Stuff You Should Know - How OCD Works

Episode Date: December 2, 2008

Obsessive-compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder characterized by obsessive thoughts and compulsive actions. Check out this HowStuffWorks podcast to learn more about the effects of and treatments for OCD. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Flooring contractors agree. When looking for the best to care for hardwood floors, use Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner, the residue-free, fast-drying solution especially designed for hardwood floors, delivering the safe and effective clean you trust. Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner is available at most retailers where floor cleaning products are sold and on Amazon. Also available for your other hard surface floors like stone, tile, laminate, vinyl, and LVT. For cleaning tips and exclusive offers, visit Bona.com slash Bona Clean. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff, stuff that'll piss you off. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging?

They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jackmove or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. It's Chuck. I'm coming to you from Studio 1A. Yes, deep within the bowels of How Stuff

Works corporate headquarters. It's my spokesman voice. Yeah, that's pretty good, Chuck. Chuck, do your best, Monk. Like a Franciscan Monk chant? I don't care. No, I know what you're talking about. You're talking about Monk, the TV show. Yes, one of my favorites. Is it? Yeah, I love it. You watch it? You don't? No. Yes, I do. No, it's good. I watch Monk because, let me go ahead and set this up, I have, in a very, very offhand way, no Monk. Let's hear it, Chuck. I don't know him, no. I've met him a few times. Tony Shalub, the actor, the great, great actor, Tony Shalub. And I'm not just saying that because I've met him. I really, he's a big fan of his work with

the Coen brothers, especially. Yeah, he's pretty good in their films. They know how to direct that guy. Yeah. I met Tony through a friend of mine who was a director and who had worked with Tony. And Tony's a really good guy. He took a shine at my friend Jim and went to his wedding even, which I went to. And Tony's read one of my screenplays was kind enough to do that. Well, you went to Monk's wedding? No, I went to my friend Jim's wedding in Monk's there. But when I was there, I thought it was kind of funny that, you know, I knew he was going to be there, but there was a lot of, you know, periphery family there. And I just wondered if people just kind of flew in from out of town and sat down. They're like, Hey, you know, what's Monk

doing here? He's over there. I just see him. He's right there. Yeah. He's an online registered minister. So I sort of have met Tony a few times. He's a very nice guy. We got way sidetracked here. Oh, we did. We did. And actually, if we had OCD, that would not stand. Right. Man, that was good. Thanks. Like Monk OCD. That's what we're talking about. Yeah. That's where Monk came from. So basically, let's discuss OCD today, which stands for obsessive compulsive disorder. I think most people probably realize that. Yeah, which seems kind of foreign to me. I've not me. I can kind of identify with it. But I mean, the thought of actually being clinically diagnosed with OCD and living the way that people who have OCD live, I just, I can't imagine it being bearable. I guess

that's probably what I should have said. Right. You can identify. Well, I often say I have OCD just to my wife as a joke, but I do have a lot of really weird, quirky, compulsive habits. But after reading the article and doing a little more research, I realize unless it's an actual compulsion that you have to do it over and over and over, then it's not actually OCD. It's just weird, quirky habits. Like what? Oh boy. Really? Yeah. Wow. I never really told people a lot of these. I don't step on stairs to have something on them. Okay. I will try to avoid cracks on the sidewalk, but not only that, but if I step on a crack with my left foot, then I have to step on the next one with my right foot. Wow. I know. I might have OCD actually. That's entirely possible. It

sounds like though it's not, it hasn't taken, it doesn't run your life. Well, that's the difference. I think OCD would be if I stepped on the crack with my left foot and then missed the next one with my right foot, I have to go back and then do it all over again. And it doesn't come down to that. Or just chop both feet off and get it over. Right. And I don't always notice it either. It doesn't, you know, sometimes I'll do it and sometimes I'll notice it and sometimes it doesn't. I guess it makes me wonder, you know, what the conditions are when you notice it, like what is going on in your life? What's your brain going through that? Interesting. I never thought about that. So let's give a little background on OCD. Like Chuck said, it stands for obsessive compulsive

disorder. And well, the obsessive part is it's talking about the mental state. Right. People with OCD obsess over very slight things that seem gigantic to them. Right. For example, you think that your hands are dirty. That's a big one. That's an obsessive thought. And you can't get it out of your head. The only way to get rid of it is through compulsive behaviors, say hand washing. Right. Exactly. Here's the problem. For most of us, if we look at our hands and go, oh, my hand's dirty. I need to wash it. You wash your hand. And that's that. Right. You know, you may not wash your hand again for several days. With if you have OCD, you wash your hand over and over. And that obsessive thought that your hand's still dirty is still there. Right. And from what I

