Compulsive shopping, as seen for example during Black Friday borrowed from the Americans, is in some cases to be classified as obsessive behavior, the famous OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder).
They can make you smile (a little guilty smile, it’s true), but they are to be taken seriously, because it is estimated that a million French people suffer in silence, sometimes in secret, from “OCD” – Troubles Obsessionnels Compulsive. And it becomes a real disease when it disrupts life… sometimes a lot!
TOC: Obsessive like Obsession, an idea that imposes itself on a person although he considers it absurd, ridiculous and struggles, in vain, to drive it out of his mind, this struggle being accompanied by strong anxiety. These obsessions can take different forms: inappropriate thoughts, the constant fear of having been defiled, the fear of committing an aggressive act, against one’s will.
The compulsion concerns the action and no longer the thought. Compulsions fight obsessions. Example: I’m afraid of being contaminated, so I wash constantly. Or I’m afraid I’ll miss the bargain, so I buy anything.
Obsessive AND compulsive
OCD in its simple form, each of us could believe to suffer from it. But we will only worry when they start to disrupt the smooth flow of life. We all have our little quirks. We are therefore all, to varying degrees, in our own way, a little “crazy” or at least a million French people. A huge figure, often ignored or even denied by medicine.
So of course, all the buyers of this Black Friday, although often compulsive, are not “nuts”! We can talk about OCD when these obsessions or manias become invasive, to the point of occupying you for more than an hour a day.
For example, falling asleep while checking your clock radio to the point of having to turn it on again, touch it, check a hundred times that the time is correct. Or this woman who has to wash her hands every 5 minutes, in an irrepressible way, or even not being able to leave her room without reciting a list of 200 words, always in the same order with the obligation, in case of error, to start again.
Moreover, it is the media, in particular television, which have brought this disease out of its anonymity, with spectacular testimonies. For example, this very popular disease on the Internet called Gilles de La Tourette…
Tourette’s Syndrome is a super OCD characterized by the inability to stop shouting words – often very rude – in public! We understand that this is particularly impossible to bear. But also very media-friendly… And frankly, no one, doctors or entourage, misses the diagnosis.
Simple OCDs can be treated with real chances of success
Talking about it to those around you and to your doctor is the first recipe. Of course, the help of the psychologist or the psychiatrist to help the change of behavior perfectly complements the action of the drugs. For Gilles de La Tourette syndrome, on the other hand, it is not simple.
The difference between a tic and an OCD
It’s a qualitative difference… OCD is the disease; on the other hand, tic is a little bad habit: for example “systematically playing” with a pen in meetings when you are bored. Or scratching your nose when you’re in trouble.
You could say that TOCs are full of tics…
Doctor Jean-Francois Lemoine
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