Latest / Stuff You Should Know / How OCD Works

Transcript

How OCD Works · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh. That's Chuck coming to you from
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Studio one A. Yes, deep within the bowels of How
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Stuff Works corporate headquarters, my spokesman. Boys. Yeah, that's a
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: pretty good Chuck, Chuck, do your best. Monk like a
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Franciscan monk. Chant. I don't care now, I know what
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: you're talking about. You're talking about Monk the TV show. Yes,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: one of my favorites, is it? Yeah? I love it?
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: You watch it? You don't? Yes, I do know it's good.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: I watched Monk. Because let me go ahead and set
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: this up. I have in a very very off hand way,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: no Monk, let's hear it, Chuck, I don't. I don't
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: know him. No, h'm I've met him a few times.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Tony shalub the actor, the great, great actor, Tony shalub Um.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: And I'm not just saying that because i've met him.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: I really a big fan of his work with the
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Coen Brothers especially. Yeah, he's pretty good in their films.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: They know how to direct that guy. Yeah. I met
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Tony through a friend of mine who was a director
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: and uh, who had worked with Tony, and Tony's a
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: really good guy. Took a shine at my friend Jim
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: and went to his wedding, even which I went to.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: And uh, Tony has read one of my screenplays, was
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: kind enough to do that. And you went to Monk's wedding, No,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: I went to. My Frink was there. But when I
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: was there, I thought it was kind of funny that,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: you know, I knew he was going to be there,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: but there was a lot of you know, periphery family there,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: and I just wondered if people just kind of flew
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: in from out of town and sat down there, like, hey,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: you know, what's Monk doing here? But he's over there,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: let's just see him. He's right there. Yeah, he's an
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: online registered minister. So I sort of have met Tony
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: a few times. He's a very nice guy. We were
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: we got way sidetracked here, Oh we did. We did
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: um And actually if we had O c D that
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: would not stand right man. That was good. Thanks, like
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Monk O c D. That's what we're talking about. Yeah,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: that's where Monk came from. So basically, um, let's let's
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: discuss o c D today, which stands for obsessive compulsive disorder.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: I think most people probably realize that, yeah, which seems
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: kind of foreign to me. I've not me. I I
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: can I can kind of identify with it, But I
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: mean the thought of actually being clinically diagnosed with o
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: c D and living the way that that people who
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: have O c D live, I just I can't imagine
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: it being bearable. I guess that's probably what I should
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: have said, you can identify. Well. I've often say I
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: have o c D just to my wife as a joke.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: But I do have a lot of really weird, quirky
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: compulsive habits. But after reading the article and doing a
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: little more research, I realize, unless it's an actual compulsion
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: that you have to do it over and over and over,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: then it's not actually o c D. It's just weird
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: quirky habits. Boy. Really yeah, wow, I never really told
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: people a lot of these. Um, I don't step on
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: stairs to have something on them. I uh, I will
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: try to avoid cracks on the sidewalk. But not only that,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: but if I step on a crack with my left foot,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: then I have to step on the next one with
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: my right foot. Wow, I know I might have a
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: c D. Actually, that's entirely possible. It sounds like though
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: it's it's not. Um, it hasn't taken It doesn't run
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: your life. Well, that's the difference I think O c
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: D would be if I stepped on the crack with
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: my left foot and then miss the next one. All right,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: but I have to go back and then do it
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: all over again and it it doesn't come down or
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: just chop both feet off and get it over. And
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: I don't always notice it either. It doesn't you know,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: sometimes I'll do it, sometimes I'll notice it, and sometimes
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: you don't. I got it makes me wonder, Um, you
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: know what the conditions are when you notice it? Like
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: what is going on in your life? But your what's
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: your brain going through? That? Interesting? Um? So let's give
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: a little background on O c D. Like Chuck said,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: it stands for obsessive compulsive disorder. Um. And uh, well,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: the obsessive part is um. It's it's talking about the
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: the mental state. People with O c D obsess over
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: very slight things that seemed gigantic to them, right For example,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: you think that your hands are dirty. That's a big one.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: That's an obsessive thought. Uh, and you can't get it
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: out of your head. The only way to UM to
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: get rid of it is through compulsive behaviors, say hand washing. Right,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: here's the problem for most of us. If we look
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: at our hands and go, oh, my hands dirty, I
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: need to wash it. You wash your hand and that's that.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: You know, you may not wash your hand again for
