OCD 'can be debilitating'

(I-Newswire) August 24, 2009 - Lives have been ruined by obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), yet it is a condition which is misunderstood and often mocked, according to one specialist.

OCD-UK, a charity which specialises in supporting people with the condition, said that some health insurance customers with the condition find that they have often been subject to discrimination at work.

A spokesman for the organisation stated that the average person may not realising how disabling and debilitating it can be for the twenty five per cent of adults who suffer from it in some way.

"What I do think is that people with OCD do face [a form of] discrimination in the fact that most of the general public still perceive OCD to be a 'quirky illness'," she explained.

Often, medical health insurance customers with the condition are told to "pull themselves together" by uninformed or insensitive people, the representative stated.

"The common perception of OCD is that it's a bit of hand washing and a bit of checking. When someone is stood at the sink washing their hands for three or four hours at a time until they are red and bleeding it really is a little bit more than hand washing," she elaborated.

According to the expert, the "torturous mental rituals" which people with OCD often endure each day could be made easier by people tolerating their behaviour and attempting to show empathy and understanding to lessen the emotional effect on the sufferer.

After US researchers recently conducted studies which give support to a possible link between a suspected form of paediatric OCD and an inappropriate response to common throat bacteria, the spokesperson said it may give hope to the thousand of sufferers whose symptoms range from mild to very severe.

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