About Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Repeating in OCD

A common manifestation of OCD is repeating obsessions, or doing the same thing over and over again. For example, re-reading the same passage in a book again and again. One might read a page, and then worry that a sentence was missed, so the person with OCD goes back and re-reads at page, just to make sure nothing was overlooked. It could be that the OCD sufferer is studying a textbook for a test, and then worries an important passage was overlooked. Like other forms of OCD, people with repeating obsessions know that their fear is most likely not the case, but they will ruminate and then justify that since the test is important, the person thinks, "I will look again just in case." And next thing you know, there has been repeated checking, which then happens on every paragraph and page as the repeating behavior is reinforced. This also happens for re-writing, where excessive amounts of correcting is done.

Common Repeating in OCD

• Re-reading the same passage in a book repeatedly
• Re-writing (including excessive correcting of writing)
• Repeat routine activities (e.g., going in/out door, getting up/down from chair)
• Saying the same thing over and over

Repeating may be done to assuage a fear. Someone may repeat something they were saying to the themselves over and over because they were are worried it didn't come out correctly. They may repeat themselves to a person they were speaking to, worried that they did not understand. So, the fear of being misunderstood in this case is the obsession, and the repeating is the compulsion.

OCD obsessions do not always have to be a specific fear however (although this is usually the case). Sometimes an action simply doesn't feel "right," and can be repeated to relieve this tension. So, someone may get up and down from a chair over and over simply because it does not feel good. Other examples include repeating routine activities such as going in and out of the door, or going up and down the stairs because it just didn't feel right.

Repeating Words Example

One teenage client with OCD had a strong urge to repeat certain words out loud over and over again. For example, on Sunday, the word was "elemental" and she went up to people at church and kept repeating elemental. She says, "It won't get out of my head until I repeat it out loud many times and it finally fades away." She reports that she has experienced this fixation and need to repeat words before, but it is frustrating her more now and irritating her friends and family. She also feels a need to perform tasks in series of fours and likes to write words four times (such as her name). She feels drained when school is over because she has been trying to suppress the need to say these fixated words out loud all day, and it gets mentally exhausing.

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