Cry For Help ?

This section is philosophical in nature, and might not necessarily help you recover. But you may find it interesting

A very simple definition of mental illness is where a person gets irrational thoughts on a regular basis, that cause negative emotions. OCD fits in with this definition perfectly

However, mental illness implies that the part of us that produces those thoughts (i.e. the subconscious mind) is malfunctioning. But I argue that it is not malfunctioning. I explain the reason for this below

With mental illness, you would expect random thoughts and feelings. But, with OCD, everything is deliberate. That is, the subconscious first tries one OCD thought, and if that doesn’t work, it generates more OCD thoughts. If that doesn’t work then it could change the person’s beliefs. If that doesn’t work, then it could produce psychosomatic symptoms or get the person to associate an OCD thought with an object or area.

The subconscious is acting intelligently given the circumstances it finds itself in.

For almost every sufferer, they only get OCD if something is wrong in their body, like trauma, biological exhaustion, or genetics

Therefore, OCD could be considered a cry for help from the body (via the subconscious mind)

So, is OCD a mental illness or actually a cry for help?

I would argue overall it’s a cry for help. But that understanding doesn’t help you reduce the anxiety in the short run. It only helps in the long run, because it gets you to look at the root cause of OCD

Another advantage of it being a cry for help is that it means your mind is not broken.

The next section looks at whether OCD is part of a wider trend - please click the below button