Close Menu
Behavioral Healthcare

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) – causes, symptoms & pathology



Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) – causes, symptoms & pathology

What is obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)? OCD’s a condition where somebody has intrusive and anxiety-inducing thoughts called obsessions, that often compel them to carry out actions in order to reduce the anxiety—called compulsions. Find our full video library only on Osmosis: http://osms.it/more.

Join millions of current and future clinicians who learn by Osmosis, along with hundreds of universities around the world who partner with Osmosis from Elseiver to make medical and health education more engaging and efficient. We have unparalleled tools and materials to prepare you for success in school, on your board exams, and as a future clinician. Sign up for a free trial at http://osms.it/more. If you’re interested in exploring an institutional partnership, visit osmosis.org/educators to request a personalized demo.

Follow us on social:
Facebook: http://osms.it/facebook
Twitter: http://osms.it/twitter
Instagram for med: http://osms.it/instagram
Instagram for nursing: https://osms.it/ignursing
TikTok: https://osms.it/tiktok
Linkedin: https://osms.it/linkedin

Our Vision: Everyone who cares for someone will learn by Osmosis.
Our Mission: To empower the world’s clinicians and caregivers with the best learning experience possible. Learn more here: http://osms.it/mission

Medical disclaimer: Osmosis from Elsevier does not provide medical advice. Osmosis from Elsevier and the content available on the Osmosis from Elsevier properties (Osmosis.org, YouTube, and other channels) do not provide a diagnosis or other recommendation for treatment and are not a substitute for the professional judgment of a healthcare professional in diagnosis and treatment of any person or animal. The determination of the need for medical services and the types of healthcare to be provided to a patient are decisions that should be made only by a physician or other licensed healthcare provider. Always seek the advice of a physician or other qualified healthcare professional with any questions you have regarding a medical condition.

© 2024 Elsevier. All rights reserved.

View 46 Comments

46 Comments

  6. @Lynxiee433 on

    I feel like i have ocd. I bite my nails, snap and chew my pencils and everything i do HAS to be perfect. Ive been late for school a lot because i keep on redoing things like doing my shoe laces 5 times before they are perfect. I havent told my parents about this cuz i feel like asking to see a therapist seems like saying “i want all the attention to me because i want to feel better” should i tell my parents and how?

  9. @xtuxie on

    I have OCD. Mainly pure O. It is debilitating. I am on medicine and it helps a lot. Also, stimulants and drugs make everything worse.

  11. @shivisangvaan29 on

    I never had a proper diagnosis from a doctor for ADHD or OCD but I have done enough research myself to believe that I have OCD and most probably ADHD too. I can't express how difficult it is to explain it to someone that my random mood swings, the deep thoughts that I often go into(creating fake scenarios in my head) creating random zone outs, or switching between different personalities every single day (being overly joyful one day to being extremely depressed and not wanting to talk to anyone on the next day or even switching personalities during the same day), or being really happy or sad about a fake scenario that I created in my head and keeping that behaviour with me for a long time, is because of a thing called OCD and not because of my childish nature. And bro…whenever I mention OCD in front of them they'll be like "Nah bro you don’t have OCD, I had OCD and I took medicines for it you just think that you have it you don’t actually have it, you're just overreacting, blah blah blah"
    I legit feel like breaking their nose or something at that moment. They would never understand how it feels to feel like this for more than 8-10 years for as long as I can remember. And now since a couple of week it has been getting worse and I don’t have a slightest idea of what to do about it. I don’t feel like talking to anyone, literally anyone. Not even my best friends. It's not like I don’t miss them, I do but I just don't call them or meet them. I don't know how will I survive like this for long. Damn this fcuking OCD dude

  12. @GeorgiaGeneroso on

    My sister is an occupational therapist and she told me that I have OCD. I want everything to be in orrder and yes I double the double-checking of door & gate locks. It took me hours before leaving the house coz it makes me anxious if I don't check and ensure everything's ok. When I leave my things I know each arrangement and even it's angle so I will be able to tell if someone else touched my stuffs. I wonder if this has started because my mom used to check on my things and it's something that I hate a lot. I considered it as a disrespect for my privacy.

  13. @FounderOfHypocrisyAndCynicism on

    sometimes im not sure if the "quirks" i have are cause the autism (ex. always needing an adequat amout of gum in these little bottles or ill have one piece of gum left over, always closing the curtains/shutting the blinds, cause i feel watched, always covering my ear when i sleep to my side, cause im scared of spiders crawling in) or if i have OCD.

