Handwashing
Hand washing can be both an obsessional and a compulsive trait. If washing is developed into a grooming ritual its obsessive, otherwise it is compulsive.
The other differentiator is the amount of distress caused by not washing your hands. If you feel that you must wash your hands, that tends to be obsessive. If you simply wash your hands as an anxiety habit, then that would suggest a compulsion. The key difference is that the compulsive feels bad if they refrain, and the obsessive does not.
Toilet Related Phobias
Toilet related phobias are some of the most common form of obsessional symptoms. Often preventing people from going to unfamiliar places for fear of using a dirty loo. Touching the toilet flush or seat is also a common worry.
Some sufferers obsess after visiting the toilet, and find themselves playing back the visit, checking and reassuring themselves that they did not touch anything nasty, or did wash their hands correctly.
Another symptom is using a piece of loo roll to open and close the cubical door, or placing toilet paper on the seat before use. Some people have elaborate toilet cleaning rituals which must be performed before they feel safe to sit down.
Some sufferers are risking kidney damage by denying themselves fluids, or are housebound for fear of needing to go at the wrong place or time. Others refuse to work where the toilet is located of a communal area because they hate to be observed entering or leaving.
Toilet related phobia is sometimes linked with Paruresis (shy bladder – the fear of urinating in the company of others) and Parcopresis (bashful bowel – the inability to defecate in public toilets), leaving the sufferer unable to go
if not completely happy.
Fear of Chemical Contact
The fear of chemical contact and the fear of chemical contamination are sometimes associated with OCD. They often take two forms:
The first is the fear that one can be made ill by self generated contact by household
chemicals, such as bleach or caustic soda. This may mean that the sufferer may take excessive precautions when cleaning, or obsess about the contents of cleaning agents, or worry about the contamination of food with chemical residues from crockery or cutlery. This symptom extends into worry about shards of broken glass, and the person may obsess about their health for some time after eating food which has been prepared near the accidental smashing of a glass or bottle, or even throw perfectly good food away for fear of contamination.
The second form, is a fear of contamination from an outside source, either accidental or malicious. This leaves the sufferer hesitant or unable to eat processed foods, or go to places or engage in activities where there is a perceived risk of contamination. In this form, the fear often modifies with the prevailing news trends. As one risk factor wains within the mind, it is replaced by a new set of compelling avoidances.
Chemical contact phobia can extend to the fear of chemical smells. This is a particularly pervasive phobia, as the sufferer finds it hard to predict and avoid
Obsessive Cleanliness
Hating dirt, dust, or uncleanliness is an extremely common anxiety. It is often linked with other anxieties, such as toilet phobia, or be can be coupled with a cleaning ritual. Many sufferers are also excessively neat and fastidious. And while there is nothing wrong with being a tidy person, sufferers can easily cross the line. A basic rule of thumb is that if you feel like you are missing out on other aspects of your life because you are spending too much time arraigning, neatening and straightening, maybe its time to sort yourself out rather than your possessions!
Fear of Touching Certain People or Objects
This is a classic obsessional fear and presents itself in two main forms:
Contamination Fears – The person believes that a person or object is either dirty, or in some way unlucky, and that this physical or spiritual contamination may be communicated through touch.
Ritualistic or Social Fears – That certain persons or objects should only be touched in certain ways, and that touching them in ways outside of that prescribed could lead to disaster, or the need to perform an elaborate ritual to avoid such disaster.
Disgust of Unclean Eating
This disgust is not simply a food phobia
, although both obsessionals and compulsives can also suffer from food phobia. Food phobia is an irrational fear of eating a particular food, and is often associated with Emetophobia (the fear of being sick or seeking someone be sick). Unclean eating may revolve around a certain food, but because that food is seen as dirty, rather than a fear of the food itself. This disgust is a sublimated form of germ phobia, rather than a classic phobic response.
Food disgust may centre upon eating with hands, or with unclean cutlery, or with foods that are of suspicious origin. Some Obsessionals are also given to strange and obsessive diets.
Getting ill or Contaminated
Many sufferers are wrongly dismissed as being simply hypochondriac. Hypochondria is just one way in which obsessional anxiety can manifest itself. Obsessional anxiety may form the basis of a persistent fear of a singular illness, or this fear may be a fear of contracting a generalised nasty illness
from a specific set of circumstances (like red blood like stains).
Fear of illness is an extremely effective masking symptom, in that the sufferer may embark upon an number of health related wild goose chases before realising that they are in fact suffering form obsessional anxiety, the symptom of which is a fear of mental or physical illness. If this is the case, once that anxiety is removed, the person can go on to have a natural relationship with their general health.
Obsesses about Own Body (or part of body)
There is an entire spectrum of body related obsessions (including Body Dysmorphia, Anorexia and Bulimia). As an analytical hypnotherapist I see all of these as an obsessional anxiety, fixating on one body issue, rather than another body issue. After all no one is perfect, but the pursuit of perfection is essentially an obsessional trait. Seen in this light, it is as easy to get caught up in the size of your nose, as with how much you weigh, a lump on your face, or any other issue that may present itself for scrutiny. Once the anxiety is removed, the person is able to take a more balanced view of their perceived failings.
Neatness and Order
Obsessive order and neatness can cause real distress to both the sufferer and those around them. This symptom goes beyond simply being orderly and methodical
to a position where things must be arraigned in perfect order. Disorder leaves the sufferer uncomfortable and unsettled, with an urge to rectify the perceived wrong. This often causes exasperation, humour or annoyance to others around them who cannot see
the disorder. I know of a school teacher who was driven to distraction by his pupils deliberately miss–aligning the neat row of pens on his desk, for the fun of watching him straighten them again. Try as he might, he could not resist the urge to put his desk back in order, even to suffering the hoots of delight from the cruel children.
Hates Annoying Sounds
Intrusive and annoying sounds are a fairly common symptom. Often reported is as if the sound is burrowing inside the head, leaving the sufferer so they cannot think
. Many sufferers can not work if extraneous noise is present. Ticking clocks in waiting rooms is also a common theme.
Sleep is also easily effected, with many people not being able to drop off
when they can hear the sound of running water, a dripping tap, or next doors TV. Whatever the noise source, or the time of day, the critical factor, is that the noise is usually outside direct control or at least would cause the sufferer much inconvenience to bring the noise under control. You can bet that a person who cannot sleep due to next doors radio, could sleep through the noise of their own radio!
Environmental Sensitivity
Environmental sensitivity often presents itself as an impairment in function if certain conditions are present, or if others are not met. For instance Shy bladder, is a form of environmental sensitivity in that the sufferer cannot go to the loo if others are present.
Other form of environmental sensitivity include not being able to work if strangers are present or if there is excess noise, or needing to sit in your
chair, or drink from your
own mug. Heat and light are also issues for the environmentally sensitive, often finding themselves in places that are too cold, or too hot, or too draughty, or too stuffy.
Steve Williams BA, MSc, DHP
Suite 214, 111 Piccadilly, MANCHESTER, M1 2HX
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