Is it just me?Or it seem like everyone have OCD?

About ten years ago seems like you never would really hear much about (Obsessive compulsive disorder)OCD.But now with famous people etc going mainstream telling about their stories like Howie Mandel,Jessica Alba,Donald Trump,Cameron Diaz,Leonardo DiCaprio,Harrison Ford,Howard Stern,David Beckham and the list goes on and actually quite huge.Why does it seem like everyone i know and everyone in the World has this?I heard OCD is actually a way channel our inner problems in these habits.Why this huge explosion with people and OCD going on?

[edit on 25-6-2008 by alienstar]

It seems that disorders follow fads. In the 1920's, following Freud's work, everyone had a neurotic disorder of some kind.

Have you ever seen that 1970's film, "Sybil"? It was about this girl with a multiple-personality disorder; following the movie's release, *everyone* and their brother had a second or third personality.

These days, every freakin' child has ADD or autism.

The media hypes certain disorders - like autism or schizophrenia - and then people suddenly "discover" that they've had a problem all along. Or, a group of psychologists will release a research paper on a specific abnormality, and suddenly clinicians everywhere are finding that disorder left and right.

OCD is probably following the same pattern - someone, somewhere has made a big deal about it, and now the herd is just following along.

I think it's just humanity labeling themselves out of a common behavior, but because there's a clinical form of it that is maladaptive, we assume that we fit the bill. Human beings enjoy simplicity and organization. We're all technically "OCD", however, I don't think one falls into the actual clinical definition until they perform extremely maladaptive behavior, i.e. washing their hands with hot water and soap until they blister and bleed. Just my opinion.

The population's understanding of cognitive disorders just causes the media to spread fear, and cause more consumption as we go to our doctors for the next "make it all better" pill, rather than taking some accountability in our lives and using discipline and willpower. OCD, ADHD, etc. they're all just one more tactic in dividing, conquering, measuring, and manipulating the populace. Sure, there are some people that actually need help for the disorders, but on whole it's just distraction so that we don't focus on real problems and continue our existence of immediate satisfaction.

All psychiatric disorders consist of normal behavior taken to an extreme for one reason or another.

Dragonfire is correct. It is easy for the public to see a few features and conclude that they or others have a full-blown disorder or to use a feature of a disorder to label someone else for malicious purposes.

OCD is one that is commonly abuse in this way as is Bipolar.

I hear kids calling their parents Bipolar, when what they mean is that when they smash the family car, get caught with drug, get pregnant, or submit a failing report card their parents become angry and agitated.

So, normal people do hallucinate under the right conditions. Others might become convinced that they are conspired against or become obsessed with something or someone and a host of other feature of disorders, but when these conditions are transient or are normal reactions to environmental cues, then they are not necessarily pathological.

Stay up for four days straight and see if you don't begin to hallucinate. Make the members of your social clique angry and see if you don't begin to see conspiracies all around. Buy a new video game or meet an attractive member of the opposite sex and see if you don't become obsessed.

Even for clinicians the use of diagnostic terms can be troublesome. Clinicians are warned very early on in their training that it is better to describe discrete behavior than to use diagnostic categories until such time as enough evidence is gathered to make a definitive diagnosis.

Here's a good example of behavior that could easily be called OCD. However, I bet that this mailman either has never lost a piece of mail or he has not lost one in a very long time and that one incident engendered this behavior.

As long as this guy gets his mail on time and doesn't lose it, he'll probably be looked upon as a very efficient employee.

However, when he retires and this behavior ceases to have a function, he might find that he can never get anything done at all, because he can't stop checking to make sure everything is perfect.

Then, if his behavior comes to the attention of clinicians, he'll likely get a diagnosis, some meds and some kind of therapy.

www.ebaumsworld.com...


[edit on 2008/6/28 by GradyPhilpott]