Untreated OCD Leads To Severe Complications

I Must Shave My Legs: The OCD Miniseries – Part 7

Now that you know more about available treatment and management options for obsessive-compulsive disorder, let’s talk a bit about what happens if you leave your OCD untreated and unmanaged.

It’s not a pretty picture, folks.

When ignored, OCD can:

• Make you feel like a prisoner. Your OCD may be germ-related, and if you don’t treat it leaving your house and entering the outside world – which is covered with germs – may feel impossible. Or, your OCD may be revolve around unsettling worries and harmful images, so you may isolate your loved ones to prevent those worries and images from becoming realities.
• Lead to alcohol or drug addiction. If you turn to substances to cope with your untreated OCD symptoms, you run the risk of becoming addicted to the substances. Not only does substance abuse not work, but it also adds another problem in your life.
• Physical health problems, such as irritated skin from frequently washing, bald spots from pulling your hair, weight gain or loss, heart problems, etc. Really, the list could go on and on.
• Lead to suicidal thoughts. Your OCD symptoms could become so bothersome and could cause so much stress that suicide may seem like the only relief. For the record, it is not. Suicide is always the wrong answer.

Honestly. Who has time and energy to deal with all these extra complications? If you have OCD, do you really want to have to deal with bald spots and drug addiction, too? No. Take the bull by the horns. Talk with a doctor, and once the two of you work out a treatment plan, stick with it.

Stay tuned, because tomorrow we’re wrapping up I Must Shave My Legs: The OCD Miniseries with a list of celebrities and other famous people who had/have obsessive-compulsive disorder. Don’t you just love digging around in other people’s brains?

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