To be honest, this is something I always felt too scared to write.
There are so many stereotypes surrounding OCD that finding any valuable information is frustrating. Last year I was diagnosed with late-onset OCD. Sometimes I feel like it came on my 19th birthday like a gift-wrapped pair of socks. Something you don't really want but you're too polite to say, "No thank you."
I don't think I've ever had a rougher time accepting something. Because when almost everyone uses it as a synonym for "perfectionist" and you hear "Yeah I'm just a little OCD I like having things symmetrical" that's so...incredibly harmful.
It's as if OCD has become some light-hearted illness to so many, yet for others, it's so so real.
You see, late-onset OCD is usually comorbid with other mental illnesses. I also have depression and generalized anxiety disorder and they all invited themselves to the party of my life but yet again I'm too polite to say "you weren't invited." I let them wreck the house, crash the party, and eat all the snacks because I'm too scared to tell them no.
My OCD isn't the big stereotype of needing symmetry.
My OCD brings the panic and anxiety of everything being contaminated with germs and sickness. It's that when I get nervous I put on multiple layers of hand sanitizer to feel safe, and wiping everything I own down with disinfectant wipes at least once a week. This isn't as simple as being a perfectionist, or preferring symmetry, or liking things to be clean.
This illness is so complex it moved out of the category of anxiety disorders and is its own whole category now.
OCD affects everyone that has it differently.
There's a poet with OCD and his name is Neil Hillborn, I'm sure you've heard his poem "OCD" (if you haven't you should listen to it now). Though I love him, this poem, and how this started a conversation about OCD, I personally don't think it started the right one. It started some messed up kind of romanticizing of it. At the end of the poem, he talks about not doing his compulsions for someone and everyone in the crowd let out an "awww" like it was the sweetest thing. But it isn't. Compulsions are involuntary measures people with OCD take to feel safe. And it's so much harder to feel safe when your mental illness becomes a lighthearted joke to others.
So next time you think of joking about having OCD, don't.