understand, it may vary with some people with OCD, but it's not necessarily that you get to the point where you actually think your hands are clean. A lot of times there'll be a specific number in your head. Like I have to wash my hands 10 times. The magical number, right? Yeah, the magic number. And then I can move on with my life. And you'll see that more often with people maybe locking in unlocking doors three times or 10 times every time or opening and shutting or touching a door knob or something like that. Right. David Cideris, the comedian and author. David Cideris, not comedian, but funny man. David Cideris. Humorist. Humorist. Yes. He, some of his books he touches on some of his OCD when he was a kid was really funny. Yeah. Licking light switches and licking

mailboxes. It's like that. It's really good. I don't, I didn't know that licking. There was a licking compulsion. Well, touching. And I guess he was just licking, is just touching with your tongue. I'm going to get down to it. I'm going to have to try that line sometime. The war on drugs impacts everyone. Whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy. Number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course, yes, they can do that in on the priming sample. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with

absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that will piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil asset. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. There is no need for the outside world because we are removed from it and apart from it and in our own universe. On the new podcast, The Turning Room of Mirrors, we look beneath the delicate veneer of American ballet and the culture formed by its most influential figure, George Balanchine.

There are not very many of us that actually grew up with Balanchine. It was like I grew up with Mozart. He could do no wrong. Like he was a God. But what was the cost for the dancers who brought these ballets to life where the lines between the professional and the personal were hazy and often crossed? He used to say, what are you looking at, dear? You can't see you. Only I can see you. Most people in the ballet world are more interested in their experience of watching it than in a dancer's experience of executing it. Listen to The Turning Room of Mirrors on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. So that's the background on OCD. This is the obsession, though. They can generally be categorized

into four categories appropriately enough. You've got germs, which would account for the hand-washing. There's symmetry, which is keeping things in place. That's where mine figures in a little bit. Order? Yeah. When I'm cleaning the house and things, I can't just put the remote control on the TV. I have to put it in a certain spot. There's doubt. Doubt is the one I think I can most identify with. Apparently, if you have OCD, this doubt is overwhelming and you will keep going back home, back home, back home to check on the espresso maker or whatever. I read an article in The New York Times about OCD in restaurants. Apparently, it doesn't matter how your OCD manifests. A restaurant is a nightmarish, hellish place. There's just so many problems. If you're paying

attention, you're going to really flip out. Well, you've got someone handling your food, first of all. That's a big one. And you're eating with utensils that are shared. I mean, they're washed in theory, but shared utensils. The Jack Nicholson movie, as good as it gets, the restaurant scene in there, I think is pretty indicative of what the hell you could suffer through. Yeah. Well, the author of The New York Times article that I read, he was never certain that he had actually signed the check when he's credit card. So he'd look again, see that he'd signed it, and within seconds opened again and saw that he signed it and opened again. He would drive himself crazy like this. And also, he had what I think is one of the more interesting,

I guess, manifestations of OCD is reporting compulsion. I love this thing. It's pretty cool. Basically, let's say you're seated at a table at a restaurant. This is the example The New York Times guy uses. If you're seated at a table in a restaurant and it's maybe a little loose, you're suddenly overcome by thoughts of either yourself or somebody else down the line who'll be seated at that table being crushed by the weight of it when it falls over. And you are overcome with the compulsion to tell somebody, the restaurant manager, a waiter or something. And the problem is is they never really appropriately react. So I think if you feel that something's enough of a danger that it must be reported, action should be taken immediately. So the fact that the waiter

doesn't immediately take that chair and like cancel it from the restaurant? Yeah, or evacuate you from the table or something like that. Yeah, it's kind of got to be a downer. And the other problem with restaurants is that it's a very public forum. And so if you have to like touch something several times before you sit down, or you change tables several times because they're not entirely stable, people notice that kind of thing. And all of a sudden, you're fairly embarrassing disorders put on display. Right. So I think for that reason, a lot of times people find themselves trapped in their homes, yeah, and give a little bit of agoraphobia going out. Yeah, apparently OCD can very easily lead to agoraphobia, right? And baldness. Yeah, this is awful from from what Chuck?

