The president of the TOC 2.0 Association, Jordi Somalo, assured in an interview with Efe that as a result of the pandemic have detected an increase in cases of people with) caused by anxiety and general stress derived from the health crisis.
Jordi Somalo, who is also affected by this disorder, has reported that with the pandemic, which has led to an increase in one of the main triggers for this disease, stress, there has been an increase in cases of “contamination OCD” and also “sleeping TOCS have woken up again”. “Uncertainty, the loss of control over what is happening, stresses us out and makes us have more intrusive thoughts and ultimately makes the disorder worse,” Somalo said.
The TOC 2.0 Association is a non-profit entity established in 2013 with the aim of taking into account the social, family and health dimension OCD; and is made up of specialists in psychology and psychiatry, family members and people affected by Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and/or Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD). It is based in Barcelona and its ultimate goal is to help and improve the current situation of people who suffer from this disease, “little known and understood, even today”, Somalo has expressed.
OCD is a mental illness that affects approximately 3% of the population (one in 50 adults and one in 100 children) and is “among one of the twenty most disabling diseases worldwide.” According to Somalo, OCD is characterized by the presence of recurring and persistent thoughts, images or impulses that are “intrusive or inappropriate” and that are experienced with “anxiety or discomfort”.
Precisely, the “shame and social stigma What is created with all that mental illnesses are” causes the majority of those affected to take longer to seek help and go to a specialist, which causes clinically significant discomfort and a marked deterioration in the person’s general activity. “Since a person begins to have recurring thoughts until they seek help, an average of 7 years normally pass. All this is time that is wasting because with each passing year, the disorder becomes more entrenched,” Somalo warned.
The president of the association gives an example of his case as affected by OCD, he debuted at the age of 13 but it was not until he was 32 that he decided to turn to a specialist: “In all this time that has passed, you’re alone, you think you’re going crazy“. With the aim of preventing or reducing the anxiety generated by these thoughts, “the person carries out a series of behaviors or repetitive mental acts called compulsions or rituals.” “You categorize them and give them a score to find out which ones affect you the most and less, and you face them one by one. You force yourself to expose yourself,” said the president of the association.
Somalo clarifies that there is various typologies of OCD: contamination, accumulation, doubt, superstitious behavior, verification and, finally, order and symmetry. One of the most common and latent as a result of the covid-19 pandemic is contamination, due to the characteristics of the pandemic and the recommended disinfection measures.
Somalo explains that, with the health crisis, people with contamination OCD they are too obsessed with hand washing, for the fear that something negative will happen to their loved ones and they will be responsible. “The bad thing is that when you feed OCD, you don’t wash your hands once, but you wash them many times until your hands are cracked, bleeding and in poor condition,” he says.
Another of the consequences derived from the stress and anxiety that the pandemic has produced in the general population is that “usually an OCD debuts at approximately 12 or 13 years of age“However, “now we have also found 6 or 7-year-old children making their debut and their relatives do not know who to turn to”. That is why the association informs and guides those affected and families about the characteristics of this pathology and the treatment options because “the important thing is not to face it alone”.
According to Somalo, the reference hospitals for OCD in Catalonia are the Hospital Clínic in the case of children, and the Bellvitge hospital for adults. In turn, they also carry out a task of raising awareness and disseminating OCD to the general public opinion, with the aim of promoting acceptance, eliminating prejudices and stereotypes. And, among other activities, they also organize therapeutically oriented interviewsfree psycho-educational sessions and workshops for members, whose fee is €20 per year.