Obsessions are unwelcome and distressing ideas, thoughts, images or impulses that repeatedly enter your mind. They may seem to occur against your will. They may be repugnant to you, you may recognize them as senseless, and they may not fit your personality or value system.

An example of an obsession is:

The recurrent thought you might be responsible for making a loved one ill because you weren’t careful enough about washing your hands.

The recurrent thought that you might have ran someone over with your car because you’re unsure if you checked your rear view mirror enough times after stopping at a stop sign.

The recurrent thought that you might go to hell because you forgot to confess a sin at church one time.

Compulsions, on the other hand, are behaviors or mental acts that you feel driven to perform although you may recognize them as senseless or excessive. At times, you may try to resist doing them but this may prove difficult. You may experience anxiety that does not diminish until the behavior or mental act is completed. Sometimes compulsions are also referred to as rituals.

An example of a compulsion is: the need to repeatedly check appliances, water faucets, and the lock on the front door before you can leave the house.

While most compulsions are observable behaviors, some are unobservable mental acts, such as silent checking or having to recite nonsense phrases to yourself each time you have a bad thought. These mental compulsions are different from obsessions, which are unwelcome and senseless ideas that enter your mind against your will.

Avoidance of feared situations is often used in addition to or in place of compulsions in order to prevent contact with triggers to OCD. An example would be not reading or listening to the news out of concern that some stories will spark obsessions.

Seeking reassurance is another form of a compulsion that often times is over looked because it can be seen as someone looking for validation. However, seeking reassurance that you didn’t hit someone with your car by calling your friend on face-time to check for you only temporarily reduces the anxiety because it doesn’t address the true obsessive fear.