  14. @ggstylz on

    The assertion that you don’t need both obsessions and compulsions for an OCD diagnosis is incorrect and misleading. I’m not sure what might have influenced this idea to be included in this presentation.

  16. @iam4thkid54 on

    sometimes I’m scared to start or do something because I’ll always feel like there’s an error even if there isn’t any id always want something to be perfect even when I know it can’t be more perfect.

  17. @venuss.stxrzs on

    im still not a 100% sure if this is ocd (so if you know a lot about ocd + is patient enough to read this, please help me out here) but when I was younger (think these thoughts started at 7-8) I’d had these extremely annoying thoughts. they would basically be “do this before that or this is going to happen”. the first “do this” would be like finish eating your sandwich, finish coloring a page in the coloring book, finish brushing your hair etc. then the “before that’ll would be like before you hear someone talk, before your dad walks back into the room, etc. and the “or this is going to happen” would vary a lot. a lot of the times I didn’t even get to finish this thought because I was stressing so much to get the task done, so there was never a “or this will happen”. but it was usually like “or your family will die” and such things. one of these thoughts I remember from when I was young was “finish eating your sandwich before your dad comes back to the dining table or you have to cut yourself with the bread knife”. the worst things wasn’t being worried about the thing I said was going to happen if I didn’t do the thing, the worst thing was the extreme panic I got when I got the thought and tried completing the task. as fast as I had completed the task, I was feeling all good – even if I didn’t do it in time.
    now, at 14, I still have these sometime but I don’t get as extreme panic during them and they don’t occur as often. though after learning a bit about ocd I’ve realized that I have a few other symptoms as well. Some examples are constantly pressing space and delete. like you know, pressing space (or another letter), then deleting the space, pressing space again and so on till I get satisfied. I’ve done this in pretty much every sentence that I’ve written so far. sometimes I also get the urge to press certain letters. Like if I haven’t pressed on S in a while but pressed on a bunch of other ones I’ll feel the urge to press S and wont be satisfied till I have. there’s also way more of these type of things just on the keyboard but they’re really hard to explain really. I’ll just say that writing is constantly uncomfortable because these thoughts keep coming and making me uncomfortable.
    honestly I’m not even gonna say more but there is so much more to this. though I’m still unsure if it really is ocd since I know common symptoms are like worrying about hygiene and double checking stuff all the time, which I haven’t really experienced that much problems with.

  19. @ALPHAANDOMEGAHAILJESUSCHRISTS on

    Yep,OCD to me is worse than Schizophrenia because it makes you think about harming yourself and others,makes you think that you are an idiot and retarded and that you should live and fear!!!I keep felling like I don’t deserve a romantic relationship because I don’t have a romantic statues and am too nice(LIE)!!!It didn’t just come from me,it mostly came from others and especially their negative tones,that’s it nothing else!!!Mother nature is a piece of SHIT,I DON’T KNOW WHY BUT IT SUCKS!!!!!Schizophrenia,Autocannibalism,Lycanthropy(Believing that you’re an animal),Jerusalem Syndrome(Somewhat good but most of all harm),Nihilism syndrome!!!

