COVID-19 and Responsibility OCD

A few months ago, our world turned upside down. Suddenly we faced “a new normal” — we started fearing everyday germs that we’ve never worried about before. Suddenly we were all washing our hands all day long, we were fearful of touching subway poles, and we were avoiding touching the bottoms of our shoes when coming in from outside. And perhaps most distressing of all, we were left with the constant lingering thoughts of “have I done enough to protect myself and my loved ones?” For a segment of society, though, was this really the new normal? For people like me who suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, suddenly it felt like the whole world was experiencing what I had already known as my normal. Of course, I wasn’t used to staying indoors and working from home, but in terms of the compulsive handwashing, the lingering fears of contamination, and the constant worry of whether I had been careful enough were already part of my everyday life. This novel coronavirus brought a reality that most had never experienced. For some of us, though, there was an aspect of normalcy that others experienced as novel. As I discussed with my therapist, it felt like the world was finally experiencing a day-in-the-life of an OCD sufferer. As I think about the hardest parts of this for me, though, I believe that it is the notion that so much depends on each individual’s willingness to stop the spread of the virus. We were told on a daily basis that our individual actions co...
Source: World of Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: OCD contamination OCD coronavirus COVID-19 Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Responsibility OCD Source Type: blogs