Obsessions are ideas, images and impulses that run through the persons mind over and over again. A person with OCD doesn’t want to have these thoughts and finds them disturbing, but he or she can’t control them. Sometimes these thoughts just come once in a while and are only mildly annoying.

For many years, OCD was thought to be rare. The actual number of people with OCD was hidden, because people would hide their problem to avoid embarrassment. Some recent studies show that as many as three million Americans ages 18 to 54 may have OCD at any one time. This is about 2.3% of the people in this age group. No one has found a single, proven cause for OCD. Some research shows that it may have to do with chemical messengers in the brain that carry messages from one nerve cell to another. One of these messengers, called serotonin, helps to keep people from repeating the same behaviors over and over again. A person with OCD may not have enough serotonin. Many people with OCD can function better when they take medicines that increase the amount of serotonin in their brain. It is sometimes accompanied by depression, eating disorders, substance abuse disorder, a personality disorder, attention deficit disorder, or another of the anxiety disorders. Co-existing disorders can make OCD more difficult both to diagnose and to treat.

OCD has been described as the disease of doubt and for a good reason. This disorder effects millions of people around the world and is more common than you may think. OCD is considered to have biological and psychological elements and 60-90% of sufferers have suffered from depression at one time or another in their lives. Many sufferers are also quite aware that their behaviors are not normal and people who suffer from OCD are not crazy by any means of the word. As evident in the story above, OCD can cause great upset and distress to someone’s life. While there is no cure to OCD, it is a controllable illness with the proper and appropriate treatment.

OCD can start at any time from preschool age to adulthood. One third to one half of adults with OCD report that it started during childhood. Unfortunately, it usually goes unrecognized. On average people with OCD see three to four doctors and spend over nine years seeking treatment before they receive a correct diagnosis. Studies have also found that it takes an average of seventeen y

Some topics in this essay:
DISORDER Obsessive, Compulsive Disorder, Paxil Luvox, OCD OCD, People OCD, person ocd, people ocd, obsessive compulsive disorder, compulsive disorder, obsessive compulsive, behavioral therapy, washing hands, disorder anxiety disorders, people suffer ocd, brushing teeth, performing behaviors, friends family, suffer ocd, person ocd obsessive,