  23. @bobjones3573 on

    OCD is dilapidating for the sufferer and the victim, millions of videos all over social media of them interjecting in complete strangers lives, it's like they incapable of letting go, the only thing we can truly control, is ourselves, everything thing else is out of our control. But OCD people want to control everything. Both my parents are severe OCD, she compulsively cleans the house, and everything is a routine, they go to pieces when you ask them to do something spontaneously, they simply can't do it. They have their little breakfast routine and lunch and dinner. She compulsively stock checks every cupboard in the kitchen and fridge and freezer every morning. Had a really weird experience with one recently, standing outside a garage waiting to have tires fitted on the car, and this girl walks up to me, 100 % thoroughbred OCD ear protectors white gloves, face mask the whole shebang, me standing there minding my own business smoking away, she comes up to me and instructs me to stop smoking, I'm on public property not hurting a sole, so I asked her straight to her face, are you OCD. LOL the eyes of medusa rose, the hate was wow. I just said , huge wide world dear, why did you walk towards me and something you don't like. Just walk away, go stand somewhere else. easy. Which she did, but me recognizing what she was, just ignited a fuse, a rage inside of her. It's like anything what ever you do or have, as long as it doesn't effect others, it's not a problem. OCD narcissists interjecting in strangers lives, dictating what to do and say is effecting others, A paranoid schizophrenic attacking someone, someone has a psychotic episode or delusion that involves others. Social media exacerbated all of these conditions, I mean Facebook is literally the perfect breeding ground for the psychotic, look what TikTok does to peoples brains, the old 8 second attention span. I knew a guy who was clinically diagnosed bipolar, self confessed, bragged about it. He literally thought it was his job to go around trying to convince others to become the same. Seriously that's not even possible. Facebook became their playground, their platform to influence others, because apparently there are people out there that actually want mental health issues. Social media is normalising mental health, and once that happens, no laws will help you. What ever you think is normal is absolutely fine, but everybody is different and has a different interpretation of normal. It's not the right way of doing things, can you imagine if everybody was OCD, the world would be absolutely unbearable to live in, if there was a global standard for life, That's almost what they trying to do with Facebook. Always reminds me of the film "demotion Man", perhaps that's what Hollywood was trying to tell us back in 93. Some one must keep the statistics mental health mast have risen massively since then. And of course they can lie about it now with billions of people on social media, "a lie told often enough, can become the truth". So if you can message thousands of people in a fraction of a second, pretty easy to spread lie.

  24. @ChocoDudeBro on

    DO I HAVE OCD BECAUSE I WANT ALL THE STUFF ORGANIZED AND PERFECT FOR SOME REASON AND WHENEVER I'M PLAYING GAMES I WANT IT TO BE PERFECT 😢

  25. @Comfortpawzz on

    I do this thing where I have to repeat something a certain amount of times or I have to get out the door fast enough or else everybody will die. Everyone that I love will die. That’s what I tell myself so that’s why I think I might have OCD. I’m not obsessed with cleaning though. I hate cleaning. I’m the messiest person ever.

  26. @Comfortpawzz on

    Reasons, I think I’ve OCD someone with OCD. Please tell me.

    Number one I always have to be out first like out the door first or I have to repeat something a certain amount of times or else. I tell myself something that will happen.

    When I’m outside on the sidewalk, I always have to go over the line with 1 foot and then another foot. I’m not sure if that makes sense.

    I also check and recheck if the door is locked literally over and over again

    I turn off a light multiple times and I have to do it until it “feels right”

    I’m not sure if I have OCD but it’s literally just so hard for me

  27. @SamuelEldredge-c7r4m on

    Wait I actually always do this i I tap on sm with my right hand once then with my left hand twice then my right hand again and I have to do somethings in even numbers and I lock and unlock my window like 10 time before bed

  34. @OscarGarman on

    OCD is a stressful traumatic malfunctioning vascular condition it's like being diagnosed of bipolar disorder can also effect depression whenever you feel depressed ask permission for somebody to help you

  35. @polykromer on

    Got diagnosed with OCD a few weeks ago, and it's like "oh, it's not just how it's portrayed in media… Oh, I'm not the only one… Oh, it's been here since childhood…"–just one realization after another.

    Like, I KNOW that the rituals/compulsions don't make sense, but my brain says they do actually, and it's hard to tell your brain it's being illogical when it keeps trying to twist it to be logical–or sound like it anyway.

    Like I know it doesn't matter what order I take my meds in, but my brain says it does actually, and it's hard not to listen.

  36. @echapben5309 on

    Am always thinking that my girlfriend is cheating on me whenever she's not with me so i call her often to just make sure she's safe, i really get a bad feeling if she doesn't pick up😔

  37. @elviasanchez5941 on

    My ocd is diferent and severe my brother i cant touch him
    Hes more like a biohazard to me if he touches me i scrach it until its raw ocd is more like phsycyogical tortures for me i think mine is the most severe

  38. @jujumariex on

    whoever reads this, thank you lol. i started typing & just couldn’t stop so it’s VERRRRYYY long 🤷🏼‍♀️

    OCD, ADHD & my severe anxiety feels like thats my identity. a single mom. i feel like im not a human being with hobbies, tv shows i enjoy watching or with real feelings. it’s like my mental health defines me, but it’s because im letting it. i know theres so much more to who i am.

