OCD radar isn't a thing

Have you tested your OCD radar lately? People are announcing that they are 100% OCD because, according to the quiz instructions, "OCD free people" will look at the below shapes and see them all as identical. The quiz tempts you to discover whether your "OCD radar" can spot the difference. 

Sure, there's a disclaimer, a disclaimer that it was "created for amusement and is not diagnostic in any way."

There are many things wrong with that statement, the most glaring being that doing a doing a test for a serious medical condition is fun. People don't appreciate how it's akin to that same quiz claiming to test one's cancer radar. People don't make the connection because they say things like "I'm sooo OCD" or "I can be a bit OCD when it comes to cleaning." People. Don't. Get. It.

OCD used to be known as the doubting disease but do people know this? Doubtful.

Why on earth would it be called the doubting disease? People with OCD just love having things in order and can be so anal about it! What could they possibly be doubting that would warrant calling it a disease?

A lot.

"OCD can make a sufferer doubt even the most basic things about themselves, others, or the world they live in. I have seen patients doubt their sexuality, their sanity, their perceptions, whether or not they are responsible for the safety of total strangers, the likelihood that that they will become murderers, etc. I have even seen patients have doubts about whether they were actually alive or not.

Doubt is one of OCD’s more maddening qualities. It can override even the keenest intelligence. It is a doubt that cannot be quenched. It is doubt raised to the highest power. It is what causes sufferers to check things hundreds of times, or to ask endless questions of themselves or others. Even when an answer is found, it may only stick for several minutes, only to slip away as if it was never there. Only when sufferers recognize the futility of trying to resolve this doubt, can they begin to make progress.

The guilt is another excruciating part of the disorder. It is rather easy to make people with OCD feel guilty about most anything, as many of them already have a surplus of."

- Fred Penzel, Ph.D.

Weird, absolutely no mention of the ability to distinguish slight variations in shapes.

If OCD was renamed to the doubting disease, would people start saying "I'm so DD"? 

When people say they are "so OCD" or "a little OCD," they are taking a mental illness that can result in paralyzing doubt and using it in the context of being a quirky personality trait.

Is it clicking yet?