Why Am I Having These Thoughts?
Have you ever felt the need to check and recheck if you'd locked your door, switched off a light, or experienced the compulsive need to repeat certain tasks?
We have all been unknowingly guilty of categorizing some of these behaviors as obsessions, but a true obsession is defined as an urge or thought that is intrusive, unwanted, and unavoidable. These feelings can last for hours and affect your daily life. It manifests as a need to compulsively pursue repetitive acts and cannot be set aside using reason. This is the situation that people dealing with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) struggle with every day. Completing even basic tasks becomes cumbersome when you are struck with the urge to repeatedly clean your hands before moving on to the next task.
Where do obsessions come from?
These obsessions can stem from a variety of areas and manifest in different ways in your life. Some of these obsessions can be based on an exaggerated agoraphobia or even the need for order and symmetry. Often people with OCD feel the need to rearrange things multiple times till an irrational criteria is met. More often than not, an OCD mind is well aware of the irrationality of their actions and can try to suppress the urges to an extent, but they cannot completely control them. If prevented from fulfilling these rituals and receiving a reward from the brain's orbitofrontal cortex, the OCD mind tends to feel distressed, potentially resulting in the anterior cingulate cortex malfunctioning, leading to loss of control.
Why do these thoughts happen?
To fully understand OCD and minimize its effects on daily life, we need to understand the root cause of obsessions. Compulsions are not the obsession themselves but exist to sate the obsession. In other words, you don't check the door repeatedly because that is what you are obsessed with doing but because you are obsessed with it needing to be locked. So what are the causes of these obsessions? Noninvasive imaging and invasive studies have shown a strong link between the prefrontal cortex, basal ganglia, thalamus, and the pathogenicity of OCD. This is why medication that affects serotonin levels, the chemical that the brain uses as a neurotransmitter, can help relieve symptoms in people with OCD. Studies have also found a decent correlation to a person's genetic profile, making it a potentially hereditary disorder in those who develop OCD at a young age. However, OCD can also manifest during adulthood, suggesting that these could be stress or illness-induced.
How To Handle Obsessive Thoughts
We have come a long way since discovering OCD, and there are now several protocols to help manage and even treat this disorder. Chief among these is Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), which gradually exposes the OCD mind to stressful situations in a controlled environment via Exposure and Response Prevention therapy (ERP) to help them learn to respond differently to these triggers. While this may sound daunting, CBT has been found to have long-lasting positive results in OCD patients and can effectively manage unwanted thoughts and feelings. Do the symptoms described above sound like you? If you struggle with obsessions and are ready to seek help, we are here to help you start that journey.