There is more to OCD than keeping a clean home or having rituals. Some individuals may continuously check their front door to make sure it’s locked; others may have constant worries about not fitting in driving them into an anxious loop. Because OCD runs off of fear, there are almost endless possibilities to the ways it can ruin someone’s life if left untreated.

1. Checking

Someone with OCD may feel compelled to regularly check things like if the front door is locked, if the stove is off, or if they have an alarm set for something. They can check it five times and still have that anxiety that something is wrong and continue to check it.

They may obsess over a document they need to turn in for work and constantly read through it making sure there are no mistakes. They may reread e-mails over and over to make sure they sound competent or get their point across. This isn’t just due diligence; this is a compulsion that can take hours out of someone’s day. It can be embarrassing trying to walk out of a store and constantly looking around you for ten minutes making sure you didn’t drop anything.

2. Contamination

Someone with OCD may have a fear of contracting an illness or disease from bacteria that is on the surface of something. They can have this belief that a small amount of bacteria like a urine drop can contaminate an entire room making them compelled to give it a deep cleaning. They can feel dirty after touching a doorknob, newspaper, or computer because they fear the germs that exist in this world. These fears can leave them spending hours a day cleaning themselves and their surroundings.

3. Hoarding

Being a hoarder with OCD is more than just having a junk room filled with old stuff. This type of OCD can take over someone’s entire living space, getting in the way of day to day life. They collect newspapers, plastic bags, and even feces to an unhealthy degree. They may be unable to throw away an item because they may need it someday. They may have grown sentimentally attached to an object, making it impossible to part with. They may also hold on to glass, razor blades, or human waste thinking they are protecting people from it. They will collect and collect until their home is stuffed to the brim becoming a health hazard as well as a fire hazard.

4. Intrusive Thoughts

Intrusive thoughts are unwelcomed thoughts that turn into obsessions. Someone with OCD can obsess over their sexual orientation, need for approval, or have a constant need for perfection. These intrusive thoughts can also be fears of harming someone, that their thoughts influence the world around them, or that certain places are too dangerous to go to. People with intrusive thoughts can also be extremely sensitive to bodily functions like swallowing or blinking, having a difficult time focusing on anything but what their body is doing.

CBD can help

Fear and anxiety run OCD. This makes CBD oil an excellent treatment option for the symptoms. Someone with OCD has an overactive fear response, causing them to have anxiety for long periods of time until they complete a task like washing their hands or locking the door. Because of CBD’s interaction with the endocannabinoid system, it can help calm down those fears and anxieties.

CBD elevates a chemical called anandamide. Anandamide is an endocannabinoid that your body organically synthesizes. This endocannabinoid binds to the cannabinoid receptor CB1 which mediates brain and nervous system functions. Through a process called retrograde signaling, anandamide travels to the cannabinoid receptor and transmits a signal telling the neuron to send more information or less depending on activity. For those suffering from anxiety disorders like OCD, hemp oil helps calm the brain down making the irrational fears less prominent.