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: several days. Um with if you have O c D, uh,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: you wash your hand over and over, and that that
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: obsessive thought that your hands still dirty, uh is still there. Right,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: And from what I understand it may vary with some
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: some people with O c D, but it's not necessarily
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: that you get to the point where you actually think
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: your hands are clean. A lot of times will be
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: a specific number in your head, like I have to
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: wash my hands ten times, the magical number, right, yeah,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: the magic number, and then I can move on with
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: my life. And you'll see that more often with UM
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: P poole. Maybe locking and unlocking doors three times or
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: ten times every time, or opening and shutting or touching
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: a door knob or something like that, Right, David saderis
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: the comedian and author David SADERA and not comedian but
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: funny man David us he uh some of his books.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: He touches on some of his O C D. When
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: he was a kid, was really funny, licking light switches
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: and licking mailboxes and things like that. It's really good.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: I don't I didn't know that licking. There's a licking compulsion,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: well touching, and I guess he's just licking. Is just
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: touching with your tongue and get down to it. I'm
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: gonna have to try that line sometimes. So um okay,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: So that's the background on O c D. Um that
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: this the the obsession though they can generally be categorized
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: into four categories appropriately enough. Um, you've got germs which
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: would account for the hand washing, right, their symmetry, which
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: is keeping things in place, right, that's where mine figures
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: in a little bit order. Yeah, when I'm when I'm
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: cleaning the house and things, I can't just put the
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: remote control on the TV. I have to put it
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: at a certain in a certain spot. Yeah. Okay, Now
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: there's um doubt. This doubt is the one I think
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: I can most identify with. Apparently, if you have O
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: c D. This doubt is overwhelming, and you will keep
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: going back home, back home, back home, to check on
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: the espresso maker or whatever. I wrote an article in
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: the New York Times about UM O c D in restaurants.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Apparently it doesn't matter how your O c D manifest.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: A restaurant is a nightmarish, hellish place. Uh, there's just
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: so many problems if you if you're paying attention, you're
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: going to really flip out. Well, you got someone handling
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: your food first of all that, and you're eating with
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: utensils that are shared. I mean they're washed in theory,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: but shared utensils. Uh. You know the Jack Nicholson movie,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: as good as it gets, the restaurants seen in there,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: I think it's pretty indicative of what the hell you
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: could suffer through. Yeah. Well, the the author of the
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: New York Times article that read, he um he was
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: never certain that he had actually signed the check when
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: he's a credit card so he'd look again, see that
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: he'd signed it, and within seconds opened again and saw
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: that he signed it and opened it again. He would
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: drive himself crazy like and also he had what I
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: think is one of the more interesting um UM I guess.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Manifestations of O c D is reporting compulsion. I love
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: this thing. This is pretty cool. Basically, Um, if if
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: let's say you're seated at a table at a restaurant.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: This is the example of the New York Times guy uses,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: if you're seated at a table in a restaurant and
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: it's maybe a little loose, you're suddenly overcome by thoughts
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: of you know, either yourself or somebody else down the
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: line who will be seated at that table being crushed
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: by the weight of it when it falls over, and
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: you are overcome with the compulsion to tell somebody, um,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: the restaurant manager, a waiter or something. And the problem
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: is is they never really appropre appropriately react. So I
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: think if you feel that something's enough of a danger
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: that it must be reported, actions should be taken immediately.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: So the fact that the waiter doesn't immediately take that
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: chair and like from the rest yeah, or evacuate you
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: from the table or something like that, Yeah, it's kind
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: of gotta be a downer. And the other problem with
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: restaurants is that it's it's a very public forum. And
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: so if you have to like touch something several times
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: before you sit down, or you change tables several times
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: because they're not entirely stable. Um. People notice that kind
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: of thing, and all of a sudden, you're fairly embarrassing
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: disorders put on on display. Right. So I think for
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: that reason, a lot of times people find themselves trapped
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: in their homes and give a little bit of agoraphobia
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: going out. Apparently oh c D can very easily lead
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: to a gooraphobia and baldness. Yeah, this is awful from
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: from what chuck from pulling your hair? I mean, come on, like,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: what kind of an affliction is this? Right? This is awful, um,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: And it's all in your head. That's the worst part.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: And I think people with O c D realize even
