Obsessive compulsive disorder can be crippling and can pervasively affect your mental health and overall quality of life.

OCD is characterised by recurrent, persistent and unwanted thoughts called obsessions and repetitive behaviours or mental acts called compulsions which an individual performs to neutralise the obsessions. Obsessions and compulsions cause tremendous distress, take a lot of time (at least one hour per day) and interfere with your daily life and relationships.

Obsessions

• Involuntary thoughts, images or impulses that occur over and over again.
• The person does not want to have these thoughts.
• He or she finds them disturbing and unwanted and usually knows that they do not make sense.
• They are often accompanied by uncomfortable and intense feeling of either fear, doubt, guilt or anxiety.
• They usually involve a feared outcome such as being responsible for harm to others or to oneself.

Compulsions

• Repetitive behaviours that a person engages in to neutralise, counteract or make their obsessions go away.
• People usually engage in compulsions as they believe that doing these repetitive behaviours would prevent something bad from happening to them or their family.
• Can also include avoiding situations that trigger their obsessions.

OCD can start at any age, though there are generally two age ranges when OCD first appears. The first is between ages 10 - 12 years and the second is between the late teens and early adulthood. At present, more than 3 million adults and half a million kids and teens have OCD.

Various researchers have suggested that OCD can be caused by various factors such as genetic factors, biological/neurological factors, major life changes or severe traumatic experiences.