Has Covid made it worse for people with OCD?

Sunset of 13 March, 2020

 April 07, 2024

Name: Adiba Hasan

ID: 24136039

Section: 41

People often confuse neatness with OCD, assuming that just because they like things in a particular way they have ‘OCD’. The frankness regarding this has reached a height where having OCD is the like the new norm. Maybe this is the reason why it’s not considered a serious mental disorder anymore. I've seen a lot of people around me, going around saying that “Oh! I don't like that because I have OCD”. 

OCD can be of many types. One of them are particularly aware of the germs that surrounds us. We are constantly surrounded by hundreds and thousands of germs, we even have microorganisms inside our body. But people with OCD are already aware of this information but still constantly think about this fact and it drives a compulsion out of them, that they can’t help but scramble to their compulsions. It comes from the fear of contamination and the awareness of the germs surrounding them.

When Covid 19 graced us, those with this disorder found it hard to accept the changes. While the whole world was aware and frustrated, it was particularly hard for a person with OCD to cope with the fact that they are surrounded by a virus that could potentially kill them or their loved ones. And one of the major setbacks for those people who have OCD is that, after a certain point it gets hard for them to get out of their head. Biologically, they have a very low level of serotonin, a hormone that's responsible for the feeling of happiness.

 When this pandemic hit us, all of us were in lockdown and there were some people who were blessed to have their income coming in without having to go out. But there were people who had to go out. Sometimes I wonder how they must've felt when it became too much for them. Personally, I know people who have lost their loved ones to this deadly virus. I've seen their grief and pain. But here's the thing about that kind of death, they constantly thought that if they could have been more careful, it wouldn't have happened. There are still so many people with this disorder who still cannot get out of that phase of life, they're still stuck in 2020, unable to get their daily life back. This has scarred them in ways that still hurts them.  

I hate the fact that it's so generalized, like if you meet 10 people in a day 5 of them will say something like this. But it's actually a really wrong notion to pass down, because if it continues like this then people who actually do have it, will get overshadowed.