Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is basically an anxiety disorder where you have recurring, disturbing thoughts, which are obsessions and it can occur in people of all ages. It also can be described as a medical disorder, which causes problems with information processing. The best way to describe this disorder is the worries, doubts and sometimes superstitious beliefs become more than what is normal or necessary. You keep having the same thoughts or urges and can't let them go. It usually involves having both obsessions and compulsions.
Obsessions are thoughts, images or impulses that occur over and over again and they feel out of your control. They genuinely find the ideas to be disturbing and intrusive and they do realize these ideas don't make any sense. This is followed by discomforting feelings; such as fear, disgust, doubt or a perception that certain things have to be "perfect". Some examples of obsessions are as follows: Infection fears of germs, dirt; Imagining having hurt self or others; Imagining losing control of aggressive urges; Forbidden thoughts and a need to tell, ask and confess.
A person with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder will usually try to make their obsessions go away by performing compulsions over and over again. Some examples of compulsion are; washing, repeating, checking, touching, counting, ordering, and arranging. An individual would continually wash glasses or dishes because of the obsession that germs or dirt can be on them. These compulsions do not give the individual any pleasure; instead they obtain relief from the lack of comfort caused by the obsessions. .
There are other characteristics of this disorder. The symptoms can cause sorrow and anguish and it can interfere with work, relationships and any type of social life that you may have had. Most with this disorder do become aware at some point in time that these obsessions come within their mind are not just worries about real problems and the compulsions are too much and unreasonable.