OCD is a pathology that is within the classification of anxiety disorders and that can lead to great disability in people’s lives.
When talking about OCD, the most common thing is to think of those unhealthy subjects of order, cleanliness, pollution… But really OCD can occur on any topic, and one not so well known is Relational OCD Do you want to meet him?
Relational OCD focuses in the relationships that the person maintains with other individuals such as children, parents, partners (love OCD), strangers… even towards oneself. Very distressing obsessions are generated with respect to the person targeted by the ruminations, and the ties that unite them may be broken to avoid discomfort, and the pattern may be repeated in similar relationships.
Such thoughts can be very painful, and begins a real investigation into the feelings towards the person searching for the why, coming to doubt them and struggling to avoid them without success (the more you want to ignore a thought, the more it appears), unintentionally turning them into the most frequent topic of daily life and generating discomfort that can incapacitate the person who experiences it. suffers from the distraction and anxiety it produces.
We will illustrate it with an example. A father stressed about starting to raise his son unintentionally creates an image of him throwing him out of the window. The thought is seen as something horrible, unacceptable, which is analyzed over and over again until reaching conclusions such as: I thought that because I don’t love my son, I am a psychopath and I shouldn’t raise him because I will hurt him.
In reality, this person loves his son and would never harm him, but when the chain begins and becomes common in the person’s head, it seems impossible to stop and, above all, it gives him truthfulness that creates very marked suffering.
Symptoms
The sequence of thoughts that we have seen in the previous example is very common in OCD, since it tends to magnify the importance of the mind creating a specific image or idea, causing the person to go crazy looking for reasons for something they think about. It’s really not responsible.
Adding guilt, rumination, pursuit of inexhaustible reasoning, binary thinking search for perfection and non-acceptance of mistakes (all typical characteristics of people who suffer from OCD), a new world is created in which thoughts such as being a horrible person for having had that image, being guilty for having thoughts of a certain nature, inability to accept that he has not been responsible for said mental process and that it has no real repercussions, and a long etc.
The above makes the person a victim of his mind and executioner of the actions that you begin to carry out to prevent, verify and search for a logic One of those checks can be to look for and compare yourself with other people who share similarities as if the other party were perfection in which to see yourself reflected.
Causes
It is a vicious circle that is difficult to break and usually It is based on very rigid and strict cognitive patterns in which stepping foot outside that limit “means something horrible and unacceptable that you are guilty of.” The need to have everything under strict control means that the thoughts that are supposed to be “bad” have been caused by the person “since he has everything under control and should be able to control what his head creates.”
The anxiety generated can manifest itself as panic attacks when faced with the thought or rumination of it or as a final response of the body when enduring very high levels of discomfort. Besides, the blaming component is shared by the depressive disorder which can cause OCD to be comorbid with anxiety disorder, depressive disorder, or both.
Treatment
If you know someone with this type of OCD or think you may suffer from it, don’t panic: OCD is treatable in all its manifestations, the most effective way being the combination of psychotropic drugs with cognitive behavioral therapy. Pharmacological treatment must be dictated by a psychiatrist which, depending on the symptoms, will recommend a specific type of medication.
No OCD is the same for different people and people are not the same in response, so we should not take the medicines of someone we know with the same disorder. On the other hand, going to a psychologist for cognitive behavioral therapy will help you recognize the reason for your obsessive ideas and work to feel better.
But beware! There are people who, upon seeing improvement, stop therapy Let’s keep in mind that relational OCD is like all OCD: they go through good and bad phases, and it is best to follow up with your therapist and psychiatrist, even if you feel better. And even more so, if we take into account that relational OCD normally occurs with close people, so it is easy for relapses to occur due to multiple relational causes, due to phenomena such as atmospheric pressure changes typical of seasonal changes, or due to periods of stressful.
It is common for the person to keep these thoughts for months and even years without communicating them to anyone out of shame, fear… even because they think that in reality they do not suffer from an emotional pathology and the thoughts are accurate (the average for receiving specialized help is usually two years and half).
But the reality is that when those who suffer from it talk with mental health professionals, with their family and people involved, they find a point of support that can be essential for treatment and recovery. Like other recommendations, sport is essential, as well as maintaining good communication, eating well and getting a good rest.
