Random Thought #3: OCD

I can remember the title, artist, and year the song came out for hundreds of 80s songs. I can remember things my professors said in class 15 years ago. I can remember the test scores of kids I've tested at work within a few points for months or years afterward.

I just can't remember if I turned off the curling iron, or if I locked the door on the way out. Even if I've just checked. Even if I've stared at the curling iron in its unplugged state and the electrical outlet with nothing plugged into it for a good minute or so, trying to burn the image into my brain. It's like my brain has turned to Teflon, and the information just won't stick.

I don't have full-fledged Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, or OCD. I did when I was little. Now I just seem to have vestiges of it that compel me to check and recheck things at times. It's maddening. When I was five, I didn't check and recheck things; then I was into compulsive handwashing. My parents did all the right things; they consulted with a pediatrician and took me to a child psychologist, and never made me feel bad about it or anything. It was hard for me not to feel like a freak, though, at least sometimes. Certainly no one else did anything so strange. Of course, that was in 1975, and awareness has increased a lot since then, not to mention the availability of effective drugs. Now it seems like a lot of people have it. Well, okay, that was probably always true; it's just that no one talked about it before the late 80s or early 90s or so. I don't have any statistics right in front of me, but it sure seems like many people I know have it or seem to have some symptoms of it.

Anyway, I'm not sure there's a particular point to this post except that I felt like talking about it. Here are a couple of good books about it:

(1) Brain Lock: Free Yourself from Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior. A Four-Step Self-Treatment Method to Change Your Brain Chemistry, by Jeffrey M. Scwartz, M.D. with Beverly Beyette, (1996). Written by a doctor who specializes in treating OCD, this book details a self-treatment program for people with OCD based on cognitive-behavioral therapy; it can used with or without the aid of a professional therapist. I found it quite interesting and helpful.

(2) The Boy Who Couldn't Stop Washing, by Judith L. Rapoport, MD (1989). This is an older book, so it doesn't have doesn't have updated information on medication, but it has case studies as told by OCD sufferers and the doctor's perspective. It's really interesting and helpful in gaining a greater understanding of the disease. The publication of this book and the media attention it generated really helped OCD and its sufferers come "out of the closet."