hi! i saw your old post about OCD where you said "The main thing behind OCD is not being about to turn off a thought" in reference to benign thought loops not necessarily accompanied by a conscious compulsion. What you said definitely rings true to me, though it differs from my previous understanding of OCD. I was wondering if you can recommend any sources citing this specific phenomenon?
Sure! So, the important thing to note about my explanation is that OCD is actually often accompanied by compulsions. My explanation of it in that post was deemphasizing compulsions so that I could bring more attention to the cause and effect of it all. Because of that, it's not a fully comprehensive explanation.
I do think there isn't enough focus on the obsessions, leading to OCD being mischaracterized and in some cases, undiagnosed or unnoticed. My reblog was pushing back against that.
The Mayo Clinic does a pretty good explanation of the process; I'll add a link at the bottom. They also make a point of bringing up obsessions or compulsions that occur on their own.
I would also like to bring up a couple points that don't occur to people very often.
First, that the obsessive thoughts are the causing factor. They are distressing, intrusive, and the driving force behind OCD. Compulsions happen to make thoughts stop.
Second, that the compulsions that result can sometimes be internal. For instance, when I was young and I thought something "wrong" like a line of dialogue that I couldn't stop thinking about, I would repeatedly imagine an X over it. That is a compulsion, but it's not a visible one, and for a long time, I didn't think of it as a compulsion at all.
