March 14th, 2012
Tonight, the tradition continues.
No, not midnight’s official calendar transition from summer to fall. Rather, it’s the second-season premiere of Fox’s hit musical-comedy Glee – which continues prime-time TV’s long-standing custom of having a key character’s obsessive-compulsive disorder played for laughs. Just like Seinfeld’s Jerry Seinfeld, Frasier’s Niles Crane and Monk’s Detective Adrian Monk before her, Glee’s high school guidance counselor Emma Pillsbury takes issues of hygiene and cleanliness to absurd extremes. As all avid “Gleeks” know, Emma has been bedeviled by mysophobia (fear of germs and dirt) since childhood, when her brother pushed her into a runoff lagoon at… READ MORE ›
March 12th, 2012
The drive to eat is necessary for all living creatures- without it they would perish. For most people, eating is as natural as breathing. Unfortunately, this is not the case for many people with OCD or related problems. If you or someone you are concerned about is experiencing difficulties in this area, here are some basics: Obsessions, compulsions, doubting, perfectionism, and other challenging features of OCD can drastically affect the process of eating. For example, there may be fears involving magically being harmed or harming another person if a certain food is selected or not eaten in a specified manner.… READ MORE ›
July 11th, 2011
People with OCD find it unusually hard to rest or relax. So little time: so many worries. Having to clean, check, arrange, or save things keeps them very, very busy. Even when they look like they aren’t doing anything, they often are. They might be making mental lists, reviewing conversations for mistakes, planning out their next activity in exacting detail, or engaging in another kind of mental ritual. Ask someone with OCD to try sitting still. Almost immediately, they will report that their bodies feel like moving in some way. It could be clenching or unclenching their hands, pushing their… READ MORE ›
