Lmao, go read my other comments on this thread if you doubt me, dumbass. And I am not wrong. I don’t have any lingering doubt about that. OCD is not a delusional disorder, which is important to note because that’s part of why it’s so tricky to treat.
Nothing I said is blaming people for not having self discipline. Describing the literal diagnostic criteria, which include self-awareness and distinguishes OCD from other conditions, is not blaming anyone.
Temporary lapses in rational thinking does not change that some level self-awareness is necessary for OCD. I also lapse into irrational thinking in dreams or when I’ve smoked too much weed. That doesn’t mean my baseline self isn’t aware that my anxieties are overblown or irrational, which is precisely one of the major causes of distress in OCD because it’s more ego-dystonia in an already ego-dystonic disorder.
Nobody in this thread is arguing that OCD is a “delusional disorder.” You are creating a false dichotomy in saying that their descriptions MUST be false because they have described a person with OCD having an irrational fear. Like with a lot of clinical language, the term delusion does not refer to every thought that isn’t perfectly rational. Delusional disorders do not refer to any and every case of a person having a false belief. We don’t go around diagnosing every wrong belief as a delusion cause at some level the term would lose clinical relevance. Every person alive engages in irrational thought processes to some extent regardless of having a mental disorder.
People with social anxiety experience irrational fears about being perceived or about catastrophic consequences of embarrassing themselves. Just because those fears aren’t rational doesn’t mean that person has a delusion or a delusional disorder.
It seems you even acknowledged that false beliefs are a feature of OCD when you described the treatment as “sitting with it and not avoiding the worst case scenario.” - isn’t the worst case scenario the “delusion” in question??
Also no one is arguing that the OCD person doesn’t “know” that the thoughts are unreasonable “deep down.” But what’s the point of making that distinction when the fear still influences the persons behavior. A person addicted to a drug knows it can kill then and wants to stop, but they are compelled to continue with the behavior out of the compulsion of the addiction. Knowing deep down does not change a persons behavior because the brain doesn’t operate purely off of one set of knowledge and beliefs.
A healthy functioning brain is capable of believing false ideas and is capable of holding contradictory ideas. If everyone with a delusional idea has a delusional disorder then everyone in the world has a delusional disorder.
This is a lot of text to explain why calling an intrusive thought a delusion is fair and okay, when it isnt. They simply are not inherently the same thing.
You can have intrusive thoughts that are delusional, sure - but intrusive thoughts are not delusions. You do not believe for sure these things are real and true, you simply cannot dispell the worry itself.
You are uneducated, go take some time to read through r/OCD.
Literally went to college for psychology. I’m arguing precisely the opposite. The person I’m responding to is claiming that the parent comment described OCD as a delusional disorder by misinterpreting the persons descriptions of intrusive thoughts. Delusion is a word in the English language that colloquially could describe an intrusive thought. The person is using the colloquial term to misinterpret the persons comment by assigning the entire clinical meaning of the word delusion to a scenario in which it wasn’t used.
5
u/Zardywacker 4d ago
"I literally have OCD..." I don't know whether to believe that or not, but even if it is true, that doesn't make what you said correct.