Do you ever catch yourself checking to see if you turned off the oven—multiple times? Or do you have to do or keep everything in even numbers? Many of us have superstitions or specific ways that we do things, but how do you know if it’s really obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)?

In a previous blog, we discussed the various categories of OCD that people suffering from this disorder may fall into. Today, we’ll discuss how OCD is diagnosed.

OCD causes repeated, unwanted thoughts in the minds of its sufferers. To get rid of these thoughts, those dealing with OCD often repeat tasks again and again. To determine whether you or a loved one may have obsessive compulsive disorder, you should schedule an appointment with a licensed psychiatrist. This trained professional will use a standardized set of questions to methodically determine where your behavior falls in the spectrum of the disorder. The questions they’ll ask will be about your thoughts, feelings, and behavior. They’ll want to know when you first began noticing what you consider to be symptoms, how severe those are, and how they’re affecting your day-to-day life. Additionally, your doctor may want to perform a physical exam, and possibly even run some lab tests.

To be diagnosed with OCD, not only must you have obsessions and compulsions, but these must be unreasonable. Furthermore, they must significantly interfere with your daily routine. In other words, checking to see if you turned the oven off is not OCD. Checking it dozens of times, continuing to obsess about it even hours later, and even leaving work to go home to make sure may indicate you have a problem.

OCD is often difficult to diagnose accurately because it can manifest symptoms similar to other mental health illnesses like depression, generalized anxiety disorder and schizophrenia.

For more information about obsessive compulsive disorder and how to get a diagnosis, contact Solace Counseling. If you or your loved one has OCD, we can help you take control of it.