How to Recognize When to Seek Medical Care for OCD

If you have obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), you feel embarrassed by your condition. The compulsive acts you feel forced to perform repetitively are something you may go to great lengths to hide. Moderate to severe OCD can even interfere in your life in ways that may become intolerable. If this is the case, you should recognize that it is time to seek medical care.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Recognize When to Seek Medical Care for OCD

1. Ask yourself if your OCD is keeping you from completing daily tasks. When your rituals take up so much time each day that you are continually late to school or work (or never make it there at all), it may be time to seek medical treatment.
2. Take stock of how the OCD is affecting your relationships. If your friends and family are expressing frustration, impatience or even anger at having to wait on you while you perform your rituals, your OCD has likely gotten out of hand.
3. Examine how OCD affects your ability to have fun. Rituals that keep you from doing things you enjoy (or from having fun while you're doing them) are a sign of OCD that needs medical treatment.
4. Monitor the amount of stress your obsessions and compulsions bring you. Feeling an extraordinary amount of internal stress over your symptoms is reason enough to seek medical treatment, even if the symptoms don't interfere in your life in other ways.
5. Consider your overall quality of life. If you feel you are getting the most out of life in spite of your symptoms, medical intervention may not be necessary.
6. Follow your personal feelings. Even if your symptoms are mild, they may be more than you are willing to tolerate. If so, you should seek medical attention for your OCD.

Tips & Warnings

• A combination of medication and psychotherapy is usually the most effective way to treat OCD. You will need a psychiatrist to prescribe medication and a psychologist to conduct the psychotherapy.
• Children may experience more stress from symptoms of OCD than adults. This is because they do not recognize why they are experiencing these symptoms. Talking with a psychologist about their symptoms can be helpful for children, even if no other medical intervention is undertaken.
• There is evidence that stress can exacerbate the symptoms of OCD. Taking care of yourself by minimizing stress in your life can help keep you centered and better able to handle these symptoms.