15 Things People with OCD Want You to Know

By | January 4, 2016
prev1 of 17

OCD facts

by Karen Pallarito

You probably know a persnickety person who color coordinates her closet, or a germaphobe who keeps a vat of hand sanitizer in her purse. But quirks like these are not necessarily signs of OCD, short for obsessive compulsive disorder, a type of anxiety disorder.

“People, really, they just don’t get it,” says Alison Dotson, president of OCD Twin Cities, a Minneapolis affiliate of the International OCD Foundation, and author of Being Me with OCD: How I Learned to Obsess Less and Live My Life. Having struggled with OCD much of her life, the 36-year-old author says people mean no harm; they’re just clueless about what it really means to have OCD.

“What really bothers me,” she says, “is when you point it out and people … say, ‘Oh, it’s not such a big deal.'”

Yes, it is. And here’s what else people with OCD want you to know.

RELATED: 10 Signs You May Have OCD

Next: OCD is a serious mental disorder

Leave a Reply