Many people claim to have a ‘touch of OCD’ – but they wouldn’t talk about it so lightly if they truly understood how devastating it can be.
OCD is a well-known disorder, so much so that many people claim to have a ‘touch of OCD’. However, the difference between liking things to be a certain way and having OCD is vast.
OCD Symptoms
Often, people assume that OCD means checking things or being a ‘neat freak’, but there are numerous ways that this condition can affect people and the effects can range from slightly annoying to utterly unbearable.
Wanting things to be tidy or symmetrical or clean is common for many people – but for someone with this disorder it isn’t a matter of ‘want’, it is a ‘need’: If things aren’t right, the worry, fretting, anxiety or overwhelming sense of impending danger can be utterly crippling.
Doubting yourself constantly – trying to ensure you haven’t said something wrong; that you’ve sent the email to the right person; that you’ve provided correct information. Checking and re-checking that something is turned off, locked, or put away correctly. Ensuring your driving has been safe, without incident or injury.
Each person suffers different intrusive thoughts, but the effect is always exhausting and often overwhelming.
We all doubt our memory at times and re-check something even when we are 90% sure that all is fine – but most don’t have to do it again and again and again. Most of us don’t have our minds completely consumed by the possibilities or the potential ramifications of our actions, nor have an inescapable feeling of dread or terror because of what those effects may lead to.
Can you imagine having to keep track of who has been where, who has touched what, what has been worn when or where in order to avoid cross-contamination? For most people the task is too huge to even contemplate – but someone with this kind of OCD has no choice.
Counting things is something that very many people do without realising just how often they do it, but this in itself is not a problem. The difficulties start when the need to count things, the importance of knowing the number or amount becomes more important than anything else. With OCD, a person may have to have an odd / even amount or a specific number must be achieved/ avoided; the necessity for the ‘right’ amount consumes their thoughts and some kind of action has to be taken to put it right or prevent some awful consequence.
Bargaining is another facet of OCD for some people – that if one thing isn’t done correctly or happens in a particular way, then doing something else will thwart danger somehow. This often goes hand-in-hand with rituals – certain tasks which have to be completed, or action that must be done in a particular order or a specific number of times – in order to feel safe.
Behaviours
Like most problems, the range and degree of symptoms is immense – the common threads are the overpowering, obsessive and/or intrusive thoughts, the overwhelming necessity to act, think or behave in a certain way and/or the crippling degree of anxiety or fear that the thoughts create.
What makes suffering OCD even more difficult is the fact that people often don’t talk about it and therefore feel that they are the going mad or that they are the only one to experience these thoughts and urges. There are as many different types of OCD as there are people who suffer it, but they don’t have to. There is help; they can be free of this and LCH treatment may well be the answer for them.
Lesserian Curative Hypnotherapy does not offer some kind of magic wand to change the behaviour, nor does it provide coping strategies to help manage life around these thoughts, compulsions and obsessions – what it does do is methodically unpick the thought patterns to identify why the thoughts arise in the first place, so that the thoughts themselves can be stopped, before they create any effect.
Once the obsessive thoughts cease, there is then nothing to drive the compulsions and so the fear, anxieties and expectations they create simply are disposed of. The treatment is gentle and comfortable and it usually takes fewer than 10 sessions to correct the cause of the OCD and enable a person to effortlessly and easily return to the ‘normal’ life they seek.
Intrusive Thoughts
If you or someone you know is suffering with obsessive thoughts, compulsive behaviour or intrusive ideas, contact Helen Lesser to find out whether LCH treatment may provide the solution.
What Next?
- For details of FEES and booking an appointment with Helen Lesser.
- Have a question? – Landline: (0121) 430 3336 / Call or Text – 07380635523 / email / Chat
- Qualifications and experience – About Helen Lesser