Mind Game: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

by Kimberly Blaker

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This anxiety disorder is a neurological malfunction that creates unrelenting, intrusive thoughts and extreme anguish for those affected.

Obsessions may range from a fear of hitting someone while driving to unbearable worries about contamination. These fears can be alleviated only one way—by acting out compulsions, which become repetitive acts of checking and rechecking to insure that the fear is unfounded.

Even though OCD was added to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III) in 1987, many people still live with its destruction unaware that there is help or even a name for their bizarre fears and behaviors.

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