What involves thoughts while you learn the phrases obsessive compulsive disorder? For a lot of, the phrase seemingly conjures up a picture of an individual obsessively organizing their house or compulsively counting out their actions. OCD can definitely manifest in these methods, however the dysfunction is much more complex than tv and movie portrayals would lead you to imagine.
The Mayo Clinic defines OCD as “a sample of undesirable ideas and fears (obsessions) that lead you to do repetitive behaviors (compulsions).” Typically, individuals’s obsessions focus on sure themes, equivalent to cleanliness, contact with germs or dirt, sexual or spiritual fixations, or harming your self or others. These obsessions and compulsions can differ in severity. In additional extreme circumstances, they could intervene with an individual’s means to perform usually, inflicting disgrace and misery.
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OCD impacts about 2.5 million U.S. adults, or 1.2 % of the nation’s inhabitants. The common age of onset is nineteen, though about one-third of adults who’ve OCD first skilled signs in childhood.
Scientists haven’t pinpointed a definitive reason for OCD. Based on Johns Hopkins Medicine, an individual’s genetics, mind abnormalities, and surroundings are all thought to play a task. For some pediatric sufferers, OCD signs start after an acute strep an infection. This phenomenon is named PANDAS, or Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Dysfunction Related to Streptococcal Infections.
Though some individuals mistakenly consult with conserving their house tidy as “being OCD,” this mental health condition isn’t any laughing matter and shouldn’t be stigmatized in that manner. OCD isn’t simply being clear; it’s a severe dysfunction that sometimes requires therapy or psychiatric medication to deal with.
With correct therapy, it’s completely potential to reside a standard life with OCD. That’s why a rising variety of celebrities who’ve this situation have chosen to talk publicly about the way it impacts their life. Since OCD is usually minimized in informal dialog and depicted in a singular manner in popular culture, individuals may not even understand they’ve it.
Maintain studying to study extra about 9 celebrities who’ve opened up about their expertise with OCD, together with David Beckham, Lena Dunham, and Charlize Theron.
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Amanda Seyfried
Picture Credit score: Kristin Callahan/Everett Assortment Amanda Seyfried has been open about her OCD for years, and beforehand informed Attract, by way of People, about all of it.
“I’m on Lexapro, and I’ll by no means get off of it. I’ve been on it since I used to be 19, so 11 years. I’m on the bottom dose. I don’t see the purpose of getting off of it. Whether or not it’s placebo or not, I don’t wish to threat it. And what are you combating towards? Simply the stigma of utilizing a device?”
She added, “A psychological sickness is a factor that folks forged in a distinct class [from other illnesses], however I don’t assume it’s. It ought to be taken as critically as the rest. You don’t see the psychological sickness: It’s not a mass; it’s not a cyst. Nevertheless it’s there. Why do it is advisable show it? For those who can deal with it, you deal with it.”
Then, in 2025, she informed the Wall Street Journal about how shifting out of LA and right into a farm helped quell her OCD.
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Ellen DeGeneres
Ellen DeGeneres revealed throughout her Netflix comedy particular For Your Approval that she was recognized with osteoporosis, OCD and ADHD.
“I used to be in remedy for some time making an attempt to cope with all of the hatred that was coming at me. And you realize, it was not a typical scenario for a therapist to cope with,” she mentioned by way of New York Post. “I could have OCD as a result of a therapist mentioned so and I mentioned, ‘Sure I’m very organized,’ as a result of I assumed that was the O. I didn’t know what OCD was.”
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David Beckham
Picture Credit score: Getty Pictures Former footballer David Beckham has been a longtime advocate for OCD consciousness.
He first opened up about his struggles with compulsive cleansing in 2006, telling ITV, “I’ve bought this obsessive compulsive dysfunction the place I’ve to have every little thing in a straight line or every little thing needs to be in pairs. I’ll put my Pepsi cans within the fridge and if there’s one too many then I’ll put it in one other cabinet someplace … every little thing needs to be good.”
