30 False Facts People Believe In That Peeps In This Online Group Are Tired Of Explaining

In order to gain more perspective about common misconceptions people have, Bored Panda reached out to one of the commenters, toast_sweat7. Toast’s bone to pick is with people who laughingly say “I’m so OCD,” whenever they straighten something out or wipe down dust, because obsessive compulsive disorder isn't fun to have. 

I was kidding about the bone picking, by the way, what toast_sweat7 is more interested in is breaking stereotypes and spreading correct information about OCD.

Toast says that they hear stereotypes in common conversations. It’s not uncommon for a random conversation to follow the lines of: “I have to keep X organized because of my OCD,” with toast running across these conversations once a month, sometimes more often.

“When I tell people I have OCD, I don't get as many stereotypes as I first did,” toast says. People associate them with germaphobia, and they may not be very far off, as they are particular about public restrooms, anything that looks like blood, and so on.

While their coworkers stick up for them if they think something may be bothering toast, they aren’t sure the colleagues understand they react only to certain triggers: “it's not full-fledged germaphobia and it has some OCD form of 'logic' behind it.”

Toast doesn't really bother with correcting people in everyday conversation about it because they’re not up for the discussion. They also don’t want to assume or disregard others’ experience in case they do have some form of OCD, but they don’t think that’s the case typically.

“I used to comment on stupid social media quizzes about 'How OCD are you?' that have nothing to do with OCD,” toast mentions.

Now they focus on educating people through social media, sharing articles from sources like the International OCD Foundation (IOCDF). They also participate in the organization's walking fundraiser and they may not get a lot of donors, but they feel they get more views talking about what real OCD looks like. Toast even wrote a little book about OCD stereotypes with a friend and self-published it through Kindle direct publishing.

Toast would like for people to know a lot more about OCD: “I'd like readers to know that OCD is mental torture. We have an intrusive thought and latch onto it. If I had this horrible thought, it must make me a horrible person, right? No, but OCD says yes.”

There are a lot of different obsessions and compulsions, and they’re typically not logical. OCD sufferers generally know that, but the miniscule chance of 'X is true' or 'Y will happen and it will be my fault' overrides everything else.

Toast would also adopt other people’s symptoms if they read about them. At this point, toast has been exposed to so much information, takes medication, and has been in therapy, so they aren’t as worried about that anymore. Yet OCD attempts to find new ways to present itself - it’s a sneaky and creative disorder.

“You might not be able to immediately tell someone is engaging in an OCD compulsion. Some are mental compulsions that can be invisible, or maybe the person won't seem entirely present in the conversation,” toast provides. They may be repeating or mouthing phrases that are compulsions for soothing their anxiety, which is only temporary.

Others engage in behaviors that the average person associates with OCD, for example, washing hands until they’re raw and bleeding. 

What people don’t see is other, more detailed reasoning: "I have to wash my hands because I touched that binder from science class that touched the table that had people's hands and pencils on it, people/pencils who were in the same lab with me growing E. coli, they might not have washed their hands well and I don't want to get myself/my family/my friends/my dog sick."