John Glanvill • Anxiety Specialist & Researcher • Anxiety • OCD • Bipolar • ADHD • Energy • Online Anxiety Treatment Course

OCD – Obsessive & Compulsive Disorder

OCD – Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, I believe, is a very misunderstood condition of the brain and body. It is my experience that it is NOT genetic, and it can be overcome to a very large degree if the person is shown what to do and applies the intense effort required to reprogram their brain’s thoughts and desensitise their body’s fear responses (ERP).

I overcame my OCD and have helped thousands of people do the same. So, surely I am worth listening to, even if your OCD is trying to sabotage your listening to me?

What is OCD?

Rather than telling you how the medical journals define OCD, let me give you my explanation based on having experienced OCD and working with some of the most complex cases for over two decades.

To me, OCD is a condition usually formed during childhood or teenage years following some form of trauma or environmental pressure that stresses the child. These might include dominant or anxious parents, moving home, changing schools, being bullied, illness, parents splitting up, death or illness of a loved one, moving to new countries, mental, sexual or physical abuse - and the like.

The child develops anxiety, then this anxiety (if they aren't taught coping skills) further develops into OCD, which takes one of three directions.

Classic OCD - where the individual develops (unconscious) thoughts and feelings that compel them to engage in certain compulsions and rituals such as cleaning, checking, counting, hoarding, arranging, etc.

Pure O OCD - where their OCD is more in their head (with fewer physical compulsions); instead, the intrusive thoughts and catastrophising stories in their heads make them fear they may harm others, sexually abuse others, pray in certain ways or have to run certain compulsive mental routines to stay safe. This group of people try to avoid things rather than have to do things. For example, they may avoid travelling as they 'think' they may get ill. I would classify hypochondria as a form of OCD often seen in this group.

Combination OCD - In some people, the previous two types merge, and the person not only has intrusive thoughts but the need to take action, too. For example, they may have to avoid touching anything red as it may be 'contaminated' with blood (which makes them avoid things like hospitals or public transport) - but at the same time, they must obsessively clean their house.

Note: In the OCD menu, in the header bar above - I have listed the many types of OCD that I have encountered over the years.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter what the OCD makes you do or not do because these are the symptoms of OCD - and to recover, you must focus on the causes of it, which are;

Biological exhaustion
Environmental conditions - i.e. somebody is looking after you (rather than you looking after yourself.)
An overly sensitised nervous system
A brain wired to default to pessimism, doubt, and fear.
An obsession with (believing and analysing) the inner thoughts and feelings of the brain/body rather than learning that thoughts and feelings can be ignored, like for a mother giving birth, you just do what is needed to be done rather than listening to the scary thoughts of the brain and the fearful feelings of the body.
Looking for control and certainty in a world that is uncertain and where you have hardly any control - except to try to manage your attitudes in any moment.
Low self-esteem and a dominance that shows itself against those you love but is scared to come out toward people you don't know (which needs to be reversed).
No external outlet for your creativity.
Loneliness and a lack of purpose.

This is why my OCD recovery course not only teaches you how to understand then lessen the OCD, but it also teaches you how to re-engage with life in new ways that will bolster your self-worth, courage, desire and with more self-responsibility.

No matter how the OCD manifests - it is by treating the underlying issue where the big progress is made, it is by becoming a new person (not remaining the old person but removing the OCD) that makes all the difference.

Living with OCD is exhausting not only for you but also for those around you. For some, they can still function in the world and they cover up their obsessions, and for others they are stuck at home, reliving the same anxious day over and over. Either way, there is much you can do when given the right help.

The four ways people tend to cope with OCD

I will be general in my observations, but typically, individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) tend to live their lives in one of four ways until they choose to seek help. Often, they may not realise the extent to which they are being controlled by their compulsions because, to them, it feels like 'normal' behaviour. It's important to emphasise that, in most cases, OCD affects intelligent, articulate, and highly capable individuals.

1. - The stay-at-home prisoner

Often anxious thinking starts at a very young age and intensifies during adolescence where the events of parenting, school and life either compound their problems or alleviate them. It is very common for individuals to struggle through school (anxiety not intelligence) and even university (which are both quite regimented environments), but once they are faced with having to get a job, socialise, find a partner and face up to environments which are often out of their control or if they need to travel a lot – it may overwhelm them, especially after a few intense panic attacks.

