You also repeatedly check that the door is locked? Maybe doing one action can help you

Repeatedly checking that the door is not locked is really a very common problem!

A few years ago, I was working in the city center, and I quipped to my colleague who had just arrived at the company and lived in the suburbs, "Is your door closed?" and the colleague was so anxious that after a while, he took a leave of absence to go home and check the door (nearly 30 kilometers one way);

My college roommate went out earlier than anyone else every day, and when I was half dreaming and half awake, I often heard her pushing the door outside, repeatedly checking whether the door was closed;

My mother often saw the aunt who lived downstairs pushing and pulling the door outside the door, asking her what was wrong, and she said, "I see if the door is locked."

Does this sound like obsessive-compulsive disorder? How can I feel better? Is it time to go to the hospital for treatment?

What is True Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?

The door is obviously closed, and it will definitely cause people trouble if they have to check it repeatedly. However, in general, this has not yet reached the stage of "disease", and it is not a clinical obsessive-compulsive disorder.

So what does true obsessive-compulsive disorder look like?

The Fifth Edition (DSM-5) of the American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illness states that obsessive-compulsive disorder is a psychiatric disorder characterized by obsessive-compulsive thinking and/or compulsive behavior [1].

Obsessive-compulsive thinking: An intruder in the brain

The so-called obsessive-compulsive thinking is that in some time periods, you feel repetitive, persistent, intrusive, unnecessary thoughts, and most people will feel obvious anxiety and pain.

When the epidemic first appeared in 2020, many people had the problem of forced handwashing. On the one hand, they feel pain, and on the other hand, they can't control their washing of their hands, so they have to ask for help from the psychological hotline.

Let me give you an example. During that time, Little C had to wash his hands for exactly 5 minutes each time, and if the time was a little shorter, he had to start washing again until it was exactly 5 minutes.

When washing his hands, Little C always had the thought of "if I don't wash for 5 minutes, I'll get a new crown" in my head. And Little C himself has no control over the emergence of this idea, and this thought completely dominates him, making him unable to think like ordinary people that "although the epidemic is not over, my current environment is safe."

This idea of Little C, this is the embodiment of obsessive thinking.

Compulsive behavior: The body is dominated

Compulsive behavior refers to repetitive behaviors or mental activities, such as constantly confirming whether the door is closed, whether the gas is safe, repeatedly counting the objects around you, and constantly reciting a word in the brain.

It is important to note that compulsive behaviors are often initially created to reduce the anxiety and pain that compulsive thinking brings to oneself.

Let's take Little C as an example.

The reason why he washes his hands repeatedly is to combat the anxiety caused by the compulsive thinking in his brain that "if you don't wash your hands, you will get the new crown".

Gradually, the act of washing hands became more and more extreme: frequent, long-lasting, and necessary to wash until the allotted time.

Seeing this, do you feel that obsessive-compulsive disorder suffers really? They lose full control of themselves, like a computer being repeatedly pop-up by a rogue program and can't be turned off.

People with obsessive-compulsive disorder often wash their hands frequently, resulting in peeling and bleeding from their hands

Do I have obsessive-compulsive disorder?

Seeing this, many people may have diagnosed themselves with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Slowly, there are standards for the diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

In the diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder, the most important point is to see whether obsessive-compulsive thinking and compulsive behavior take more than 1 hour a day, and whether these obsessive-compulsive symptoms have seriously affected the life of the person - if the person is unable to go to school normally, sleep badly, cannot eat or overea because of the obsessive-compulsive symptoms, then even if it is seriously affected, even the counselor can not do anything, hurry to find a psychiatrist for help!

However, about 28.2% of people worldwide experience obsessive-compulsive symptoms at some point in their lives [2].

Monica in "Friends", if you don't clean your home spotlessly, you will feel uncomfortable, but it doesn't seem to cause her much trouble丨"Friends"

If your condition doesn't meet the criteria for diagnosing the diagnosis, but you do feel troubled, then let's move on.

Is it anxiety, or compulsion?

In my work and life experiences, I have found that under the cover of obsessive-compulsive symptoms, the essential problem is often anxiety. Many people's "obsessive-compulsive disorder" is actually a manifestation of anxiety.

A friend of mine worries about whether the house is closed almost every day, but when he arrives at work, he will hardly dwell on this matter anymore and can work normally. In addition to repeatedly tangling with the problem of the door, during that time he also had difficulty eating and often lost sleep.

I talked to him and learned that his mother's shop had recently been stolen and a large amount of money had been lost. Recently, his mother had been talking to him about the loss of the family, and the sudden theft of his mother's life savings made him both sad and alarmed.

