Live Life Team
Symptoms of Compulsive Behaviour
The initial obsession leads to compulsive behaviour. In some cases there is a logical connection of the behaviour with the obsession like washing hands repeatedly for prevention of disease however in most of the OCD cases, it is superstitious and not logical connection to the behaviour like counting every black car that one sees while going for work because of the belief that this will avert the mothers death in a car crash though they realise that this is totally irrational and has no logic, but are unable to stop the action because of the compulsion. Most common OCD behaviours include:-
Checking all light switches, gas taps turned off and all doors are locked.
Washing and cleaning
Repetitive rituals or acts like constantly repeating specific phrases or words in mind or touching every third lamp post while walking in the street or just counting.
Collecting or hoarding things which usually have no value like junk mail or supermarket bags.
CAUSES OR REASONS OF OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER
Though there are no established causes, there are a number of suggested theories and include:-
Evidences that biological factors do play a role in causing OCD and certain genes inherited by the children do cause some affect in the brain development. The evidence does not specify any particular gene however there is limited evidence that if a person has OCD, the likelihood of another family member having OCD is more by 4 times.
Basal ganglia is that part of the brain which is responsible for one of the most powerful and primitive emotion like the ability of the animal to decide whether to run away or attack in case of a potential threat. Malfunctioning of the basal ganglia may lead to OCD, where the conscious mind is aware that the fear or the threat is not real, but due to the malfunctioning of the basal ganglia the strong emotional power of the sub-conscious mind takes over and resorts to coping strategy resulting in the person adopting compulsive behaviour.
Serotonin is a chemical used by the brain for transmitting information from one brain cell to another brain cell and a change in the serotonin plays an important part in OCD. This can be seen from the fact that by having anti-depressant medication, the serotonin level goes up which tremendously helps in treating symptoms of OCD, though how this happens is still not very clear.
Adverse life events are also responsible specially in cases of persons with biological tendencies to OCD
DIFFERENT TYPES OF OCD
The extent of how much severe is the OCD will depend on how far the symptoms have disrupted the normal life style of the person having OCD which is also called as functional impairment. The severities of the OCD have been classified as below:
If the obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviour just takes away only one hour of the day, then it is termed as Mild functional impairment.
If the obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviour takes away only two hour of the day, then it is termed as Moderate functional impairment.
If the obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviour takes away more than three hour of the day, then it is termed as Severe functional impairment.
