Obsessive Compulsive Anxiety Disorder

If you have any form of anxiety disorder, you have control issues. This doesn't mean you have anxiety problems because you're a control freak or have a controlling personality, it's more likely the other way around. You see, when you feel anxious, it's because things are happening that are out of your control - or you feel like things are out of control. Overwhelmed, stressed or worried. In fact, even people who don't have anxiety disorder can often feel the same way, it's just that they don't experience the uncomfortable and frightening sensations those of us who DO suffer will feel.

People who have Obsessive Compulsive Anxiety Disorder unconsciously try to avoid feeling anxious by attempting to maintain control over as many things as they can. This includes maintaining order in their lives and their environments. It can also include seemingly unrelated obsessive thoughts and compulsive activities such as counting things over and over, repeatedly checking things like the switch on a coffee pot or sorting and arranging things again and again. Even cleaning their homes or themselves (repeated hand washing is a well-known example) compulsively.

When OCD is in full bloom, the obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors are usually completely unrelated to what the person is feeling is out of their control. But their reaction to stress and anxiety is to increase their control over the little things they feel they can control. In other words, their anxiety can trigger the obsessive-compulsive behaviors, proportionally.

The reality for most OCD sufferers, however, is that the need to have everything in order and controlled becomes overwhelming and when things are not orderly, anxiety sets in. In effect, it all gets turned around from the orderliness controlling the anxiety to the lack of orderliness causing the anxiety. And because most OCD sufferers have had these problems since childhood, the behaviors are nearly unbreakable habits. Everything in their environment MUST be perfectly ordered and organized. Every paper and pen on the desk has to be arranged just so, clothes folded or hung exactly right.

Let me use an example from my personal experience:

A gentleman I was mentoring several years ago in my 12 Step Program would show up early for the same meeting every week so he could get the same parking spot and the same chair. In his home, his shirts were hung precisely 1-1/2 inches apart. I could go on, but you get the picture.

On investigation, I discovered that this man had childhood separation anxiety - abandonment issues - due to his father being a commercial fisherman who was gone all summer. More than 50 years later, he was still "avoiding" anxiety with his obsessive-compulsive behaviors and he had what he thought was a perfectly rational purpose for every one of his habits and compulsive routines.

To take this article full circle, as far as I know, my friend never felt any anxiety symptoms and because this is the case with many who have OCD, it's the reason most people don't recognize Obsessive Compulsive Disorder as an Anxiety Disorder at all.

Especially for those with OCD who don't experience outright anxiety symptoms, they can break these obsessive and compulsive habits and routines more easily than they think. The advice I gave my friend was to simply do one thing different every day until he realized he didn't have to do everything systematically the same all the time. That his world wasn't going to cave in if he sat in a different chair or parked in a different spot. He tried it and amazingly (to him, anyway) he enjoyed changing his routine.

In the video training program I recommend, Jon Mercer has a simple method for accomplishing the same objective - one little thing at a time. If you find that you have obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors that you want to get rid of and expand your comfort zone, I suggest you take a look at the Easy Calm Video Coaching Series. It really lives up to its name - Easy - and it can be fun to boot!

To your recovery,

Owen 
owen@helpwithanxietydisorder.com

Get your free mini-ecourse on Anxiety & Panic Disorder here!

Just enter your first name and email address in the form below to receive free information, delivered to your inbox.

I hate spam as much as you do. Your information will be kept private.