Many people who have obsessive compulsive anxiety disorder can still live effectively among most of us. It is not hard to find someone you know that has a compulsion to make things always neat. I’ve known few people myself who arranges their laundry in a neat pile or someone who washes his hands every 30 minutes.
The obsessive compulsive disorder is not a buy-one-take one deal. You can only have obsessive thoughts and fall under this category. Or you might have only compulsions to do things and still fall within this type of anxiety disorder. Or you can have both the obsession and compulsion aspect of this disorder. Obsessions and compulsions have different symptoms that alone they can stand on their own.
Obsessions are thoughts, ideas, images, or even impulses that keep entering your head. It can be pretty tiring and frustrating but unfortunately they don’t get tired of you. They are very persistent in making you aware that they are still in your head. It’s just like the movie Groundhog Day, it just keeps coming back.
Compulsion is the need to perform a certain act without any “real” reason or threat. It is different from phobia since phobia avoids a situation that triggers their anxiety, while compulsion is limiting the occurrence of triggering situations that will cause anxiety. A person suffering from a phobia on blood will just avoid places such as hospitals, while a person with a compulsive disorder might use a specially designed glove securely fitted and taped around the edges in handling a knife in order to prevent the situation of having to see blood if he cuts himself.