    i started feeling some sort of general anxiety in 7th grade when my mom & sister would fight because my sister who’s only 2 years older than me (we were very close) became a drug addict which i never fully understood, i just knew she was doing drugs & that my mom was always fighting with her. i used to go in the quietest spot possible which wasn’t easy because my mom lived in a 2 bedroom apartment at this time. my sister started never going to school, which then led me to start asking to stay home & eventually it wasn’t even a question anymore. i knew i wasnt going to school that day, and the next day, and so on. i remember when i got forced into school by a police officer, in my pajamas, i spent the school day in the counselors office catching up on school work from the last few weeks of school ive missed. i remember my 2 best friends got to come and eat lunch with me. i wasnt bullied, i had tons of friends, teachers & my parents couldn’t understand what was going on. i didn’t know what was going on either. this led to me going to summer school in 7th grade because thankfully i did well enough the first half of the school year that even though i missed so much school & did horrible the second half, my overall average was still good enough to only need summer school. then i go to 8th grade, basically the exact same thing except i started not going to school from the start which led me to repeating the grade while all my friends went up to the high school and i was left back at the middle school with a whole new group of kids a year younger than me. i actually enjoyed that year of school, i passed without even needing summer school. not sure what it was, or why any of this happened, but its just the truth. my sister was in deep with her heroin addiction still. she had dropped out, still lived at my moms apartment with her, i was living at my dads house so i was mostly at my dads. me and my sister had a non existing relationship.

    9th grade comes. i’m in high school now. i had the worst anxiety going to a new building even though it was on the exact same land as the middle school. i lasted 2 months, missing many days already, and was refusing to go. i turned 16 that January & thought i could drop out as soon as i turn 16….yeah, no lol. i agreed to get homeschooled by a tutor basically at the town library for the remainder of the year. i didn’t take it seriously, failed everything, never stepped foot in school again.

    i was very lost. i was so confused. i seemed to follow my sisters footsteps with everything. my best friend that i mentioned earlier with the lunch thing, we were still best friends (she had so many friends which did make me feel very insecure & jealous bc i dropped out & felt like a loser etc) she picked me up one night & we went to her friends boyfriends house. at 16 years old, i sniffed an opana pill for the first time in my life. i loved how it made me feel. i was so happy. i wasn’t worrying about anything, if i even thought of something negative i’d just tell myself it wasn’t a big deal it was all fine when in reality it wasn’t, AT ALL. but i felt “normal” & gained confidence which was a feeling i was never familiar with.

    i started to buy them once in awhile because they weren’t cheap, i remember at one point they were like $60 a pill & it became an impossible habit. i started to hang out with a friend of mine who was in my grade when failed 8th grade, she became one of the closest friends i made the year. she was a heroin addict but was clean at the time we started hanging out a lot. she also dropped out so we were together A LOT. she quickly relapsed which led me to me sniffing heroin for a very, very short amount of time until i started IV. that along with other hard drugs became the next 10 years of my life. i shouldn’t even be here, i wouldn’t be if it wasn’t for narcan. i started doing drugs because it made me feel like i fit in. i continued doing them because id be sick without them, obviously, but i looked forward to getting high before certain events bc i knew id be confident enough to talk to people but in reality i probably looked like a dumbass bc i thought nobody could tell i was high when everyone could. but i loved the way the drugs made me feel, i thought i loved the person i was while on them, but thats obviously very false. that wasn’t even me.

    at 25, i got pregnant. something about seeing positive on that pregnancy test flipped a switch in my brain. i never got high again after that moment. i went to detox then rehab, i never truly learned any of the skills of living without drugs when that’s all i knew. on top of knowing i already suffered from severe mental health issues. i had NO idea what i was doing. all i know is that my daughter truly saved my life & she has no idea how much she means to me. i would do absolutely anything for her. i love her so much. but even with having her, the best thing that’s ever happened to me, i’m lost. i feel like i went through so much, went through so much during 10 years of addiction, got pregnant, sober & was learning to live life without drugs & trying to live as a “normal” human being but i had no idea what i was doing. my daughter will be 6 on September 23rd, and even though im nothing like the person i once was, i feel like i still don’t know exactly who i am. i feel like i lived 2 lives, not in the way of “ever since ive had her i stopped partying! etc” it’s like the person i was before her, i have no idea who the hell she was. i feel like everything about that girl died the day i gave birth. i don’t know to explain it. i’d be lying if i said it didn’t freak me out though. not knowing who i am at 32 years old, being a single mom, not having a career because while everyone else was in college i was a drug addict & just not knowing how to be an adult basically. i’m very mature, but there’s so many things i get so embarrassed about or just not being where other people my age, even younger, are in their lives. i have the biggest problem with comparing myself to others.

