Is being “so OCD” keeping you from being productive at work?

Do you struggle to meet deadlines at work because you’re afraid that you’ll say the wrong thing or have to keep rechecking your work? Or maybe you have trouble leaving your house because you have worries or rituals that consume hours of your time each morning? Ever experienced trouble driving to work because you keep questioning whether you hit something in the road? You check and check to see if you did, despite finding no evidence….

These are some of the ways that OCD can manifest in people’s lives and impact their work. And you might never attribute such to OCD. Due to misunderstanding of the disorder, many people with OCD still go undiagnosed and untreated.  Here’s what you need to know.

What is OCD?

Research indicates that nearly everyone has experienced intrusive thoughts or urges at some point. However, having OCD means that someone experiences obsessions and/or compulsions that significantly impede their functioning or distress them, or take up more than an hour a day.

Obsessions include thoughts, images, and urges that are upsetting, unwanted, and can cause anxiety. Compulsions include mental acts such as reviewing things repetitively in the mind or repetitive physical behaviors that are excessive or do not make rational sense, often done to relieve the obsessions or anxiety.

Tormenting thoughts and rituals

OCD manifests in diverse ways. Someone might worry about blaspheming against God, be preoccupied with feelings that something is not right, worry about hurting their children, question whether they really love their partner, perceive certain objects as contaminated, and more.

These thoughts that torment them may be what they fear the most. People with OCD can mistake certain thoughts as meaningful, and may count, check, avoid, and ask for reassurance in response. For instance, someone could spend hours mentally checking that they have what they perceive as the right feelings for their partner. A business executive might spend time mentally checking that they did not misspeak at a meeting; physical compulsions could involve rereading documents for hours. The content of people’s obsessions seem to vary by culture and time period. (For example, read this.)

People in the past had obsessional fears about health concerns of the time, such as the plague. For people with OCD, it can feel as if the disorder comes in episodes of struggle, while for others their OCD feels as if it is a constant companion. People with OCD can go for years unsure of what is happening to them, as many people with the disorder recognize their thoughts/behaviors are irrational or do not reflect who they are and their sense of values. There are treatments available but not a surefire cure.

You probably hear people — from newscasters to your friends — joke about being “so OCD.” Behind that person’s comments might be someone who does not really have the disorder. OCD is commonly trivialized as being humorous and not that serious. Yet someone joking about having OCD could also be someone attempting to hide their difficulties behind a smile or other explanation (like saying they are always late to work because they can’t find their keys in the morning versus that they drove in circles checking to see if they ran over something). The former is a more common explanation substituted to fit the context. 

Hiding in Plain Sight

As a sociologist who studies issues of health and well-being, I have interviewed over 50 people with OCD. They sometimes hide the OCD from others, including what I refer to as hiding in plain sight by trying to explain away observable behaviors as something other than OCD or making a joke. They might reveal they have OCD but rely on innocuous public stereotypes of people with OCD being a little extra concerned about dust bunnies and organization. I call this stereotypical revealing.

The social aspects of having OCD are understudied but as time goes on, we are learning more about how OCD can impair people’s social functioning and work lives. There are cases where people told me that their compulsions made them appear more functional at work, such as when employers appreciated their excessive checking. Many people with OCD have successful careers. However, overall OCD is associated with labor-market marginalization, including risk of unemployment and long-term sickness absence, as well as increased risk of suicide. (For instance, see this and this.)

Socially, people with OCD navigate a particularly tangled web of daily interactions, as they may fear stigma as well as trivialization. Even people who experience obsessions and compulsions at a level below the threshold to be diagnosed can experience negative health outcomes such as worse functioning in the workplace. (Example here.)

Here are a few tips for those who experience obsessions and compulsions as they head out into the workforce.

• If you’re shy, teletherapy is available for OCD, and apps like NOCD can help you access treatment as well as keep up with your treatment goals in your daily life. Researchers are continuing to work with people with the disorder to develop apps. If you have OCD and want to see professional help, try to consult an expert in OCD as some therapies can exacerbate OCD. Also be wary of apps that trivialize OCD.
• Seek employers that support mental health, especially those who support wellness programs for all employees.
• Consider whether a job that involves telecommuting or that is flexible in some other way (like work hours) will improve your productivity. 
• Know you’re not alone. OCD affects millions of people worldwide. People without OCD can experience unwanted intrusive thoughts. And in the current pandemic, society may be providing fertile soil for obsessions and compulsions to grow. If you want to know more about OCD and the experiences of those I interviewed, see my forthcoming book, The World of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: The Experiences of Living with OCD published by NYU Press due out January 2022.

Dana Fennell is professor of sociology at The University of Southern Mississippi.