Lives shaped by obsessive-compulsive disorder

Obsessive-compulsive disorder is one of the most misunderstood conditions in everyday language. People call themselves “so OCD” for loving a tidy desk, but the clinical reality is far heavier.

OCD affects an estimated 1 to 3 percent of people worldwide and involves two linked parts, obsessions, which are intrusive, unwanted thoughts, images, or urges, and compulsions, which are repetitive behaviors or mental acts meant to ease the distress those obsessions cause.

According to the DSM-5, the symptoms are diagnosable when they consume more than an hour a day or disrupt daily life. The disorder often begins in adolescence or early adulthood, yet many people wait years for a correct diagnosis. The gold-standard treatment is exposure and response prevention (ERP), a form of cognitive behavioral therapy, sometimes combined with SSRI medication.

The names of interviewees have been changed to protect their privacy.

When OCD led to addiction

Daniel, 29, saw his first signs through small superstitions. “I had to touch the doorframe three times or something terrible would happen to my family,” he recalled. “That’s magical thinking, linking a ritual to an outcome it can’t possibly affect.”

Years later, an online casino gave those rituals a new home. “Every bet felt like a test. If I picked the right number, the dread eased. If I lost, the anxiety spiked, so I had to bet again to fix it,” he told The Beiruter. “I walked into therapy for gambling, thinking it was a money problem. The psychologist asked about my childhood habits, and I described the doorframe, the counting, the ‘just right’ feeling I chased constantly.”

The screening revealed OCD underneath. Gambling disorder and OCD often co-occur, though they are distinct conditions, one is driven by reward-seeking and impulsivity, the other by anxiety relief. Daniel’s clinicians called his case a comorbidity. “Hearing that word was strange but freeing. It meant I wasn’t just weak or reckless. Two things were feeding each other.” He now practices ERP, resisting urges without acting on them. “I sit with the discomfort now instead of paying it off at a slot machine.”

The girl told to stop

Maya, 22, remembers high school as a daily performance of hiding. “I washed my hands until they cracked and bled,” she told The Beiruter. “I tapped my desk in sequences and counted silently, because if I skipped a number, I was convinced someone would get hurt.”

Classmates noticed. “They imitated my tapping in the hallway and called me a freak. I started eating lunch in a bathroom stall.” The adults who should have intervened often made things worse. “One teacher thought I was seeking attention. She told me, in front of everyone, to quit being dramatic and focus. Another marked me down for leaving class to wash my hands.”

Maya also asked constantly for reassurance, a common compulsion, checking again and again that nothing bad had happened. “Teachers got irritated. Nobody asked why I needed it.” A school counselor finally connected the dots during her final year. “She was the first person to use the word OCD. I cried because someone had finally named it.” Maya now volunteers with a mental health group. “Teachers need training. A child who looks defiant might be terrified.”

Fifty-nine years of feeling different

Margaret, 61, spent most of her life believing she was simply anxious. “I checked the stove ten, fifteen times before leaving the house,” she remembered. “I was afraid of harming someone by accident, of a thought I couldn’t control. I called it being a worrier.”

Her rituals were often invisible. “Mental compulsions, like replaying conversations, praying certain phrases in my head, mentally undoing ‘bad’ thoughts. Nobody sees those, so nobody suspects.” Raising children, working, and hiding it all became exhausting. “I always sensed something was off, but my generation didn’t discuss mental health. You coped in silence.”

The turning point arrived when my friend’s granddaughter received an OCD diagnosis. “Her symptoms sounded exactly like mine. I felt like she was describing my entire life.” My daughter then forced me into therapy. At 59, a psychiatrist confirmed it. “I felt grief first, for all the lost time, then relief. There was a reason.”

Late diagnosis is common, particularly among women and older adults, whose symptoms are frequently mistaken for generalized anxiety or personality quirks. Margaret now attends therapy regularly. “It’s never too late to understand yourself,” she told The Beiruter.

OCD is not a quirk or a preference for neatness. It is a treatable condition that thrives in confusion and shrinks with understanding.