The majority of people who suffer from OCD are conscious that their obsessions or compulsions are unreasonable. Indeed, this is part of the agony of OCD sufferers: their awareness does little to alleviate obsessional pain or make compulsive actions easier to resist, and knowledge that these thoughts and actions are irrational just adds to the agony. This can cause a lot of guilt, embarrassment, and loneliness. The people's emotional parts of the brain are making them feel as though their hands are polluted with lethal germs, or that they may have hit someone with their automobile by accident, or that they left the irons on and their house would burn down as a result. The distress doesn't go away until they conduct their compulsive activities, such as (either) cleaning their hands with soap and hot water, revisiting the full route they just drove looking for a struck pedestrian or going back home to make sure the iron is turned off.