As The Guardian reported, Beckham may also tackle his OCD in a forthcoming Netflix documentary about his life. The outlet just lately shared a quote from the doc wherein Beckham described ready till “everybody’s in mattress” to scrub his home each evening.
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Charlize Theron
Picture Credit score: Getty Pictures Charlize Theron has spoken publicly about her struggles with OCD for greater than a decade. In 2009, the South African actress told Contactmusic she has a “major problem” and may’t perform if her house isn’t clear. “I actually, actually lie in mattress and [am] not in a position to sleep as a result of I believe, ‘I noticed one thing in that cupboard that simply shouldn’t be there,’” she mentioned.
“it’s an actual illness, and tens of millions of individuals really undergo from this, it’s an obsessive compulsive dysfunction,” the Mad Max: Fury Street star continued. “I don’t do counting or any of that stuff, however I’ve an actual factor about chaos.”
Theron has additionally opened up about managing her OCD signs as a mom of two younger kids. Talking to speak present host Ellen DeGeneres in 2017, the actress confessed that glitter is one among her triggers as a result of it will get in every single place. Though she doesn’t purchase it, she nonetheless finds it throughout her house.
Though her children’ messes can set off her OCD, Theron mentioned she continues to “work on it.”
“I’ve gotten just a little bit higher,” she added. “My children undoubtedly helped me be much less anxious about a number of that stuff.
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Leonardo DiCaprio
Picture Credit score: Getty Pictures Leonardo DiCaprio first opened up about his struggles with OCD after starring in The Aviator, a 2004 biopic about pilot Howard Hughes, who suffers from the identical dysfunction.
DiCaprio’s compulsions originated as a toddler. “My factor was not stepping on cracks, or not stepping on sure issues,” the Oscar-winning actor shared, per DigitalSpy.
His signs really reemerged whereas filming The Aviator. “Typically it took me ten minutes to get to the set as a result of I’d be pacing forwards and backwards, stepping on gum stains,” he mentioned. With follow managing these compulsions, DiCaprio was in a position to get again on observe.
“I’m in a position to say sooner or later, ‘Okay, you’re being ridiculous, cease stepping on each gum stain you see. You don’t want to do this. You don’t have to stroll 20 toes again and put your foot on that factor. Nothing dangerous goes to occur,’” he added.
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Lena Dunham
Picture Credit score: Getty Pictures for Pleasant Home Lena Dunham has struggled with OCD for many of her life. She started experiencing obsessions and intense fears at simply 8 years outdated.
“The record of issues that preserve me up at evening consists of however will not be restricted to: appendicitis, typhoid, leprosy, unclean meat, meals I haven’t seen emerge from their packaging, meals my mom hasn’t tasted first in order that if we die we die collectively, homeless individuals, complications, rape, kidnapping, milk, the subway, sleep,” she wrote in a 2014 essay for The New Yorker.
Dunham famously pulled from her personal experiences for a memorable storyline involving OCD in her HBO collection Ladies. Hannah Horvath, Dunham’s character, was additionally recognized with OCD in childhood. Her signs reemerge in maturity after she experiences a irritating breakup and lands a guide deal.
In a 2017 video PSA for the Baby Thoughts Institute, Dunham shared some poignant recommendation for her youthful self: “I’d inform my youthful self to squeeze my canine tightly and to learn a guide and to meditate and breathe. And to know that I’m not alone, that there are such a lot of different children like me who’re struggling this manner, and the best factor I can do for them and myself is to be sincere.”
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Howie Mandel
Picture Credit score: Getty Pictures Howie Mandel has additionally struggled with OCD since childhood. His major obsessions are cleanliness and phone with germs.
“I used to be all the time extremely obsessive about germs and cleansing and taking bathe after bathe after bathe,” the America’s Bought Expertise choose told Everyday Health in 2010. “Even once I was very younger, I wouldn’t tie my shoelaces as a result of that they had touched the bottom. I had steady repetitive ideas that I couldn’t get previous. As a toddler, my thoughts was quite a bit busier than I used to be.”
