The Things Everyone Needs to Know About OCD

Join us for an in-depth discussion on Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). In this comprehensive video, we aim to provide a thorough understanding of OCD, covering essential aspects and insights into this complex mental health condition.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a widely misunderstood condition that affects millions worldwide. In this exploration, we'll delve into the nuances of OCD, shedding light on its symptoms, potential causes, and the impact it has on individuals' daily lives.

Dr. K’s Guide to Mental Health explores Anxiety, Depression, ADHD, and Meditation

▼ Timestamps ▼
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05:23 - What is OCD?
12:25 - Where does OCD originate?
17:37 - Avoidance behaviours
21:26 - Conclusion

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All guests of Healthy Gamer are informed of the public, non-medical nature of the content and have expressly agreed to share their story.

#healthygamergg #mentalhealth #ocd

[prom]

im forever thankful you talk about compulsions being MENTAL. for the longest time i believed i couldnt have ocd because i 'just' had intrusive thoughts and would go in a loop of mental compulsions which would actually only make me su-cidal. OCD truly is like mental torture, not something i'd wish on anyone.

[SeiichirouUta]

I feel like crying. Finally someone on youtube talking about this without trying to cover up the bad stuff, but tells it how it is.
This effed up shit pile of thoughts. I HATE them!
But at least they don't make me suffer and hate *myself* anymore. I remember the moment of relief when my psychologist told me, "Don't punish yourself, everyone can have these types of thoughts. Only: Healthy people can shrug them off." He basically told me not to concentrate on them, to not feel bad about them, but instead to go on with my day. It's hard to put it into words here, how exactly he said it and how he managed to calm my mind down so much, but these few sessions helped me so incredibly much. It has gotten much better since then. So if you have thoughts of this kind... get help. A few well placed words by a trained person can work what almost feels like wonders.

[kyliemack]

I absolutely hate when I hear those "omg im so ocd about..." comments. The last time I tried to explain why it was offensive I ended up getting laughed at and called a Karen. We NEED more content like this because ocd is not a joke or a quirky personality trait, it is a daily struggle for those who experience it. Thanks Dr K. 🌻

[ottovonbismarck]

I've got instrusive thoughts due to my OCD. I don't get upset that easily, but I do really get annoyed by people that act on an impulse and they say they gave in to their "intrusive thoughts". Those aren't intrusive thoughts, they're just impulses. Having intrusive thoughts is not a quirky "tick" that makes you impulse buy that cute skirt you saw.

[omrroboto]

My wife has OCD. It's really hard sometimes because we have two beautiful children together and things can get out of control when she doesn't get enough sleep cause of the kids or stress or misses her meds cause our life gets super busy. It can def be overwhelming at times but I love her and our family and that's what matters most. I'll always be there to help her when things get hard for her.

[gensis]

I have very extreme OCD and live my life completely in gloves at this point.. Even sleeping in them. I go through over 400 a week. I can barely function anymore, everything in life is contaminated to me I can’t even touch my own skin and crying about it grosses me about because of the tears.. I got so excited when I saw you posted this because OCD is all I do at this point, it would mean the world if you made more videos on OCD to both understand myself more, have others understand, and know better how to recover. I’m very open about my condition if anyone has any questions

[xKumei]

What sucked for me is that the majority of therapists and counselors I've talked to about this literally don't understand OCD past it being orderly. I'd bring up the taboo thoughts of sex or harm and they just wouldn't know. If you want to treat OCD, please see someone who specializes in it and practices Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP). It's the "gold standard."

[curseified]

im so used to hearing the misrepresentation of ocd that hearing it described so accurately makes me feel like I'm gonna cry

[Alfresk]

When i was 11-12 y/o I had an obsession with counting numbers. Every single little micro-movement i did my body increased the counter in my head, I felt terrible because it was constantly in my head, and I had to focus really, really hard on not counting to make it go away. The one thing that helped with the stress was, as stupid as it sounds, resetting the "mental counter" to 0.

[godspeedhero]

I enjoy watching Dr. K's videos so much!

Yes, it took YEARS of purposefully stepping ON sidewalk cracks to stop stepping over them equally between my feet. My mom's back is completely fine btw!

