Posted by yxibow on August 29, 2009, at 1:18:16
In reply to Subtypes Of OCD and Treatments, posted by Phillipa on August 28, 2009, at 23:34:33
Yes, there are numerous and endless varieties of these subtypes of OCD.
The OC Spectrum Disorder includes OCD, Trichotillomania, Tourette's, Tic disorders among others, and possibly gambling/compulsive shopping, although I'm not sure if it quite fits the same realm.
OCPD as noted is an Axis II disorder, different from OCD, it is a personality disorder.
It is biologically based and a lifetime illness, but triggered/awakened by some organic change (puberty is very common) and/or psychological reason.
In treatment for my OCD, which was a 39/40 on the YBOCS scale, I encountered probably most of these types of OCD in the support group and program I was in.
As for my own OCD... Things waxed and waned through different phases, some being on top of each other, most separate... I had pretty much the gamut of what is commonly seen in OCD.
Puberty and knowing I was gay just shortly afterward was the biggest contributor.
I had "magical thinking" that people would know at school that I was... let's say pleasing myself because I was thinking of males.
There was hoarding, useless garbage hoarding which didn't last that long, newspaper hoarding which lasted longer and was hard to get rid of things, and finally the spread of "ick", which was first semen, and then everything you can think of toilet related.
And suddenly most everything was untouchable... washing hands scaled up to 30 minutes (so much that my hands turned bone white and were noticeable in school and I had to make up some excuse for that)... showers to 7 hours at the end before I chose hospitalization (which in today's economy, insurance, costs, etc is basically an impossibility for the more than two months I stayed.)
But while the hospitalization was no picnic, through the day treatment program I learned the tools to be able to fight OCD. I still have latent tendencies of that sort but nobody can completely erase it. Even a "control" group could have 9 or 10 on a YBOCS.
I never had religious based OCD or checking.
I heard other people's stories -- someone who had terrible sexual thoughts about their mother, someone who had comorbid bipolar I think, fears of germs (mine was the spreading 'ick' that everything had some human excretion on it rather than microbes), and countless other things I don't remember now -- I think someone with a checking story.
One variety of checking besides the common, did I turn off the stove and do all I need to do, ten times over, before leaving the house and maybe coming back to do it....
...is a type of checking where the individual is scared that they ran over someone just because they feel a bump in the road. They go back and maybe again to check whether a body is there.
Today my OCD manifests itself in really a semi-O disorder... garbage thoughts when my anxiety symptoms are triggered high, just really random things that come in my mind that are very hard to stop as those with "Pure O" can attest to."Pure O" usually involves a single thought, like that person with Oedipal thoughts that I mentioned, that goes like a single track. I don't know how it is conquered by some, but it may require augmentation of a low dose antipsychotic with an SSRI if a high dose of an SSRI does not work.
Using "STOP" and "replacement thoughts" for such conditions are questionable by some psychiatrists/psychologists. It doesn't always work. I know personally that when this phase comes on, "letting them stream anyhow" doesn't really do a lot and may make it worse because I focus on it.
In fact focusing on a task helps my multi-comorbid disorder better (somatic [pain, and a gamut of other things], O/OCD components, unknown Psychosis NOS possibly involving D2, GABA and other things with an unknown etiology or source.).
Being raised in a strict religious setting (I'm not saying that this happens to everyone who is), could trigger someone with OCD religious scrupulosity that is greater than whatever they were brought up with, in some psychological fashion.
Newspapers, who knows where that came from -- I had a "fear" that vital articles would never be saved, its hard to describe and I don't know where it came from.
Its ironic that I got a related degree in college.
About 99% of people with OCD know that they have OCD and that while they know that, they still have trouble trying to stop the compulsion (e.g. washing) because of the obsession (germs, et alia.).There's a small subset of people with OCD that may have comorbid Psychosis Spectrum disorders or may have simply a psychotic form of OCD where they do not realize this. This may require extra care, and antipsychotic therapy or other interventions.
Anyhow my point is, yes, there are many many ways the biological condition that is OCD becomes expressed in psychological ways.
-- tidings
poster:yxibow
thread:914621
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090826/msgs/914640.html