It is human nature to enjoy things and have specific passions. Music, car models, history facts, geographical locations: you name it, someone will or has had a particular liking for it. There is nothing wrong with enjoying things, but at what point do these passions become obsessions?
It is common for people to become obsessed over something they enjoy, but at times it can become detrimental. Particularly with sufferers of OCD, or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, it can be difficult to know where to draw the line, or how to navigate what has already become an obsession. Here, we're going to look into some effects of obsessions, including:
What is passion? What is obsession?
What is OCD?
What is the difference between obsession and OCD obsession?
What are some possible coping mechanisms for handling an obsession?
Enjoyment vs. Obsession
Before looking into the symptoms, we must first learn what the difference is between enjoying
something and obsessing over it. Dr. Theo Tsaousides introduces the ideas "harmonious passion" and "obsessive passion" in a Psychology Today article.
Harmonious passion is something that you enjoy and are in complete control of. This is an activity or media that you engage in that brings you fulfillment and happiness, one that you can start and stop at any time. You can freely engage with this activity, even by doing extra research or spending more time on it, but you are ultimately in control of how you engage with it.
Obsessive passion is when the thing you once enjoyed takes control of your life. The object of enjoyment is almost like an addiction, making you crave the feeling of engaging with it. You can become frustrated when you can not engage with it, and as a result start prioritizing that thing over important tasks or appointments.
A professor at the Universite´ du Que´bec a` Montre´al, Robert. J. Vallerand, goes a little more in depth with these ideas in a study on obsessive and harmonious passion. He adds that obsessive passion is when a normal passion crosses the line from being an internalization into a part of one's identity.
A difference also lies in the ability to handle when something becomes more of a negative enjoyment. When something starts to be less enjoyable, someone with a harmonious passion can take time aside from the activity, and manage the time they do spend on it in healthy doses as their passion fluctuates. Someone with an obsessive passion would instead be at a 100% capacity with the activity at all times, unable to stop when the activity does not bring the same level of enjoyment.
An Experiment in Passion and Video Games
One study on passion focused specifically on the passion towards video games. Published by the American Psychological Association, the researchers acknowledged video games' healthy impact on many people, and looked into the effects of video games becoming harmful to the player. They used a few scales to determine the psychological outcomes on the 170 player test group: satisfaction with life, vitality, psychological distress, and addiction. In the end they found that obsessive passion was associated with psychological distress and addiction, and "negatively associated" with vitality. Interestingly, harmonious passion was associated to positively with addiction.
In the end, the researchers concluded that the "need satisfaction" from video games was the strongest predictor for what kind of passion would be expressed. Harmonious passion developed the most positive outcomes, and a detrimental passion of video games was observed when the participant did anything other than game. They were encouraged to broaden their interests to lessen the obsessive importance of video games in their life, and also so they would be able to enjoy video games more wholesomely.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: What is it?
As seen in the study, passions (both harmonious and obsessive) impact all people. With sufferers of OCD, however, these passions may show themselves a bit differently. But before looking into that, we must first understand what OCD is.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, often shortened to OCD, is defined by the International OCD Foundation as a disorder that can affect anyone, and occurs when a person gets stuck in a cycle of obsessions and compulsions. These obsessions are intrusive thoughts - unwanted images, urges, thoughts, that bring about distressing emotions - that occur frequently and randomly, with compulsions being the actions an individual takes to get rid of the distress.
Obsessive thought cycles can usually last hours if not days, and are very exhausting for the person experiencing them. An example of an obsessive thought is having the thought that bugs will crawl into your ears when you are asleep, and the compulsion would be to always wear headphones, even during a short nap. These obsessive compulsive cycles are intrusive to everyday life, which is what classifies the disorder.
What's the Difference?
Though some people can become overly obsessed with things (like binging a TV show instead of doing homework), it is often with OCD that the line becomes crossed. While someone may be, to use the same example, obsessed with a TV show, they can usually get back to homework at some point, even if it is a little difficult to muster up the will at times.
