First off, some OCD-ers have Tourette's, but the majority don't. However, it's virtually impossible to have Tourette's and not have OCD, or at least some obsessive-compulsive traits. The two are very closely linked as you mentioned, as they both have origins in the part of the brain called the basal ganglia, responsible for motor coordination/movement, and filtering of sensory information. Anyway, bless you for bringing up
Monk and for being one of the few people on here who is as fed up with the colloquial use of the term "obsessive-compulsive" as I am! I watched
Monk one time, when I practically knew I had OCD, but hadn't yet been officially diagnosed with it, and I smiled a few times, but that was only because it was about OCD, and I wanted to have something to connect to. It turns me off, too. It just reinforces stereotypes about how OCD is all about hand washing, germphobia, and wanting to have everything neat. What kills me is that everyone thinks OCD is about hand-washing or checking, leaving pure obsessionals like me, who have few, if any, overt compulsions, to be left undiagnosed (as I was) and not suspect OCD...
I, too, hate hearing people say, "Oh, I'm so OCD! I always, like, need to brush my teeth before I, like, comb my hair!"
They don't understand it at all... Even movies are the same thing. What REALLY aggravates me is that
As Good As It Gets is touted as "the OCD movie," and it was just about stereotypical hand-washing, yet it won an Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Actor (Jack Nicholson). The character of Melvin doesn't even have OCD- he most likely has OCPD because everything has to be his way or the highway. Real OCD-ers would never be outwardly mean to people, unless they were disrupted during a compulsion. We're too busy worrying about hurting someone's feelings.
The Aviator, however, was a breathtaking, poignant, realistic view of OCD. I still can't get over that Leo***** DiCaprio didn't win the Oscar for it. Yes, I'm biased in a way because I love Leo, and think he's incredibly hott,
but his performance makes me cry. If you haven't seen it, you absolutely must. I don't understand how he mimicked little, seemingly insignificant nuances that reveal so much about the disorder, things that I didn't even realize I do. There's one particular scene when he's pretty much incapacitated by the OCD, where he slumps into a fetal position and begins blinking back tears... and obsessions. I almost always wince in the same way when an obsession strikes. Other things, too: the rocking back-and-forth while covering his mouth during a panic attack, the frozen, deer-in-the-headlights expression when an obsession hits, the wringing of the hands to stop the anxiety- brilliant. It may sound like I'm trying to be funny, but if you want a humorous look at OCD that also shows the fear it causes, watch the cartoon
Ed, Edd n Eddy, one of my all-time favorite shows. The character of Double D is someone I can relate to very much since he's a verbose, obsessive-compulsive science nerd. There's one scene in a back-to-school episode where all the kids on the cul-de-sac are scrambling to get school supplies, and they run in Double D's house, ravage his perfectly executed closet of supplies, and leave him with nothing but a highlighter. We then see Double D slumped on the floor, trying to compose himself, before beginning to spew worries, "How am I going to write notes with just a highlighter? My grade point average will plummet..." etc, etc. It's very real. Half the time when I watch an episode where there's a good focus on Double D's OCD, it's like looking in a mirror. In the same episode, when Double D finds out that he's not in the same homeroom as Ed and Eddy, he begins to panic and searches for a form to fill out to switch homerooms with other students. The funny thing is that I did the same thing this past semester so I could get my same chemistry professor. The themes of safety and sameness prevail. It makes me upset, too, that few people believe me when I say I have OCD, and I believe it's for two reasons: I'm a pure obsessional, so they don't see the hand-washing or checking, and more importantly, they think that I'm kidding due to the cavalier way people use the term today. It's very sad, and it undermines our condition, a condition that can be pure hell to deal with...
-GatsbyLuvr1920-
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