From pulling your hair. I mean, come on, like what kind of an affliction is this right? This is awful. And it's all in your head. That's the worst part. And I think people with OCD realize even before they are ever really treated that this is all in their head. Right. And that just has to make it all the more all the worse. Right. I know there was a basketball player in the, I guess it was the 80s and 90s. His name was Chris Jackson. I don't know if you remember him. I remember him. Yeah, he's first. Well, he played for LSU in college. And I can't remember where he played pro, but he had OCD and I think would tie his shoes, tie his basketball shoes up over and over and over and like be late for practice and leaving the house. He had problems leaving the

house. And I'll have to look into this. I just, this just hit me actually, but I believe it actually had something to do with the early end of his basketball career. I may be wrong there. So well, well, I'll look into that. Yeah, hopefully Jackson's still playing because that sucks. Well, he definitely not still playing now just because he'd be old, but oh, got you. Like Dr. J old. Uh, no, not Dr. J old. Magic Johnson old little younger than Matt. Maybe he still could be playing actually the trail spree. Well old. Yeah. Okay. I've stumbled upon it. See, that was the magical number three. Yeah, we worked it out. The war on drugs impacts everyone whether or not you take America's public enemy. Number one is drug abuse.

This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds tomorrow one. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table without any drugs. Of course, yes, they can do that in on the prime example. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. Cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app,

Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. There is no need for the outside world because we are removed from it and apart from it and in our own universe. On the new podcast, The Turning Room of Mirrors, we look beneath the delicate veneer of American ballet and the culture formed by its most influential figure, George Balanchine. There are not very many of us that actually grew up with Balanchine. It was like I grew up with Mozart. He could do no wrong. Like he was a God. But what was the cost for the dancers who brought these ballets to life where the lines between the professional and the personal were hazy and often crossed? He used to say, what are you looking at, dear? You can't see you. Only I

can see you. Most people in the ballet world are more interested in their experience of watching it than in a dancer's experience of executing it. Listen to The Turning Room of Mirrors on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. There's one more category that obsessions can be lumped into and this is kind of the darkest of them all. Disturbing thoughts. Yeah. And these are thoughts that you can't get out of your head. Right. And that if they led to compulsive behavior, it's probably going to be violent. Like violent sexual thoughts, you know, other acts of violence, maybe self-inflicted or on other people. And actually, I found a study, a case report, actually. Did you know that nymphomania is often linked to OCD?

Really? Yeah. That makes sense. It's compulsive behavior. Yeah. There's this woman whose case was in extremis, though. It's a 2002 case study. And there was a woman who was 23 and she was a daycare worker, but she became unemployed because her sexual activity was, she was so prolific that she couldn't hold the job down. Right. She had sex too much. And she's in the wrong line of work. Well, yeah. Okay. Let's just settle down. Sorry. So this woman actually, this is self-reported, and she commonly had 30, she had sexual intercourse 30 times in a 24-hour period, several times a week. You sent me this in an email. I didn't realize. I thought it was just, here's an interesting fact, but she had OCD. Yeah. Should I be amazed at the 30 times?

Can you imagine having sex 30 times in 24 hours? And doing it several times a week? No, I can't. So this woman also had other compulsions as well, but that was a pretty interesting compulsive behavior. She was doing it to her own detriment. She derived no sexual pleasure from having sex. And she reported that she was afraid of being abandoned by these people. Interesting. Well, that took over her life, for sure. It did. And happily enough, she went under a cognitive behavioral therapy and is working it out. Which is one of the treatments along with, I believe, antidepressants is one of the things they can prescribe sometimes. Yeah, there is treatment. Take hope, all ye who have OCD and are just finding this out.

There is treatment for this disorder. And cognitive behavioral therapy is the chief method of curing. You want to tell them about the CBT? Well, yeah, I know one of the methods they use in the CBT is called exposure and response prevention. And basically, that's, from what I can gather, that's showing someone or putting someone in front of their fear, or in this case, their obsession, and just saying you can't do it. Yeah. Imagine tying somebody to a chair, right? Yeah. And then putting, like, I don't know, a dirty towel on their hand. Right. And not letting them wash it. Yeah. And then, basically, you reinforce, look, you're not dying. Your hand's not falling off. You're not getting sick. It doesn't just happen when one, you know, takes a series

of, it's like breaking a wild horse. Right. And again, through therapy and often in conjunction with antidepressants. Right. This disorder can be licked. What's up, sir? Not like David Sedaris licked. Yeah. Not licking being a form of touching licked. Right. Like full circle. Yeah. Nice one. That was a good accident. All right. Well, thanks for joining us this time on Stuff You Should Know. And you can learn a lot more about obsessive compulsive disorder by typing in those three words or even OCD in our search bar on howstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. Let us know what you think. Send an email to podcast at howstuffworks.com, brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jackmove or being Rob?

They call civil answer. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Tell everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts.