What are the symptoms of OCD? - Compulsive

People with OCD try to make their obsessions go away by performing the compulsions. Compulsions are acts a person does over and over again. For example a person who is obsessed with germs may wash there hands until their raw. (Ouch!)A person may also repeatedly check. They may check to make sure they turned off their stove, (its normal for a person to do that once, but not five to six times.) because of a fear of burning down the house. One of my ticks that stayed with me is also checking, but not checking for danger. I check to make sure I got things people said right. I used to ask my mom if I it was ok to do something over and over and over again. I still call her from the grocery store to check to make sure I got everything right even if I have a list that she made. My dad calls it check-check-double-check. Those are the milder examples too. Common compulsive symptoms are: Washing, repeating (repeating what you say three or four times), checking (Check, check, double-check), touching, and counting(They may count the numbers on a house as they drive by, or count how many houses there are on a street, or repeat even or odd numbers). Unlike compulsive drinking or gambling OCD doesn’t give the person any sort of pleasure at all. It’s the complete opposite. It can make your life miserable, and the compulsions that are preformed to obtain relief from the extreme discomfort made from the obsessions can make you more uncomfortable if you’re in a public setting. For example one of my tics (that’s kind of like a shortened version of compulsions) when I was a kid was flaring my nose. I would do it so often the sides of my nose was constantly raw, and because I was embarrassed I would cup my hands around my nose to hide what I was doing, which looking back probably drew more attention, but it made me feel better. I guarantee anyone and everyone with OCD has found ways to hide there tics from others. Ways to do it, but without drawing too much attention. Some people who repeat words will put those words in a sentence that makes a little more sense. But people do things differently and the important thing is to find what makes you at least slightly more comfortable.