OCD and Asperger's.

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For a while I have been told I might have OCD. Now it's pretty much official and my occupational therapist is trying to refer me to the CMHT (Community Mental Health Team) psychologist for CBT relating to my OCD.

How common is it for OCD to be co-morbid with Asperger's Syndrome?

If you have OCD, how does yours manifest?

Mine involves having 3 showers a day, washing my hands/using alcohol sanitising gel excessively, washing clothes/dishes/cutlery repeatedly, cleaning the house a lot and being strongly fearful of contamination.

An old book by Tony Atwood estimated that about 20% of people with AS could be diagnosed with OCD.....it's something like 1-3% in the general population so it's way more common in people with AS.....but still the majority don't have it.

I have completely different OCD traits from yours. Mine are rituals doing things a certain number of times or rituals with counting. For example when taking a shower I wash each part of my hair...rinsing while counting to 10 (always front, back, underneath, and front again). Also my need for sameness is kind of OCD like (my psychologist thinks) where I need to watch a certain t.v show while I eat....need to eat the same things etc.

Thanks for the info. 20% is high though.

I actually forgot to mention that I count obsessively too. I count sips of drink, mouthfuls of food, number of times I dry my hands on a towel, footsteps on a pavement etc....and this number has to be a prime number, otherwise I will get upset.

Hello. I have both of these as well.

My OCD manifests in the form of obsessive worry over safety. Constant questioning the reliability of household utilities (water, hot water, electricity, gas, heat), checking door locks, checking my pockets for the presence of keys/wallet/phone over and over throughout the day. Constant worry over my car. Frequent hand washing as a response to texture sensitivity. I go way overboard on the oral hygiene due to a fear of tooth decay + fear of dentists. Self harm habit to control stacking obsessions.

I just started doing CBT with a therapist for some of this. Still early going on that. We've only met three times and therapist is still just information gathering mostly. Not much CBT happening yet.

I assume the comorbid Dx is generally used for times when the ritual/routine part of AS goes above and beyond the expected severity intrinsic to AS itself. That is how my neuropsych described it.

The counting one is something I do - I try to count in fours. Or even numbers, rather than odd, at the very least. I used to be a lot bothered by it all, but it's more of an undercurrent now, and has been easier to deal with since my 20s. Still takes up a lot of mental energy. I often wonder what I might have done if I wasn't counting things all the time...

Mine is hard to describe; I worry about whether certain things are there or not; does that count?

I have both. I wonder if I really do have it or not and sometimes I think I do have it. I think it depends on the professional. I don't have any of that stereotypical OCD stuff. Mine is with thoughts and when something bothers me, I can't stop thinking about it. If I worry about something, I can't stop thinking about it. It has gotten better but sometimes it gets bad again. I also think my money obsession has something to do with it too. But I have also heard of other people on the spectrum being obsessed with money too and worrying about going broke also. I wonder if it's all a coincidence or really an ASD thing. It could be an OCD thing and depending on the professional, they all say OCD is part of autism. Then there are some that see those two as separate things and not part of autism.

I guess it could come under Pure O type OCD.

If I have anything it's probably that.

I worry about germs, I can't used cutlery or glasses with the slightest mark on them, even water marks.
I have a huge problem with spit, I can't eat if I think about it. I feel sick if I see it. I keep a distance and sit a certain angle from people when I eat in case they spit in my food.
I hate shaking hands with people, touching door handles or sink taps etc because of germs, and buttons on roads light poles and on shared keyboards.
I worry people are going to die every time I say good bye to them and often have nightmares about it.
I worry someone will break into the house.
I'm worried people will stalk me.
I worry that people are doing things behind my back. When I talk to someone I assume they are with someone else laughing at me, perhaps they're pretending to be the person I think they are, when they're someone else. It gets to the point I think someone I'm seeing in real life might really be someone else I know in real life, when it doesn't make sense.


Hold on, I'm talking about paranoid things... >.> Ahem...

