Obsessive Compulsive Disorder- What are the "specifics" for a clinical diagnosis?

And are there different clinical levels- mild, severe? Or is OCD just a single category?

Know anyone who has this, and how does it affect your life?

I can look it up on wikipedia myself. NO cut and paste please.

My husband has OCD, and it manifests itself in various ways, and I've noticed the severity increases when he is pressured or stressed out or depressed. He tends to hold on to a ritual or to collect things or to be extremely rigid in his daily routine to the extent that a slight variation will make him crazy and make everyone's life hell. He realizes he has this problem, but he is less willing to deal with it when there is pressure to meet deadlines, a heavy workload or if one of our pets or relatives is sick or dying (this has happened all too often lately). I try to understand and work with him, but sometimes I have to stay away from him until the stress eases a bit.

Basically what I observe in him is an obsessive attention to time and punctuality (a typical German he calls himself, although only his distant ancestors hail from Germany). He has rituals that calm him, and he gets upset if time does not allow him to complete them. Unexpected phone calls and visitors throw things into REAL domestic disarray, as he treats them politely and then blows up in private afterwards when only he and I get to suffer it.

He collects things obsessively, and I cannot walk in my house or outbuilding for all the stuff we have (even though I make an effort to keep at least the daily chores done in the obstacle course.) Some of it we sell online, but he has MANY categories of things that he just gets for his own edification. I get to the point where I want to renounce all material things because I just get so tired of tripping over them!

Other OCD sufferers might show different symptoms, but always there is a repetitive manifestation, a compulsion to produce a kind of order by ritualizing behavior. I have heard that the best treatment for OCD has been cognitive-behavioral therapy, but the trick is getting the person to the point where he or she will accept therapy and can focus on the therapy even under stress. I imagine medicine helps with the outward manifestations by simply making the person so foggy that he or she can't focus on them, but I think that is just a lazy way to treat a complex illness that really requires hard work and ongoing attention to fix.

I'm sure there are levels of severity, as I observe different levels of manifestation even in one person, depending on the stressors present. It is hard to say if there is a genetic predisposition--his mother has it too in a slightly different form, but I attribute his OCD to be mainly the result of close upbringing by her and his learning her attitudes and coping strategies, as these are very similar in character.

i have worked with clients with ocd, and have friends with it. it's complicated...requires therapy and meds. go to www.nimh.nih.gov
or www.ocdfoundation.org
hope this was helpful.

A person can have a mild form of OCD. Sometimes a persons OCD can get in the way with their life, especially if they have an obsession with redoing things. Like if they didnt think they stepped right, or touched something right...they will redo and redo until it feels right to them.

Other OCDs like people obsessed with being clean, will wash ans wash their hands until they become red and raw and makes them very sensitive to the touch.

I have a couple of mild OCDs myself, but none that gets in the way of my life. I spell things in my finger, if I see a dead animal on the road I will make a cross on my steering wheel, and I pick at everything I eat---so I avoid sesame seeds.

The others dont really affect me in anyway, people usually just laugh at it. My boyfriend hates it when I pick my food though. We arent talking picking like a bird or anything, I mean--if something falls off a sandwich, crumb, ketchup, etc, I will pick it up and put it back or eat it. I am also like that with crumbs of anything.

i have OCD its not some terrible illness its just a little pesky annoiance, its usually just seems like a lot of pet peeves but its probably OCD because i have problems at work and at school because i can't use certain type of pencils and i need to crack my fingers everytime before i start typing and other dumb habits

Basically speaking, it will be the desire to do a certain thing repetitively over the course of the day, they will do that is referred to as a ritual over and over and over again and can't really stop. If they are forced to stop, they will feel extreme anxiety until they get to perform their rituals again. Sometimes the daily rituals can consume hours of daily time of the patient.

As with many other mental illnesses, there is going to be a range of mild to severe OCD.

I do not personally know anyone who has it, but I have heard stories of and seen videos of a person doing their OCD rituals. With coaching and therapy there is a possibility that it could go away.