    i have so many things i struggle with everyday, i self isolate, i over think, my mind does not shut up, my OCD is very bad with certain things, my anxiety makes it hard to take my daughter to public places because as much as i wanna talk to the other moms, i get the worst anxiety & think the worst every time like them not liking me for whatever reason. i’ll talk too much in situations because awkward silences freak me out, so i’ll keep going & going then i feel like a complete dumbass after. as you can see i overthink EVERYTHING.

    i worry about things i shouldn’t be worrying about. i’ll get nervous for my daughter in school over the smallest things. i struggle to make phone calls, i finally am able to order pizza as of a few years ago. i’ll know a situation will become worse if i hold off & wait til last minute, yet i do it anyways. i hate it & don’t know why i do it because i know that it’s just gonna bring even worse anxiety. i want my daughter to look up to me. i want her to be happy that im her mom. i want to give her the best life i possibly can. i know that in the condition im in right now. i’m not being the best me that i can be. not even just as a mom, i mean as a friend, a daughter, etc. my biggest fear is being older & regretting the way i lived my life. i don’t just want to get better, i need to get better.

    i want to be truly happy. i know there’s things i gotta do that will help bring happiness but the biggest one is moving out of my hometown because of all the trauma ive dealt with here but it’s way easier said than done. also, my sister is still a drug addict to this day so we still have no relationship. i don’t have a therapist, which is the #1 thing i want right now but finding one is so hard & me being the way i am, i just give up so easily even though i want one so bad & know how much having one would help me. i miss being able to even just relax. i can still binge watch a good show, but it is so much harder for me to do things like that now because my mind literally will not ever just relax. my mind truly never stops & i just don’t get it.

    i’ll have 7 years clean in
    December & i’ll spend everyday trying to better my mental health so i can not only give my daughter the life she deserves to live & i want to be able to start traditions & make fun memories…but i also want to get better simply for me. i want to, for the first time as an adult, find myself & find who i really am. i know ill never be “fixed” but i know life can be so so so much more tolerable for me. i never understand how i can love my daughter so much, but still struggle this bad. mental illness is so serious.

    check on your loved ones. 💜
    if you actually read all this… 1) i’m sorry 😂 2) thank you for caring

  39. @jocelynMB15 on

    Guys I’m a 15 year old and im pretty sure I have ocd because I repeate things over and over again until they feel right. Like I would turn on and off the light switch until it feels okay. And that happens with so many things but I don’t experience most of the other stuff on a deep level so I’m not sure if my auto-diagnosis is right. HELPPP

  41. @brittanaynay on

    OCD is so exhausting! I’ve got a million things going on in my mind. One being the water has to be scalding hot, just soap doesn’t cut it, extremely hot water kills germs, soap only kills 99.9% some times so the scalding water will kill the remaining germs

    SOMEONE HELP 😭

  44. @Testi___123Awesomesauce on

    Guys, pro tip: When you say that you have OCD, people will say that they're a little OCD too, but if you say that you have obsessive compulsive disorder, then people might take it more seriously.

  45. @VESELUYIGROK on

    I've had very severe stage of OCD. I can't walk normally, can't sit, can't blink, can't take things normally, I had just right OCD that maked things on symmetry one. I've washed my hands 50 or 60 times, rarely 150 times. It was worse times ever, I had strange rituals like seek to 60 times for looking people, or.. I don't remember so.. and had go back things that you can't go normally to your room or other, I've had 60 minutes to go to my room and more other places… it was Hell.. really… and I took antidepressants to stop this rituals, it worked but not so fast, (my situation got worse because I got Psychosis from antidepressants, it was Hell too. Voices insulted me, said I'm worthless or more, and said to do bad things to myself or others, and had Delusions like FBI AGENTS, Spy are my neighbors and more, and I though they wanted to hurt me, and had mission that I must do this first and I though that UFO is controlling me.) And to OCD It was worse worse and worse, I can't tell any other word.. I can't normally leave my room. Or go back to my room that I already said. Stay safe, I wish you guys didn't had this thing like my severe OCD.

Leave A Reply