“Oh she is too careful of her things, she is well arranged” – are certain comments we often hear many parents saying about their children. One such child was a 19 year old girl who was just ‘too’ particular about things.
She is a girl who needs her room to be kept as she has, nobody touches a thing. She is known in her college as a ‘sanitizer girl’ because she always without fail has a sanitizer in her bag and uses it every half n hour. She avoids travelling in public transport. This is the story of her being outside her home but what about when she is home?
She keeps her books piled in the corner of her table, her pens placed correct in the pen stand, her bed is always well set. She cleans her room twice a day. This wasn’t only about hygiene, she would check her bag four times before leaving for college. She would see to it that all the fans and light are switched off before leaving the room. Isn’t this perfect and just ideal? A hygienic well organized girl – that’s what their parents thought about her. Until last two weeks.
One day she came to her room and was feared by a rat that had entered her room. She was terrified. She screamed over the top of her voice and the rat ran out of the window. She immediately threw all her books, all her belongings away. He started cleaning the room aggressively. This petrified her parents. They then started observing her behaviour closely.
Last week she came back from her college only to check if the drawer of her table was shut. After many such strange incidents, her parents realised she behaved similarly in college which subjected her to bullying. They understood that it was more than being careful about things.
The seriousness of the situation was now realised and she was taken to a clinic for diagnosis. There is was – this was not just her everyday behaviour but a medical condition known as the obsessive compulsive disorder.
It is a condition in which people become obsessed with things. They cannot stop thinking about those things. This may also lead to fatigue and disturbances in everyday life. Repetitive behaviour, anxiety, guilt, agitation are some more symptoms of OCD. This can be heredity, or biological or by observation – like in the case of this girl, a pigeon had once died and fell on her book in school. This triggered her OCD.
Diagnosis and proper treatment is extremely necessary for curing OCD. Do not let your vigilance take shape of obsession!