OCD cleaning goes beyond a simple need to maintain an orderly, hygienic home. It is a symptom of one of the many subtypes of obsessive compulsive disorder. Sufferers of compulsive cleaning may have a pervasive feeling of contamination by dirt, germs environmental contaminants, or chemical toxins.
When it comes to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a common mental health disorder in which a person has reoccurring thoughts and behaviors they continually repeat, avoidance is often used as a coping mechanism. People with OCD may try to avoid unwanted thoughts or situations that may trigger their obsessions.
OCD cleaning compulsions tend to be excessive, take up too much time, and negatively affect a person's life. A person also does not derive pleasure from compulsive cleaning behaviors, although these may briefly relieve the distress that their unwanted thoughts cause.
OCD Types and Symptoms
Contamination, a fear of things that might be dirty or a having a compulsion to clean (you may hear this called "obsessive cleanliness disorder"). Mental contamination involves feeling like you've been treated like dirt. Symmetry and ordering, the need to have things lined up in a certain way.
The OCD cycle consists of 4 basic parts: obsessions, anxiety, compulsions, and temporary relief. It's considered a “vicious” cycle because once you get pulled into it, it gains momentum and strength, making it even more difficult for you to get out.
Ongoing anxiety or stress, or being part of a stressful event like a car accident or starting a new job, could trigger OCD or make it worse.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a common anxiety disorder. It causes unreasonable thoughts, fears, or worries. A person with OCD tries to manage these thoughts through rituals. Frequent disturbing thoughts or images are called obsessions.
Symptoms fluctuate in severity from time to time, and this fluctuation may be related to the occurrence of stressful events. Because symptoms usually worsen with age, people may have difficulty remembering when OCD began, but can sometimes recall when they first noticed that the symptoms were disrupting their lives.
It's important to consider the key difference between being unusually clean and having OCD: whether it negatively impacts your life. As with all mental health disorders, one of the criteria for an OCD diagnosis is that it must cause turmoil for the person.
Maintaining a clean and tidy home is usually a sign of good emotional health. When cleaning becomes obsessive, however, an underlying mental disorder may be the cause. Obsessive fears of contamination along with cleaning and sanitizing compulsions is one of many subtypes of OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder).
There are many kinds of obsessions and compulsions, and everyone experiences OCD in their own way. While some people may clean and organize constantly, someone else with OCD may engage in hoarding, for example. This can lead to a cluttered or seemingly disorganized environment.
ASD and OCD can sometimes have similar symptoms. However, they are different conditions. Research from 2015 found that 17% of people with ASD also have OCD. This is higher than the percentage of people with OCD in the general population.
Is OCD a Type of Anxiety? OCD and anxiety are related mental health conditions. In the past, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) classified obsessive-compulsive behavior as one of several types of anxiety disorders. Then, in 2013, the APA designated OCD as its own separate and unique mental health condition.
Research into the connection between OCD and trauma has found that OCD can arise not only from the events that are broadly considered to be traumatic, but also from such events that are experienced as traumatic, within the context of the individual's own perspective.
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.
However, one thing that is clear is that comorbidities, stress, anxiety, and major life changes or circumstances can all play a significant role in how much worse OCD might become. As symptoms increase or intensify, people with OCD may also experience the following: Failure at work and/or school.
OCD obsessions are repeated, persistent and unwanted thoughts, urges or images that are intrusive and cause distress or anxiety. You might try to ignore them or get rid of them by performing a compulsive behavior or ritual. These obsessions typically intrude when you're trying to think of or do other things.
Approximately 16% of all patients with OCD suffer from some form of washing compulsion, which is manifested by frequent long and ritualised compulsive hand washings up to 50–100 times daily [2].
Left untreated, OCD can lead to other severe mental health conditions, such as anxiety and panic attacks, and depression.
However, there are plenty of theories surrounding the potential causes of OCD, involving one of or a combination of either; neurobiological, genetic, learned behaviours, pregnancy, environmental factors or specific events that trigger the disorder in a specific individual at a particular point in time.