OCD: Notes From Opq

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a cycle of unwanted intrusive thoughts and the acts a person feels driven to perform to relieve them, taking up more than an hour a day or causing real distress.

Also called: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Obsessive compulsive disorder.

ICD-10 F42 · ICD-11 6B20

Personal reflections, not clinical guidance, and not a substitute for any of it. Just what I keep thinking about while building this.

September 2026

On "I am so OCD"

Every condition on this site has a word problem. OCD may have the worst one. Its name has turned into an adjective for neat.

So the introduction opens on doubt instead of order. And the first figure on the page is 94%. Almost everyone has the thoughts. That is where understanding starts.

The sixth contested opening

Serotonin appears twice now, for depression and for OCD. It is the same simple story told twice. It fits OCD even less well. High doses, twelve weeks, and half of people helped.

A device you are not meant to press

Every other treatment tab asks you to do something. Drag, commit, step, hold, switch. This one puts the brightest button on the screen in front of you and asks you to leave it alone.

Pressing it is allowed, and it works for a moment. That is the most honest thing a device can show you about a compulsion.

The lock that blurs

Of all the specimens, the padlock is the one I trust most. The outline of what is true never moves. The memory of it falls apart with every check. The whole trap is in one picture.