Celebrities and OCD

1.  Charlize Theron may have a tougher time than other new moms adjusting to her first child. That's because she's admitted to suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder or OCD.

"I have OCD, which is not fun," she told Australian radio show- "I have to be incredibly tidy and organized or it messes with my mind and switches off on me."

Babies, especially once they reach toddler-hood, aren't exactly known for their neatness.

For parents with OCD, having children can actually make symptoms worse. "OCD symptoms tend to latch on to things that are most important to us, so parents with OCD may have doubts about their abilities or intrusive thoughts about their child's safety or hurting their child,"  - Stephen Whiteside, a psychologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

OCD is an anxiety disorder that at its basic level is a fear of one's thoughts, whether it's a fear of messiness, germs or something else. To relieve the anxiety associated with such intrusive thoughts, an obsessive-compulsive will feel compelled to behave in a certain way, such as cleaning out their cabinets before going to sleep or checking and rechecking their child.


2. Psychologist advice new parents with OCD: "Try to put things in perspective, reminding yourself that you're going to do a much better job as a parent if you leave things messy and spend time with your child than being perfect...  It might be uncomfortable at first, but the feeling gradually goes away, and it should get easier."

This is how Julian Moore, overcame the toughest phase of her OCD.. she's admitted she still "fanatical about straightening furniture and lining stuff up, but I'm much more laid back than I used to be!"


3.   Girl-of-the-moment Lena Dunham talks candidly about her battle with obsessive-compulsive disorder and anxiety in the Feb. 28 issue of Rolling Stone.

In the cover story, the 26-year-old creator and star of HBO's "Girls" says she took antidepressants in high school, and was obsessed with the number eight.

"I remember saying to my mom when I was little, 'I just had to imagine having sex with you eight times,'" she says in the magazine, "and she really took it in stride! She was like, 'Well, it's your imagination; it didn't really happen.'"

4.  Megan Fox, the bombshell actress and model admitted that she has OCD.

"This is a sickness, I have an illness, this is not OK anymore," Fox told Allure magazine. Her problem: public toilets and restaurant silverware.
The "Transformers" star told Allure that she won't use toilets without seat covers: "I'm never doing that again. Every time someone uses a bathroom and they flush, all the bacteria is shot into the air."

She also opened up about her feelings on restaurant silverware: "Putting my mouth where a million other mouths have been, just knowing all the bacteria that you carry in your mouth? Ucch!"


5. Jessica Alba has said her OCD came out of a need to have control over her life.

"I used to unplug every single appliance in my house. Or I'd double-check every door in my house to make sure it was locked at night," she told CosmoGirl last year. "It was like a panic come over me and I had to do something, and once I did it, I was OK. ... It was really me needing to control something."


6. Cameron Diaz will open doors with her elbows just to avoid touching the germ-infested doorknobs. The sexy star of "Bad Teacher" and "Shrek" has admitted to cleaning the doorknobs of her Los Angeles home so much that the original paint has faded on them. She has also said she washes her hands "many times" each day.

7. Justin Timberlake, has also copped to having OCD. He was quoted by the Web site Collider.com as saying, "I have OCD mixed with ADD (attention deficit disorder). You try living with that. It's complicated."


8. Leonardo DiCaprio once played another famous sufferer of OCD, Howard Hughes. In fact, while playing the role, DiCaprio's got back in touch with his own childhood obsession: sidewalks.

"I remember as a child, stepping on cracks on the way to school and having to walk back a block and step on that same crack or that gum stain," DiCaprio told About.com at the time the Hughes biopic "The Aviator" was released.

"Let's just say it took me a while to get to set, having to step on tons of things," he said, laughing


9. David Beckham likes to keep his shirts in order, lining them up in the closet according to color. So do a lot of people, you say. How about matching all the food in your refrigerator? Apparently, the soccer star likes order in his fridge as well, which is why he has three.

"Food in one, salad in another and drinks in the third," his wife Victoria Beckham said, according to the Daily Mail. "In the drinks one, everything is symmetrical. If there's three cans of Diet Coke, he'd throw one away rather than having three -- because it has to be an even number."

"He's got that obsessive-compulsive thing where everything has to match," she said.


10. Billy Bob Thorton the eccentric actor-turned-musician has talked about his OCD in 2004 with "Dateline"'s Ann Curry, saying it grew out of a difficult childhood filled with abuse.

One of his compulsions is "constantly doing mathematics," he said. "Certain numbers represent certain people. And I can't use that number in a certain circumstance. And then I have to use it in another circumstance."

"It exhausts you," he said about his disorder.


HAVING OCD IS NOT SOMETHING BAD... BUT ONE HAS TO COME TO PEACE WITH IT..
UNDERSTAND FROM WERE IT COMES, AND HOW TO FIGHT THE FEARS.

IT WOULD BE GREAT IF INDIAN ACTORS ALSO ACCEPTED THEIR OCD.. RATHER THAN SECRETLY TAKING TREATMENT FOR THE SAME.
IT WOULD ENCOURAGE MILLIONS TO SEEK HELP FOR A NEURO-PSYCHIATRIC ILLNESS,  MOST PEOPLE JUST DISCOUNT AS "PART OF YOUR IMAGINATION".

Dr.Hemant Mittal
(Neuro-Psychiatrist, Mental Health and Sexual Health Healer,
Motivational Writer/Speaker and Counselor)

you can CONTACT ME on (all conversations are kept CONFIDENTIAL) -
email - eksoch@gmail.com
website - http://mindmantra.in/services.html

or visit my wellness clinic @-
address- 15, shreeji plaza, next to ice n spice restaurant, opposite seawoods station, seawoods (east)
Navi Mumbai

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