Unintentional.


I count things a lot when I'm anxious. I wash my hands more and watch everywhere I step in case there is dirt or anything I might step in.
I worry about cross contamination.
No one can wear their shoes around the house, because its bringing the dirt into the house, and then I will get it on my hands at some point. If they wear their socks where someone wore their shoes they will be brining dirt from outside into the house.
I don't like when people wash their hands, then think they're clean even though they didn't clean the things they planned to touch afterwards BEFORE washing their hands. IE dirty hands turn on tap, they wash their hands then put them on dirty tap to turn it off. That makes the hands dirty again.

May not be diagnosable really, but I definitely have OCD traits.

It's mostly about things having to be just right as well. Like I will repeat my point in varying ways so many times people must be sick of hearing me talk, because it doesnt sound right the first time. Even if they understand I NEED to say it right so I will continue paraphrasing it until it is just right. I will rearrange rooms until they look just right, but that just right is never perfect so I tend to rearrange things weekly and have to force myself to leave things.
My money notes need to be in a certain order in my purse; £20 at the back, £10 before, and £5 before that. I also organise each one in their section by the dirtyiest looking notes to the front so that I can get rid of them sooner. This includes older looking notes as they feel and certainly are more dirty than the newer crispy fresh ones. I try to use up the coins in the same way but theyre harder to organise in a purse.

I have a lot of disturbing intrusive thoughts and also compulsions, like the urge to step into traffic when I'm walking down the street. It has nothing to do with feeling suicidal or wanting to injure myself. It's just a completely irrational fascination with the moving traffic and what would happen if I took just a few steps into the road. Also happens with high places (wanting to jump) and sharp objects.

So I guess that all falls more in the compulsive end of things.

I used to have to do everything in even numbers at one point.

I have OCD diagnosed. I wash my hands all the time, I check whether my front door and back door is closed all the time, I open and close my fridge door all the time and I have a shower three times a day, I have a fear of germs and vomit, I count my shirts on the washing line, I have to have my dvds, xbox, psp, nintendo ds, ps2, cds in alphabetical order, I have a meltdown if anyone comes over and touches anything or makes a mess it drives me nuts instead of talking to the person whos over my place Im busy cleaning up after them.

Yep. On the rare occasion I have a family member in my apartment, this is how I feel. Ack! you put your dishes on the wrong side of the sink, you shifted the kitchen floor mat out of alignment with the floor tiles, you used the bathroom and left one of the towels askew on the rack.

I really hate OCD. The worst part of it is that I know how irrational some of it is. I know but I can't stop.

My shrink argues that, because of the high comorbidity rate, OCD, in Autists, is just a "dimension" of Autism.

I don't know if what I am going to say makes sense. My english aren't that good so I cannot express myself properly..

I know that SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) are used for the treatment of OCD, whereas it seems that SSRIs are not effective for autistics http://www.news-medical.net/news/201204 ... eview.aspx

Furthermore, some studies say that "Oxytocin Infusion Reduces Repetitive Behaviors in Adults with Autistic and Asperger's Disorders" http://www.nature.com/npp/journal/v28/n ... 0021a.html, whereas OCD is linked with high levels of Oxytocin http://ukpmc.ac.uk/abstract/MED/7524462

If the above are true, OCD and autism should have been mutually exclusive.

Maybe scientistis have no idea about what they are talking about (possible) or some autistics who are diagnosed with OCD have in fact OCPD (?) or they are.. just.. autistics.. I don't know.............................................................................

I have lots of rituals too, like having to have 50g of cereal and eating breakfast and other meals in a specific orders, checking my different internet accounts a certain order and too many other things to list.

I do get OCD about things though like wonky pictures, colour patterns and tidiness etc

It seems that perhaps OCD is not so much a comorbid of Autism, but ritualist natural is.

Yo

Typical obsession then compulsion here (OC). Experienced most of the common ones at some point or another (except the religious ones).

It's one of my core "certain" labels.