Obsessive-compulsive disorder (also known as OCD) is a problem related to anxiety and is marked by unmanageable and useless thinking coupled with recurring and formulaic actions that the patient feels coerced to carry out. People who are having OCD are likely to be aware of the fact that they compulsive thinking as well as actions are extremely illogical, but still they would have a feeling that they cannot resist such thoughts and behaviors and get away from them.
Similar to a needle clinging on an antique record, OCD also results in the brain to get fixated on a specific thought or impulse. For instance, people with obsessive-compulsive disorder are likely to examine the stove for as many as 20 times just to ensure that it has been actually turned off; they may also wash their hands till they are scrubbed to the extent that they become painful; or drive their car in the same location for several hours just to ensure that the knock they heard during driving was actually not a person they thought they might have run over.
Such fixations are basically instinctive, on the face of it irrepressible thinking, visuals or urges happening time and again in the patient’s mind. Although the patients do not wish for these thoughts, they are unable to stop them either. It is really unfortunate that often such obsessive thoughts are upsetting as well as confusing.