I do actually have a very good understanding of this, since the age of 18 I have read just about every paper published on the subject within last 20 years. Of course there are degrees of severity but OCD is a condition that typically involves repeated intrusive thoughts that cause bad anxiety, overt compulsions and rumination - these symptoms must occupy a significant amount of the sufferers time and there must be a degree of social impairment for a diagnosis of OCD to be made. This is what OCD is, it is not a few obsessive traits.
I do not deny there are degrees of severity but if you go to a psychiatrist in the NHS with a few obsessions he/she will tell you that you have obsessive traits, you will not walk away with a diagnosis of OCD. The public and media have completely mis-portayed this illness to the extent that people do not comprehend it. If you start staring at children and thinking that you find them attractive and spend all day thinking you are a paedophile then you will qualify for a diagnosis of OCD.
I am not being pugnacious and I am only arguing respectfully and maturely, but if this forum is to offer support to people with OCD then it has to be clear what OCD is.
