OCD and Depression: What’s The Link?

Anxiety and depression difference: People with a generalized Anxiety disorder (GAD) display excessive Anxiety or worry, most days for at least 6 months, about many things such as personal health, work, social interactions, and everyday routine life circumstances. Fear and Anxiety can cause significant problems in areas of their life, such as social interactions, school, and work. 

• Bipolar disorder: is different from Depression, but it is included in this list because someone with bipolar disorder experiences episodes of extremely low moods that meet the criteria for major Depression (called “Bipolar Depression”). But a person with bipolar disorder also experiences extreme high – euphoric or irritable – moods called “mania” or a less severe form called “hypomania.”
• Postpartum Depression: is much more serious than the “baby blues” (relatively mild depressive and anxiety symptoms that typically clear within two weeks after delivery) that many women experience after giving birth. Women with postpartum Depression experience full-blown major Depression during pregnancy or after delivery (postpartum depression). The feelings of extreme sadness, anxiety, and exhaustion that accompany postpartum depression may make it difficult for these new mothers to complete daily care activities for themselves and/or their babies.
• Seasonal affective disorder: is characterized by the onset of Depression during the winter months, when there is less natural sunlight. This Depression generally lifts during spring and summer. Winter Depression, typically accompanied by social withdrawal, increased sleep, and weight gain, predictably returns every year in seasonal affective disorder.
• SAD Seasonal Depression (Depressed SAD): A form of depression known as seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is triggered by the changing of the seasons; it starts and ends about at the same periods each year. If you have SAD like the majority of people do, your symptoms begin in the fall and last through the winter, draining your energy and making you cranky. Typically, these symptoms go away in the spring and summer. SAD less frequently results in depression in the spring or early summer and clears up in the fall or winter.
  SAD treatment options include medications, psychotherapy, and light therapy (phototherapy).

Depression and Anxiety Statistics

It’s critical to understand the distinction between anxiety and depression. Anxiety, in its most basic form, is an excessive feeling of worry, whereas depression, in its most basic form, is an excessive feeling of worthlessness and hopelessness. It is conceivable for someone to experience depression and anxiety simultaneously.

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Can OCD Cause Depression?

Does OCD cause depression? The short answer is yes. Because depression often begins after OCD symptoms develop, researchers think the difficulties of living with OCD can lead to depression symptoms.

Depression can develop because of the following:

• The nature of your compulsive thoughts
• Difficulties caused by compulsive actions
• The problems OCD causes in your life and relationships

OCD Depression: Obsessions and depression

Can OCD lead to depression? OCD causes unwelcome, distressing, and recurrent thoughts. Many people experience shock, fear, and eventually depression just from the nature of their thoughts. Here is an illustration of how that sequence might function. A new parent may experience unwelcome, abrupt thoughts of hurting the child. These kinds of intrusive thoughts are experienced by about half of all parents (including moms and fathers).

Even though the infant may never be in any danger, the ideas can be terrifying and quite embarrassing. A parent who is unaware of how frequent these ideas are may believe that their child has a problem. These and other intrusive thoughts are brought on by OCD. Thoughts that are invasive frequently contain violent imagery, but not all do.

However, intrusive thoughts may not always portend a higher danger of harm. But if the ideas are present along with anxiety, despair, or OCD, the danger may rise. Distressing thoughts can eventually result in depression because they can make a person feel as though they are powerless over their thoughts, which is both terrible and crippling.

Additionally, research from 2018 demonstrates that ruminating, or repeatedly having unfavorable or worrying thoughts, is a major factor in both melancholy and OCD. Researchers tested people with OCD and depression in 2017 to see if they were more likely to have anxious or depressing thoughts. Researchers discovered that persons with these two diseases frequently experience anxious and sad thoughts.

In an older study, researchers found that people with OCD experienced fewer depression symptoms when they showed three common patterns:

• Thought their actions could change an outcome
• Thought themselves capable of taking those actions
• Thought they had control in a given situation, so they could take the necessary action

Depression OCD: Compulsions and depression

People with OCD typically act in a certain way in reaction to intrusive thoughts in the hope that their actions would either make the ideas disappear or stop something negative from happening. It is challenging to meet the requirement that these compulsive actions be carried out flawlessly each time.

According to researchers, this form of obstinate perfectionism, which characterizes OCD, is a major contributing factor to depression.

Functioning and Depression

Your capacity to conduct yourself in a healthy manner can be negatively impacted by sadness and OCD. Your mental condition is affected by obsessions. Schedule disruptions can result from compulsions.

You may start to exhibit signs of depression when your relationships, social life, therapy, and performance at work or in school are impacted. According to research, the more severely your obsessions and compulsions affect your daily functioning, the harsher your depressive symptoms.

Ocd Anxiety And Depression (OCD Depression Anxiety)

Anxiety is a key component of OCD (OCD anxiety depression). People with OCD may feel anxiety for many reasons, including:

• Distressed by the content of the thoughts that intrude on them
• Are anxious to keep the thoughts from happening again
• Feel anxiety until they perform a compulsive behavior
• Feel anxiety about whether they’ve performed the behavior correctly
• Feel anxiety over what other people think of them
• Feel anxiety in response to how other people treat them because of their condition
• Are anxious about other practical and emotional effects of OCD on their lives

Anxiety is also common among people with depression. The National Alliance on Mental Illness estimates that 60 percent of people with anxiety also have depression and vice versa.

ADHD OCD Anxiety Depression

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have several symptoms in common and can both affect a person’s performance at work and in school. Although it’s uncommon, it’s conceivable for someone to have both ADHD and OCD. One illness could also be misdiagnosed and taken for another. Here are some similarities and differences between OCD and ADHD that you should be aware of.

We Level Up Dual Diagnosis Treatment

The exact definition of dual diagnosis (also referred to as co-occurring disorders) can differ between institutions.  However, it is generally described as the specific treatment of someone who has been diagnosed with a substance use disorder and a mental health disorder at the same time.

Treating dual-diagnosis clients is a critical aspect of our inpatient treatment experience because co-occurring disorders are strongly correlated with instances of substance abuse. Creating a treatment plan that addresses the physical aspects of withdrawal, the psychological connection with drug use, and managing underlying mental health disorders is part of setting clients up for success. 

A thorough mental health analysis identifies possibilities for treatment.  Meeting with mental health counselors and medical care providers means access to behavioral therapy and medication treatment.

At our dual diagnosis treatment center, We Level Up can implement the highest quality of care. We recognize the fragile complexities of how mental and substance abuse disorders can influence others and sometimes result in a vicious cycle of addiction.  That’s why we offer specialized treatment in dual-diagnosis cases to provide the most excellent chance of true healing and long-lasting recovery.

It can be challenging to accept that you may be living with a mental illness, but once it is properly diagnosed and treated, treating the presenting case of substance abuse can be magnitudes easier. Only a properly trained medical professional can diagnose these underlying conditions.  If you believe you are suffering from a disorder alongside addiction, we urge you to seek a qualified treatment center to begin your journey to recovery. Call We Level Up today.