Anxiety caused by a definitive event, although similar to OCD, is not obsessive-compulsive disorder.

People who check the gas switch 10 times a day, themselves or those around them may have faced the danger of gas leakage, so they have anxiety about gas safety;

People who repeatedly brush the circle of friends, (if not too idle) may have been criticized for missing work news, carrying heavy workplace anxiety;

People who insist on opening all the new messages on the app probably have a certain social anxiety and worry about being alienated by others, so they want to receive new news notifications as soon as possible.

Of course, like obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety needs to be seen, bandaged, and dealt with.

Don't want to worry about repeatedly locking the door, try doing it

Anxiety leads to repeated locking of the door and other behaviors bring distress, but not to the stage of pathology, what to do to make yourself feel better?

A few more moves

We can try cognitive behavioral therapy, which is the most commonly used clinical method to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder. While we may not have reached the level of obsessive-compulsive disorder in our lives, we can also use cognitive behavioral therapy to make ourselves feel better.

Simply put, our thoughts, behaviors, and emotions are mutually influential, and as long as one of the factors changes, the other two factors will also be affected.

Take the repeated inspection of the door, the act of "checking" can help eliminate or alleviate the idea that "my home will be stolen". According to cognitive behavioral therapy, we can change the idea that "my house will be stolen" by changing behavior.

You can take a picture of the closed door and record a video when you go out. After that, once you start to worry about this, you take it out and tell yourself that the door is locked and the home will not be stolen.

You can also make a list, write the content to be checked before going out, check and tick one item before going out: turn off the gas √, turn off the refrigerator √, close the door √, and confirm the closing of the door for the second time√.

Think rationally: the thief can't pass the community access control; even if he passes the access control, he can't enter the unit building; even if he enters the unit building, there are cameras waiting; even if there is no camera, why should the thief enter my house? Is there a lot of money in the house?

In "The Round Table School", Zhou Yijun once said, "The opposite of anxiety is concrete." When you can slow down the flow of ideas with concrete actions, you will find that things are not as bad as you think.

Prepare for the Mental Toolbox

When obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors arise, we can also divert our attention a little, and we can divert a little bit.

You definitely have your own unique methods of relaxation, and these methods are your mental toolbox. When I feel that I am about to worry about whether the door is locked, I take it out of the toolbox and use it.

Let me share my own toolbox:

Secret Garden Coloring Book;

Breathing Meditation Applet;

Single-mindedly pinch bubble paper;

Do nothing and drink a latte of oats slowly;

20 deep, long abdominal breaths;

Listen to a song and concentrate on distinguishing the sounds of each instrument;

Bury your face in the cat's belly and smell the cat's scent;

Nibble on a duck neck with your heart and nibble it clean.

The point is to immerse yourself. As long as all the memory in your head is used to do what you're doing, you won't think about what's almost impossible.

Coloring is really a very calming and engaging thing丨giphy

Validate compulsive ideas

Will the things you're worried about really happen? Take checking the locked door as an example.

Ask a friend to help you try, after closing the door, can the door really be pushed open from the outside?

Ask the community security, has there been any burglary in the community?

Install a camera facing the door in your home, and really notice that someone has come in?

Replace the traditional door lock with a smart door lock, after a period of time, has there been any intrusion alarm information?

After the compulsive idea is denied by the facts, the frequency of checking the gate may slowly decrease.

Get along with obsessive-compulsive symptoms

In addition to ignoring and killing the obsessive-compulsive symptoms, we can also try to live in peace with them.

Obsessive-compulsive thoughts are a lot like the robbers in our heads, which force you to perform some action. But if we can look at it from a distance, just as a little person in our heads who loves to brush up on the sense of existence, it loses the possibility of threatening you.

When the idea of checking the door comes up, you can think, "Well, this idea is coming out again, let it make a fuss on its own";

You can also think, "There will be a lot of uncertainty in life, and having this idea is not a big problem."

Letting go of some anxiety properly and accepting appropriate anxiety and uncertainty can make our lives easier and happier.

Guokr

It should be reminded that the above methods can help people with mild compulsive behavior. For cases of serious damage to social function, be sure to seek the help of a doctor in time!

bibliography

[1] American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders(DSM-5). American Psychiatric Publisher.

[2] Ruscio A M, Stein D J, Chiu W T, et al. The epidemiology of obsessive-compulsive disorder in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication[J]. Molecular psychiatry, 2010, 15(1): 53-63.

Author: Guo Lanxin

Editor: Li Xiaokui

An AI

"Strong" in obsessive-compulsive disorder pronounces three times, qiǎng!

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