Their rituals, fears, frustrations and intense thinking can become overwhelming and they struggle to leave their house and become quite reclusive and trapped within their own home (or even bedroom). In these situations, there is often a ‘carer’ that looks after them (parent, sibling, grandparent) and often unknowingly this perpetuates their predicament.

For some women after raising their children they find it very hard to get back into an eternal life – in these instances their issues are normally germ/infection/ cleanliness related and the idea of going to workplaces, shopping centres or other public areas can be fearful and distressing, so it becomes easier to stay at home in a sanitised environment.

2. - The technical loner

This group learn how to manage their ruminations and compulsions by losing themselves in distracting thought processes or complex mental tasks like science-based activities and technical careers where they can often work alone or in small groups. These ‘nerd’ like careers mean that social interaction can be managed and other people, such as managers will have to face the outside world instead of them. They often attract partners who are also technical or happy to live in a more enclosed and structured living environment.

3. - The self-employed controller

For some, it is so much easier to manage their OCD compulsions by working for themselves, and I have always been amazed at how many business owners have varying degrees of compulsive behaviours and scary intrusive thoughts. Not only do they work for themselves, they usually only have one or two employees or they employ family members to assist them, this way, but they can also still earn a living and can more easily cover up their compulsions or do them in the privacy of their own office. If their office is in their home – all the better.

4. - The 'get on with it anyway' pragmatist

This is by far the biggest group and in some ways, they have the hardest time as they are always being faced with their fears, and in another way, they are the freest of the four groups as they still go about life and just restrict the things that they can control. For some in this group, they may not know that they have OCD and for others, they know full well. This group also subdivides into those who keep the compulsions secret from others and those who make it public (to some) therefore they may get support from them. This group find that their compulsions and ruminations will increase with stress and change, therefore holidays, Christmas, job interviews, dating, travel and surprise events are times of great anxiety and can be mentally exhausting.

It's exhausting...

However, you (knowingly or unknowingly) trap yourself with OCD like behaviours and worrying thoughts, it is exhausting and often tires you mentally, emotionally and physically (which further adds to the stress!) So an important part of your recovery is to learn how to detach from some of the thoughts and realise exactly what is happening within your body – so you can mitigate some of this misuse of your energy, coupled with the fatigue comes the fogging of your mind and the lessening of your ability to make big decisions – thus trapping you deeper in the mire.

My Video (Metaphoric) OCD Explanation

I created this video because many people feel stuck, believing there’s nothing they can do when, in fact, there is so much that can be done. Some may even have the condition (we label as OCD) without realising it. In my experience, hope emerges when you can view a situation from a completely new perspective.

Ritual OCD

This is where a person has (very real) thoughts that force them to follow some form of activity – and by performing that ritual they avoid becoming really stressed, anxious and panicky (or a full-blown panic attack). These rituals can be very diverse and include:

Body fear OCD

In this form the person has an intense focus on what the body is doing and has intensely scary thoughts that something is desperately wrong that may be terminal. To allay these fears certain thinking or behavioural activities need to be performed to ‘stop’ the worst thing happening, such as;

Ruminating OCD

Here, the intrusive thoughts are of an intensely scary nature (even paranoia-based) and force the individual to perform certain rituals (as mentioned in the other groups) to avoid something ‘very bad’ happening to them or a loved one. Examples of this may include;

It is important to note that although the thoughts may be of an intense nature to harm a person, they are never acted upon (in OCD). It is just your OCD getting your attention by scaring you with that which is not you.

A final thought about genetics and victimhood

What I am about to say is somewhat direct and may upset some people, but I believe it to be true. My experience working with thousands of individuals with OCD supports this hypothesis.

People with OCD clearly fall into two groups.

Those who have OCD, doubt change is possible but are still prepared to try anything to overcome it.

Those who believe OCD is genetic and there is no cure, they adopt a victim mentality, and unknowly fight for their own limitations and stuckness, by not trying new techniques.

Obviously my work (and this website) is for the first group.

There may be a small genetic propensity toward anxiety or OCD, however, I think that the truth is the genetic element is 'epigenetic' meaning, the environment they grew up in affected the expression of their genes.

For example, the child of an anxious mother will likely think and act in anxious ways thus epigenetically expressing a similar gene expression as that family member. It has now been proved this can be reversed.