[tayzonday]

One problem with the pathology model of OCD is that people more marginalized from cultural and economic power (including neurologically marginalized, economically, sexually, etc) live with a higher cognitive labor burden to just exist in civil society. We tell individuals to blame themselves for pathologies as though they emerge in an ether independent from systemic injustice and marginalization. Mental health research has been corrupted by the epistemological biases of enlightenment rationalism which are disinclined to challenge capitalist mythologies of rational individualism in seeking more historically and sociologically critical answers to behavioral outcomes.

[lavendermissed]

I've always thought I had OCD but never talked about it because I understand the danger of self-diagnosing but also I have worked really hard over the past few years to separate the intrusive thought from the action and it doesn't debilitate me. I wasn't sure if I could have a disorder if it wasn't debilitating. Thank you for the video this has been so incredibly helpful especially for someone who hasn't talked about this with a therapist yet.

[mikageokumura]

I would love to hear your thoughts on the connection between OCD and maladaptive daydreaming.

[MartinKPettersson]

When I was living as a Buddhist monk I had loads of people come with that diagnosis.
Will save this video for future reference, great stuff!
Thank you for sharing :)

[TheCrayonMan]

OCD is hell... I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy tbh. At one point in my OCD journey, my intrusive thoughts we're so worrisome that I couldn't eat or sleep. At it's worst, I was ok if were to get in a terrible accident or plane crash so I wouldn't have to deal with those thoughts any longer. Luckly enough, I was able to recover through my OCD specialist and ERP.

Thoughts are just a thoughts.

[zeemdotexe]

The timing of this is absolutely INSANE. Just yesterday I read about OCD and I got the sudden realization that some parts of my GAD resembled it a LOT.

My therapist has suggested this before, but it never clicked (because I had a totally false idea of OCD), until yesterday.

Definitely gonna get tested now. It would explain a LOT of inconsistencies.🙌🏻

[lilymulligan]

THANK YOU Dr K!!! I'm 31 now, I've been struggling with my mental health since I was 15 or 16. I've worked with 5 or 6 different therapists over the years, and only JUST got diagnosed with OCD last year. The stuff I'd been doing in therapy prior to this helped, but now I'm doing totally different treatment that works SO much better than the other stuff.

It took so long for me to get diagnosed because my OCD has nothing to do with cleanliness, germs, or magical thinking. On the surface, it really looks nothing like the cultural stereotypes we have about OCD, but the truth is, I do obsess and I do have compulsions, and those things debilitate me. I'm so grateful to finally know what's going on with me.

[May-qbvx]

Also, an example I use to describe OCD to get the ball rolling on an example that could fall into the umbrella is, “Pudge controls the weather” from Lilo and Stitch. The one time she didn’t give Pudge a peanut butter sandwich, her parents died in a car wreck in the rain. It’s an example of the magical thinking we might experience when we have OCD

[codyhodges]

I've isolated myself for so long that's it actually affecting my loved ones. It's such a spiral of bullshit. This year I'm going to try to reach out more. Hopefully I can repair the damage I've done trying to protect my loved ones from myself.

[thiccbeetboi]

I developed OCD while working as a pharmacy technician. I'd worked as a technician for several years without any problems really but other things in my life began to make me more anxious. I was in school and trying to find a co-op/internship. Lots of changes in my life at once time were very hard for me to deal with and I began having lots of intrusive thoughts on the job about making medication errors/harming a patient. My compulsions would lead me to check something so many times until I felt comfortable. There was no magic number of times. Sometimes 3x, sometimes 22 times and it became a debilitating cycle. Once I left that job because I was progressing in a career change with school and going into programming, I thought the compulsions were over since I didn't have to do that job anymore. Then it began affecting my driving. The same concept/intrusive thoughts of harming someone unintentionally. I had a type of "hit and run" OCD. Every bump in the road became a thought of someone I'd just run over. I would drive in circles and constantly turn around to make sure I hadn't just hit someone. Sometimes making a simple trip to the store hell. Then my compulsions began leaning toward severe hypochondria. I'm a type 1 diabetic so hypochondria has been present in my life since my diagnosis. I began developing all kinds of unwanted obsessions. For who knows what reason, a severe obsession/fear of rabies. Becoming hyper-aware of my surroundings all the time and watching out for things that would never be there. I've been in therapy for about a year now and medicated. It helps but I'm still learning to cope. This disease can really be debilitating to an individual's daily life.