The COVID-19 pandemic was particularly triggering for Mandel. Speaking to PEOPLE in 2021, he described managing his OCD signs throughout quarantine as “an absolute hell.” He has additionally skilled despair.
That’s why Mandel has made it his “life’s mission” to destigmatize psychological sickness. “I’m damaged. However that is my actuality,” he informed the journal. “I do know there’s going to be darkness once more — and I cherish each second of sunshine.”
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Allison Raskin
Picture Credit score: Rob Kim Author, podcaster, and Buzzfeed video alum Allison Raskin has made a profession out of advocating for psychological well being consciousness. She, too, has had OCD since childhood. Her case is a transparent occasion of PANDAS, as her signs started all of the sudden after she contracted strep throat when she was 4 years outdated.
Raskin has skilled intrusive ideas and compulsions round every little thing from contamination to dropping her associate. In her guide Overthinking About You: Navigating Romantic Relationships When You Have Nervousness, OCD and/or Despair, she bought actual about how her OCD signs have impacted her courting life.
“I’ve been responsible of each ‘loopy woman’ stereotype on the market,” she recalled. “I’ve referred to as an excessive amount of. I’ve texted an excessive amount of. I’ve stayed up all evening crying, praying my boyfriend wasn’t going to dump me within the morning. … I’ve obsessively nervous that I’d be alone ceaselessly. And this near-debilitating concern permeated all facets of my life and severely impacted my total happiness and wellbeing.”
Years of remedy, treatment, cognitive restructuring, and elevating her vanity have helped ease Raskin’s signs.
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Megan Fox
Picture Credit score: Getty Pictures for Sports activities Illustra In a 2010 interview with Allure, Megan Fox bought actual about how OCD impacts her day by day life. The actress has an intense concern of germs that interferes along with her means to eat and prepare dinner for herself. Fox additionally experiences compulsions around cleanliness, which trigger her to scrub her palms excessively.
“It is a illness, I’ve an sickness — this isn’t OK anymore,” she informed the journal.
Remedy has helped Fox get her extreme hand-washing underneath management. Nonetheless, the Jennifer’s Physique star nonetheless struggles with obsessive ideas.
“Individuals can’t think about what the wrestle is admittedly like, when you may’t let go of a thought or a phrase,” she added. “All day and each day. And I can have interaction in a dialog with somebody and seem to be I’m current, and the entire time I’m in my very own head enthusiastic about one thing else, worrying about one thing else.”
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Justin Timberlake
Picture Credit score: Getty Pictures In an interview with Collider from 2008, Justin Timberlake mentioned he has OCD. On high of that, the pop singer additionally lives with attention deficit disorder (ADD), which impairs his means to focus.
“I’ve OCD blended with ADD,” Timberlake informed the outlet. “You strive dwelling with that. It’s sophisticated.”
Consideration deficit/hyperactivity dysfunction (ADHD), an offshot of ADD, is surprisingly frequent in individuals who have OCD. Analysis suggests that ADHD and OCD stem from irregular exercise in the identical neural circuit of the mind.
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Shannon Purser
Picture Credit score: Getty Pictures for The 24 Hour Pla Stranger Issues alum Shannon Purser spoke out about her OCD journey in a 2018 essay for Teen Vogue. The actress recalled fighting a debilitating “concern of dishonesty” as a teen that brought on her to obsess over her social interactions with others.
“I grew to become obsessive about the concept I used to be being insincere,” she shared. “I might now not say easy issues like ‘I’m sorry’ as a result of, I assumed, what if I wasn’t actually sorry? That might make me a liar. And being a liar was incorrect. I used to be compelled to attempt to discover any technique to rephrase my sentences so I might really feel at peace, however a number of instances, I couldn’t. So I simply determined to not speak.”
Purser didn’t even understand she had a treatable dysfunction till she stumbled upon an article about OCD. She talked to her mother about it and eventually sought assist for her signs.
“With a mixture of remedy and medicine, I bought higher. I realized to like life once more,” she shared. “My issues didn’t go away, however they grew to become a lot simpler to face.”