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: before they are ever really treated, that this is all
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: in their head, right, Um, And that just has to
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: make it all the more all the worst, right. I know.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: There was a basketball player in the I guess it
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: was the eighties and nineties. His name was Chris Jackson.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember him. I remember him yet. Well.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: He played for L s U in college and I
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: can't remember we played pro. But he had O c
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: D and I think would tie his shoes, tie his
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: basketball shoes up over and over and over and liked
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: be late for practice and uh leaving the house. He
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: had problems leaving the house. And I'll have to look
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: into this. I just this just hit me actually, but
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: I believe it actually had something to do with the
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: early end of his basketball career. I may be wrong there,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: so well, well I'll look into that. Yeah, hopefully Jackson
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: still playing because that stuck. Well, he definitely not still
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: playing now, just because he'd be old, but like Dr
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: j Old, uh no, not Dr jail Magic Johnson old
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: little younger than maybe he still could be playing. Actually,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Latrelle's pretty well old. Yeah, okay, I've stumbled upon it.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: See that was the magical number three. There's one more
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: category that obsessions can be lumped into, and this is
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: kind of the darkest of them all. Um, disturbing thoughts yea.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: And these are thoughts that you can't get out of
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: your head, um, and that if they lead to compulsive behavior,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: it's probably going to be violent, like violent sexual thoughts. Um,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: you know, other acts of violence, um, maybe self inflicted
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: or on other people. And actually I found a study,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: a case report. Actually, uh, did you know that nymphamania
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: is often linked to O c D. Really, yeah, that
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: makes sense. Compulsive behavior. Um, there's this woman who's uh,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: whose case was in extremist though it's a two thousand
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: two UM case study. Uh. And there was a woman
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: who's twenty three and she was a daycare worker, but
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: she became unemployed because her sexual activity was she was
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: so prolific that, um, she couldn't hold the job down
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: she had sex too much. And uh, she's in the
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: wrong line of work. Well, yeah, okay, let's just settle down, chuck. Um.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: So this woman, actually, this is a self reported she
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: commonly had thirty She had sexual intercourse thirty times in
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: a twenty four hour period, several times a week. You
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: sent me this in an email. I didn't realize. I
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: thought it was just here's an interesting fact. But she
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: had O c D. Yeah, all right, I should I
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: be amazed at the thirty times. Can you imagine having
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: sex thirty times in twenty four hours in doing it
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: several times a week? No, I can't. So this woman
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: also had other compulsions as well, But um, that was
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: a it was a pretty a pretty interesting compulsive behavior.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: She was doing it to her own detriment. She derived
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: no sexual pleasure from having sex um and she reported
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: that you know, she was afraid of being abandoned by
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: by these people, which that's took over her life, for sure,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: it did, it did, and uh, happily enough, she went
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: under a cognitive behavioral therapy and is working it out,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: which is one of the treatments along with I believe
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: antidepressants is one of the things they can prescribe sometimes. Yeah,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: there is treatment. Take hope all ye who have O
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: c D and are just finding this out. Um, there
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: there is treatment for this disorder, and cognitive behavioral therapy
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: is the UM is the chief method of curing. You
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: want to tell them about the CBT, Well, yeah, I know.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: One of the methods they use in the CBT is
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: called exposure and response prevention and basically that's, uh, from
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: what I can gather, that's showing someone or putting someone
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: in front of their fear or in this case, or
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: obsession and just saying you can't do it. Yeah. Imagine
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: tying somebody to a chair, right, yeah, and then putting
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: like I don't know, a dirty towel on their hand
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: and not letting them wash it. Yeah, And basically you reinforce. Look,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: you're not dying, your hands not falling off, you're not
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: getting sick. And it doesn't just happen one, you know,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: it takes a series, but it's like breaking a wild horse,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: right and and again through therapy and often in conjunction
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: with any depressants. Uh, this, this disorder can be licked,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: not like David Sedaris like, yeah, not licking being a
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: form of touching the full circle. Yeah, nice one by accident.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, thanks for joining us. U This this
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: timeline stuff you should know and you can learn a
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: lot more about obsessive compulsive disorder by typing in those
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: three words or even O c D in our search
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: bar on how stuff works dot com. For more on
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: dot com. Let us know what you think. Send an
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: email to podcast at how stuff works dot com. Brought
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: are you