OCD sufferer and moderator over at the OCD subreddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/OCD) here.

I just wanted to expand on the point that several have already made about OCD: It is a serious mental health condition, and more people need to become aware of that.

Most people I have met have no clue that OCD can lead to things such as:

- People losing their jobs and house because they're always late to work from turning around to check the stove or door locks.
- People committing suicide because they can't absolutely prove to themselves that they're not a pedophile. (If you're scared/upset about the idea of being a pedophile, you're most definitely not, please go get help.)
- People washing their hands until they're cracked and bloody because of contamination fears.
- Mothers neglecting their babies because they cannot handle the thoughts they keep having of throwing their baby out the window or stabbing it with a kitchen knife. They're scared they're a monster and that somehow they'll lose control and actually do these horrible things that pop into their mind.

Everybody gets these thoughts from time to time, but OCD sufferers are plagued by them, and the OCD complicates things further by making it very, very, very difficult to accept the fact that these thoughts mean absolutely nothing and that they're most definitely not going to lose control and do something hugely against their morals. They'll ruminate on these thoughts over and over and over again, involuntarily, getting more and more disturbed and upset. Compulsions form as ways to attempt relieving the anxiety from these obsessive and intrusive thoughts. An OCD sufferer will do absolutely anything to try to silence these horrifying thoughts: avoiding children, taking pictures of their stove or door locks on their phone, neglecting their children, etc. Here's the thing: Trying to ignore these thoughts only makes them worse, keeping them in your head, and causing a vicious feedback loop that makes OCD very easy to spiral out of control.

It's true that articles like this and modern media in general unfortunately continue to perpetuate widespread misconceptions. I don't point this out because I'm just some overly-sensitive person with OCD and I don't like my condition trivialized — frankly, I couldn't care less about that. The problem is that there are MANY people out there who are suffering from OCD and have absolutely no clue because their understanding of OCD is so far from reality.

I'm a perfect example of this. I'm a 25 year old (software engineer), and was just diagnosed with OCD at the beginning of this month. Prior to my diagnosis, I had NO CLUE what OCD was. All I knew is that I was disorganized and messy, so there's no way I had that "OCD thing"... Oh, how wrong I was. After learning about the condition, it's crystal clear that I've been suffering from this condition as long as I can remember. I now understand that OCD has played a very major role in my life, being responsible for enormous amounts of depression, anxiety, and even suicide attempts. If I would have known what OCD really was and not just how it's portrayed in media, I could have gotten the help I needed much, much earlier.

In closing, I just want to say that there is no permanent cure for OCD. Even with SUCCESSFUL treatment, the thoughts never actually go away. At best, some of us with OCD can get temporary relief by taking SSRI's and/or practicing Exposure Response Prevention and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. More recently, some mindfulness methods have been gaining credibility in the scientific/academic community.

For more information, book suggestions, or even to join a chatroom and talk to some real, live people with OCD, check out the portal I put together a few days ago: http://ocd.community/

Thanks for your understanding.