A more intense obsession may be watching a TV show and feel the need to finish an entire season or even series before they can do anything else. Homework goes unfinished, and someone might not even be able to stop for food or water as they are so enveloped in the obsession. Going about their day becomes extremely difficult, as the only thought repeating through their mind is the need to get back to watching the TV show.
OCD obsessions are not limited to things they enjoy, but especially things they would never think or believe otherwise. Intrusive thoughts happen to everyone, but in OCD those thoughts loop and stay for as long as an hour to a few days, and cause intense emotional turmoil. An example of an obsessive intrusive thought would be the sudden fear that you would hurt your pet. You know you would never do that, and the OCD sufferer knows this as well for themselves. But even knowing this, the thought repeats mercilessly throughout the day, and the compulsion may be to stay away from the pet until the thought goes away, leaving the person drained and frustrated.
While obsessions can get out of control for people without OCD, it is much more common for sufferers of the disorder to experience these upsetting obsessive symptoms. There are a few coping strategies, though, both for people with the disorder and someone struggling to separate themselves from an obsession.
Tips to "Un-Obsess"
Particularly with sufferers of OCD, there are many methods of coping with an intrusive thought cycle:
Never seeking reassurance is a difficult but important step, as reassurance is a compulsion, and not engaging with compulsions is in the end helpful to stopping destructive cycles.
Agreeing with intrusive thoughts is helpful to take away the fear power of the thoughts, as well as show how fake the problems actually are.
Don't try to not think about the thoughts, that will only fuel the fire. Instead, embracing them and the anxiety they bring is a step closer to overcoming them.
Don't worry about being a perfectionist or see things in only black-and-white. Having an intrusive "bad thought" does not make someone bad, just like having "good thoughts" doesn't make someone good.
On the last note, do not worry if you make a misstep or seem to go backwards in your progress. Recovery is not linear, and it is okay to go back as long as you try to go forward.
As for dealing with obsessions in a not-OCD way, there are a few tips for handling those as well:
Broaden your horizons. If an obsession is causing you to focus on one thing, trying to take a short break or even trying new things entirely is beneficial to preventing burnout.
Taking a break altogether from the obsession could be beneficial to enjoying it more when you get back to it, and again gives the opportunity to try different things and maybe even gain a new interest.
Engage with the obsession responsibly. Make sure the obsession does not interfere with everyday life or activities, and when you notice that happening, take a step back.
Overall, it is very common to enjoy things a little too much. There is nothing wrong with it, and it can often be remedied with some enacting of self control. OCD is also debilitating but ultimately different from enjoying something too much (in most cases), so it is important to do research and get advice from medical professionals. In the end people do things that make them happy, and as long as there is satisfaction and support being received, it is wonderful to have these passions.
I appreciate your tip about perfectionism. In my life, I tend to be a perfectionist and I get caught up in the littlest mishaps so this is something that I've actively worked towards getting better at. Additionally, in general, I really like how you talked about embracing obsessive thoughts and brought awareness of different ways to grapple with them.
I think embracing and identifying compulsive thoughts, whether in OCD or otherwise, is an important part of the self awareness needed for control. I can’t say I’ve ever had OCD, but when it comes to things I think too often about, I focus on the thought and address it, naturally realizing that my concern wasn’t that serious, or that the thing I’m obsessed with isn’t that important for my happiness and comfort in the moment.
Anyway, I enjoyed reading this article. Great work!
Hello Yvette, thank you for sharing this post. As someone with OCD. I didn’t know there were different types, thank you for explaining the difference. And the tips to unobsess were also very useful.
I feel like your blog really highlights the importance of embracing compulsive thoughts instead of demonizing them. Everyone has impulsive thoughts, but OCD makes them a constant thing that effects all aspects of your life and having to constantly run away from them is extremely detrimental. It's so much work that you constantly have to keep up and it leaves you convinced that there's something wrong with you when there really isn't.
"Reassurance is a compulsion" = mind blown. I knew there were non-OCD contexts where seeking reassurance could be detrimental because it's not as lasting as learning how to self-regulate or self-soothe. But reading your post, worded this way and referring specifically to compulsions, it's a framing I never thought of but it's really useful.