Myths about OCD/Facts

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Myth statement: People with OCD are nit-picky and controlling.

OCD is a disorder of mental health, not a characteristic of personality.

People with OCD struggle to control their own thoughts and feelings and to control them. Their compulsions are an external manifestation of this battle. In order to perform compulsions, an individual can attempt to control their environment.

A mental health diagnosis is OCD. It ignores the very real needs of people with this disorder to characterize OCD as a personal quirk or a joke.

For example, an OCD individual might rearrange furniture to resolve their fascination with symmetry. A community tour could be slowed down by another person because they're busy counting bricks. Such views do not come from a willingness to control others. They come from the desire of an individual to regulate themselves.

Obsessive-compulsive personality (OCP), a similar-sounding diagnosis, manifests as a focus on balance and order. In the OCP, orderliness and perfectionism may become the most noticeable characteristics of an individual. They can fix rules to the extent where they do not complete assignments. OCP individuals may strike