Ocd: Obsessive Cleaning Disorder

In Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, Lady Macbeth kills herself because she was haunted by the fact that she was involved in the killing of the king. She was seen sleepwalking while obsessively cleaning he hands to get rid of the blood stains. So take her out of that misery and fear she committed suicide. This is OCD, it is a new TLA which means Obsessive Cleaning Disorder. The way in which it is used often undermines the serious implications for the person with OCD and their families of a condition which can take over someone’s life and like Lady Macbeth, leaves them powerless to lead a normal life.

Spooky right!! You know what’s even scarier, our frowning mothers on our head to clean the room. You are probably scared to death when your alarm is your screaming mother to clean that pile of clothes resting in the chair for a millennia. But if you think she has OCD, no my friend she is just a cleanliness monitor of your house. We often say someone is obsessively compulsive when they are overly attentive and meticulous, with a tendency to repeat actions or if they are what we may consider to be a perfectionist. However the clinical diagnosis of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) covers a level of unwanted obsessions and compulsions that both impact significantly on the everyday function of people and often cause them significant distress.

It is surveyed that these kinds of disorders are seen in only 1 to 3% of the world’s population and it is occurred in both males and females. It is believed that obsessive compulsive behaviours are likely to be the result of a combination of behavioural, faulty thinking patterns, environmental triggers, inherited may trigger the disorder in a person a particular point in time.

Let me just clear out some hanging myths in our Gen-Z that this syndrome is hyper active only when guests come to our houses who are picky and draw mean makes everytime or it is a great ceremonious festivals like Diwali in India in which our parents believe that Goddess Laxmi would only enter houses witha lot of cash and gold on that particular day only if it is cleaned. This is generously cleaning the house to clear out the filth and dirt collected in years. The scale of OCD is quite high. It's a mistake to think that excessive cleanliness is the only symptom of OCD sufferers.

The overtly active attitude which could hoard and make other people around aggressive with an excessive amount of cleaning, washing or dusting is a clear symptom of OCD.

OCD could be seen in the people who:

1.Don’t use the public toilets because of the fear of contamination of germs even if the toilets are super clean.

2.Don’t share clothes or touch any door knobs.

3.Visit hospitals all covered and protected with the fear of contact with the germs

4.Don’t touch railings and poles.

5.Extreme need for objects to be at their respective places

6.Have fear of hurting someone

7.Doubt of making a mistake while in the process of perfection itself

8.Have fear of embarrassment

I know a lady too, suffering the same. Her family has it in their genes. They wash their utensils even after the maid had dried them with a shine. They wash their hands a million times even when it isn’t necessary. Talk about the disposables, she wipes then and then takes anything to eat.

Talk about the new age mothers, because according to my mother today’s newbie mums are so protective about their babies that she fears what would happen if they would breathe the contaminated air. Sanitisation for kids is all she promotes but not at a level where they don’t even get immune to those things which are naturally prevalent in our lives.

There can be any incidents which could be added to this list. But it is not a disorder to be scared of. It is path where a human gets carried away by the will to bring perfection and only it.

It is no disease, but it is surely a mental state that needs counselling and therapy so that it doesn’t entirely messes the persons brain.