I’ve written about Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) several times in my blog regarding its basic symptoms and how it could affect women. But I’ve never touched on what could happen to any person, whether it’s a woman or not when they start experiencing this condition along with another condition. One disorder that bears some similarities to ADHD is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or OCD.
Some people with ADHD have also experienced some OCD symptoms. What happens to a person’s mental state when they start experiencing both of these conditions? Here are some things you need to know when ADHD and OCD start to coexist.
What is OCD?
OCD is a serious anxiety disorder characterized by intrusive thoughts and repetitive behavioral actions. If left unchecked, this mental health condition could impact your daily life. OCD could fall into four categories. These include hoarding, checking, contamination, and intrusive thoughts.
A person who has OCD usually has high levels of anxiety, frightening obsessions, and time-consuming compulsions. Statistically, this lifelong debilitating disorder affects both men and women equally. If this condition alone could wreak havoc on a person’s mental state, just imagine what it’s like when combined with the ADHD condition.
What ADHD looks like with a Person with OCD
From what I’ve read in an article from ADDitude magazine, a couple of the four categories mentioned earlier do look different when a person has both ADHD and OCD. Hoarding does look differently with ADHD compared to having OCD alone. People with ADHD usually hold on to items for later usage, while people with OCD are motivated by the idea of not ridding themselves of old stuff. Clutter tends to aggravate the symptoms of a person with ADHD, while people with OCD aren’t as bothered by it.
Body-focused repetitive behaviors are a little different as well. The function of these behavioral actions in ADHD people is mainly to provide stimulation and arousal. For individuals with ADHD and OCD, these behaviors can be appealing and provide some stress relief.
Treatment Methods for ADHD and OCD
Some of the most common ways to treating ADHD and OCD are behavioral therapy and psychopharmacology. Psychopharmacology involves a combined pharmacotherapy treatment plan of both SSRIs and stimulants to treat both disorders. These stimulants are meant to increase attention and focus, but they can lead an individual with another type of OCD to focus more on obsessive thought.
Another form of treatment is behavioral therapy. This is also known as Exposure Plus Response Prevention and it is the first line of treatment for OCD. During these therapy sessions, the patient is coached into being exposed to the obsessive thoughts that create anxiety.
There is still a lot we have to learn about different mental disorders. But when two of these disorders start to exist in one person, this could be a real hard thing to tackle. If you know someone who may be dealing with symptoms of both ADHD and OCD, feel free to share this in the comments section below. As always, feel free to like or share this post with someone you know and love.
