. Sometimes, symptoms may worsen dramatically and suddenly, but it's more likely for them to escalate gradually.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder or OCD
This is one of the rarer fallouts of living alone. This is actually a vicious circle. Loneliness causes OCD and people with OCD are shunned by their peers, which amplifies their loneliness and makes their condition even more severe.
Alone time is the worst. When you are alone, with nobody else there to pull you back into reality, OCD can kick your brain to the curb and grab control of your mind in an instant. Being alone with your obsessions somehow makes them more real, resistant, and powerful, enabling them to ambush you with ease.
OCD often leads to self-isolation. Managing obsessions and masking compulsions can be exhausting. As a result, it's often easier to avoid other people and potential triggers. Obsessions and compulsions can be time-consuming, too.
Some people with OCD may intentionally withdraw from social interactions or spend most of their time alone. People with harm OCD, for example, experience intrusive thoughts about hurting other people.
OCD can have a profound effect on a person's life
As OCD becomes more severe, 'avoidance' may become an increasing problem. The person may avoid anything that might trigger their obsessive fears. OCD can make it difficult for people to perform everyday activities like eating, drinking, shopping or reading.
Never seek reassurance from yourself or others.
Instead, tell yourself the worst will happen, is happening, or has already happened. Reassurance will cancel out the effects of any therapy homework you use it on and prevent you from improving. Reassurance-seeking is a compulsion, no matter how you may try to justify it.
At its most severe, OCD can lead to suicidal ideation or action. This can happen when the symptoms of OCD have fully taken a hold on a person and their entire life revolves around responding to OCD obsessions and compulsions.
People with severe OCD have obsessions with cleanliness and germs — washing their hands, taking showers, or cleaning their homes for hours a day. Sometimes they're afraid to leave home for fear of contamination.
However, there are several strategies that you can use to manage and reduce the intensity of an OCD attack. Practice relaxation techniques: Deep breathing, meditation, and mindfulness can help reduce anxiety and calm the mind.
Essentially, a trigger is anything that leads to an OCD obsession. Once triggered, you may start to feel anxiety and discomfort. The members I work with in therapy often say that triggers can seemingly come out of nowhere, immediately demanding their full attention.
Experts aren't sure of the exact cause of OCD. Genetics, brain abnormalities, and the environment are thought to play a role. It often starts in the teens or early adulthood. But, it can also start in childhood.
It is well-recognised that consuming a lot of sugary foods and drinks — such as soda, candy, chocolate, fruit drinks, desserts and other sweets — can cause blood sugar fluctuations. The “sugar high” triggers OCD symptoms like exhaustion, mood swings, and anxiety neurosis.
Someone with OCD will spend more than an hour a day bothered by worry thoughts and rituals. They may check, arrange, fix, erase, count, or start over many times, just to feel that things are OK. They don't want to think about these things.
In the long term, living with OCD can be tiring — especially if you're trying to hide it from family, friends, and coworkers — and frustrating if it prevents you from partaking in and enjoying everyday activities. For some, the anxiety and upset can snowball into panic attacks.
Encourage Treatment
The most critical step in helping someone with OCD is encouring them to seek treatment and ensuring they follow through to the end. This may mean helping them find a qualified mental health professional, accompanying them to therapy appointments, or helping them stick to medication.
Despite their feelings of frustration and distress, those suffering from OCD can lead happy, highly functioning, productive lives, full of healthy relationships.
There are, however, some little known signs or symptoms that are also a part of dealing with OCD. These can include body hyperawareness, fear of emotional contamination, perfectionism, obsession with morality, and fear of harming others. Most believe that these obsessions stem from anxiety.
Making and keeping friends when you have OCD is very challenging, but it is also rewarding. Being able to have close social relationships can help prevent the depression that is so common in OCD.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD): Someone with OCD might feel stress over situations that are out of their control, such as being touched. Ochlophobia (fear of crowds): A person may feel anxious about being touched in a crowd.