Relational OCD: symptoms, causes, and treatment

OCD is a pathology that is within the classification of anxiety disorders and that can lead to great disability in people's lives.

When talking about OCD, the most common thing is to think of those sick subjects of order, cleanliness, contamination... But really OCD can be on any subject, and one not so well known is Relational OCD. Would you like to meet him?

• Related article: "Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD): what is it and how does it manifest?"

What is relational OCD?

Relational OCD focuses in the relationships that the person maintains with other individuals as children, parents, partner (love OCD), strangers... even towards oneself. Very distressing obsessions are generated regarding the target person of the ruminations, being able to reach breaking the ties that bind them to avoid discomfort, and repeating the pattern in relationships similar.

Such thoughts can be very painful, and begins a real investigation into feelings towards the person, looking for the why, coming to doubt them and struggling to avoid them without success (the more you want to ignore a thought, the more it appears) making them unintentionally the most frequent topic of day to day and generating discomfort that can incapacitate those who suffer from it due to distraction and anxiety that it produces.

We will illustrate it with an example. A father stressed by the beginning of raising his son involuntarily creates an image in which he appears throwing him out the window. Thought is seen as something horrible, unacceptable, which happens to be analyzed over and over again until it comes to conclusions like: I have thought that because I do not love my son, I am a psychopath and I should not raise him because I will hurt.

Actually this person loves his child and would never hurt him, but when the chain starts and it becomes common in the head of the person, it seems impossible to stop and above all, it gives it truthfulness that creates a very accused.

Symptoms

The sequence of thoughts that we have seen in the previous example is very common in OCD, since it tends to magnify the importance of the mind creates an image or a specific idea causing the person to go crazy looking for reasons before something that is not really responsable.

Adding guilt, rumination, search for inexhaustible reasoning, binary thinking, search for perfection and the non-acceptance of mistakes (all typical characteristics of people who suffer from OCD), a new world in which there are thoughts such as being a horrible person for having had that image, being guilty for having thoughts of certain nature, inability to accept that he has not been responsible for said mental process and that it has no real repercussions, and a long etc.

This makes the person a victim of his mind and an executioner of actions you start to take to prevent, check and search for a logic. One of those checks can be to look for and compare yourself with other people who share similarities as if the other party were the perfection in which you see yourself reflected.

• You may be interested: "Types of Anxiety Disorders and their characteristics"

Causes

It is a vicious cycle difficult to break that normally sits on very rigid and strict cognitive patterns in which stepping outside that limit "is something horrible and unacceptable of which you are guilty." The need to have everything under strict control means that the thoughts that are supposed to be "bad" have been caused by the person “since he has everything under control and should be able to control what his head creates".

The anxiety generated can manifest as panic attacks at the thought or rumination of this or as a final response of the body when enduring very high levels of discomfort. On the other hand, the blaming component is shared by depressive disorder, which can make OCD co-morbid to anxiety disorder, depressive disorder, or both.

Treatment

If you know someone with this type of OCD or think you may have it, don't panic: OCD is treatable in all its manifestations, the most effective way being the combination of psychotropic drugs with cognitive behavioral therapy. Pharmacological treatment must be dictated by a psychiatrist, which, depending on the symptoms, will recommend a specific type of medication.

No OCD is the same for different people and people are not the same in response, so we should not take the medicines of an acquaintance with the same disorder. On the other hand, going to a psychologist to perform cognitive behavioral therapy will help to recognize the reason for the obsessive ideas and to work to feel better.

But beware! There are people who, when they see an improvement, leave therapy. Let us bear in mind that relational OCD is like all OCDs: they go through good and bad phases, and it is best to follow up with your therapist and psychiatrist, even if you feel better. And even more so, if we take into account that relational OCD normally occurs with close people, so it is easy for there to be relapses due to multiple relational causes, due to phenomena such as atmospheric pressure changes due to seasonal changes, or due to periods stressful.

It is common for the person to keep those thoughts for months and even years without communicating them to anyone out of shame, fear... even thinking that In reality, he does not suffer from an emotional pathology and the thoughts are accurate (the average to receive specialized help is usually two years half).

But the reality is that when sufferers speak with mental health professionals, with their family and people involved, a foothold is found that may be essential for treatment and Recovery. Like other recommendations, sport is essential, as well as maintaining good communication, eating well and having a good rest.

Bibliographic references:

• Ferrali J. C. (1996). Obsessions and the art of the clinic. Developments in Argentine Psychiatry. Apsa.
• Kinney, J. M. (1995). Comprehension of affect in children with pervasive developmental disorders: Specific deficits in perceptual matching tasks. Washington DC: Human Neuropsychology Laboratory, American University.