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Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) can take up far more of your day than anyone around you realizes. You might spend an hour going back over a conversation to make sure you didn’t say something wrong, or keep pushing away a thought that frightens you, even when you know the worry doesn’t make sense. Foundations Ohio offers OCD treatment for adults through our mental health day treatment program in Hilliard, near Columbus, OH.
People often call themselves “a little OCD” because they like a clean kitchen or an organized desk. OCD is a long-lasting condition that involves unwanted, recurring thoughts (obsessions), repetitive behaviors or mental acts a person feels driven to perform (compulsions), or both. For many people with OCD, most of it happens inside their head.
Fact: A need for order or symmetry is only one form OCD can take, and many people with OCD don’t experience it at all. Obsessions can center on fears of harming someone, contamination, religion or morality, sexual thoughts, or doubts about a relationship. Liking things neat or paying close attention to detail isn’t OCD on its own.
Fact: Many compulsions are mental. A person might replay events over and over to make sure nothing bad happened, pray or repeat a phrase to prevent harm, count to a “safe” number, or replace a “bad” thought with a “good” one to cancel it out. Asking others for reassurance or confessing can be a compulsion too. Because so much of this happens internally, the people around you may have no idea how much time it takes.
Fact: Most people have unwanted, intrusive thoughts from time to time. People with OCD don’t want these thoughts and find them disturbing, and mental rituals like reviewing or cancelling out a thought are often attempts to get rid of that distress. The relief those rituals bring is usually brief, which keeps the cycle going.
Obsessions can include:
Visible behaviors can include:
Everyone double-checks things sometimes. With OCD, the thoughts and behaviors are hard to control even when you know they’re excessive, they often take up more than an hour a day, and they cause real problems at home, at work, or in your relationships. OCD often occurs alongside anxiety or a mood disorder such as depression, which is one reason a careful assessment matters.
OCD treatment typically involves talk therapy, medication, or both. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) helps people recognize unhelpful patterns of thinking. Exposure and response prevention (ERP), a specific type of CBT, involves facing situations that trigger the urge to perform a compulsion and practicing not acting on it.
The medications most often prescribed for OCD are antidepressants that target serotonin, and they can take 8 to 12 weeks to work. If you take medication for OCD, talk with your prescriber before stopping or changing it.
There is no cure for OCD, but treatment can help you manage symptoms. Some people make progress with weekly therapy. Others need more structure and more frequent support, and that’s where day treatment can help.
OCD treatment at Foundations Ohio takes place in our mental health day treatment program, at one of two levels of care:
Your treatment plan is built around your symptoms and history. Day treatment can include building coping skills, working through problems as they come up, and learning how OCD affects you, and your plan can move from PHP to IOP when you’re ready for a lighter schedule.
OCD treatment is part of the broader mental health treatment we offer in Hilliard, which also includes care for anxiety and depression.
Some people with OCD use alcohol or drugs to cope. If drinking or drug use has become part of how you get through the day, dual diagnosis treatment addresses both at the same Hilliard location.
Day treatment may be a good fit if:
Day treatment may not be the right level of care if you:
If you aren’t sure which level of care you need, our admissions team can talk it through with you. If you are in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, or call 911 if you are in immediate danger.
OCD is often easy to hide, and the person living with it may feel embarrassed by thoughts or rituals they know don’t make sense. Families often try to help by answering the same reassurance questions, joining in checking or cleaning, or changing household routines to avoid a trigger. These responses ease anxiety in the moment, but over time they can reinforce the obsessions and compulsions.
If you’re worried about a partner, an adult child, or a friend, you can call our admissions team yourself to ask how day treatment works and what getting started would involve.
Starting treatment usually follows three steps:
No. Our admissions team can talk with you about what you've been experiencing, and an assessment helps determine whether our day program is a good fit.
The half-day IOP schedule leaves more of your day open for work or classes. Our admissions team can walk you through how the schedule would fit your week.
Coverage depends on your plan, your provider network, and the level of care your treatment team recommends. We work with many insurance providers and can check your insurance benefits before you start.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. If someone is in immediate danger, call 911.
If OCD has been taking up more of your time and energy, or you’re worried about someone you love, our admissions team can explain how our OCD treatment program works and answer questions about insurance and the Hilliard location. Call (888) 501-5618 or contact us online.
