Making something picture perfect is often on the minds of people with observive-corpus-pulsative disorder. Keeping objects in an orderly fashion is an example of the compulsive aspect of OCD.
would result in the harming of someone else, Kant retreated further into his safe place underneath the covers.
The fear of harming is a popular obsession associated with OCD. Kant truly believed that if he left his cabin he would contract a deadly disease and spread it throughout the camp.
"I went from an outgoing young kid the year before to literally being unable to set foot outside my cabin door," Kant says.
Each passing day, his symptoms grew more severe until finally one of the camp counselors approached a psychologist about his troubling behavior.
The psychologist came to Kant and helped him understand himself. Together, they went through the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale, designed to determine OCD, and Kant began to realize he wasn't the only person obsessing about his fears.
"He asked me a couple of questions and I was kind of thrown," Kant says. "You start to think you're crazy and then someone reads your mind. It was a mind-blowing experience to hear someone else say, 'You're not the only one.'"
This realization helped Kant understand himself and begin to overcome his troubling thoughts.With the help of cognitive-behavioral therapy,Kant learned to manage his obsessions. In 2006, he graduated from Curry College, in Milton, Massachusetts, at the top of his class.
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OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE
Contamination dirt; germs; animals or insects; illnesses; bodily waste; contaminants; household cleaners; "sticky" substances; spreading contamination, germs or illnesses Washing/cleaning excessive or ritualized hand washing, showering, bathing, toothbrushing or grooming; cleaning clothing and personal items
Aggression harming self or others (even accidentally); causing harm to self or others because of thoughts or behaviors; acting upon aggressive impulses; blurting out inappropriate words or phrases; stealing or breaking things; causing something terrible to happen; frightening or violent images Repeating rewriting; rereading; recopying; retying (e.g. shoelaces); erasing; going indoors or outdoors or taking items in or out of schoolbag; getting up or down from seat; repeating words or phrases
Health and body contracting illness (especially if fatal or rare); appearance; physical abnormalities (real or imagined) Counting counting objects; mental counting (especially up to a "magic" number); counting steps; chewing
Magical thinking lucky or unlucky numbers, colors and names Ordering and arranging lining up objects in a certain way; arranging in specific patterns; making objects, piles or groups "even"; making things symmetrical; "balancing" actions
Mortality dying and not going to heaven; offending god; being sinful; morality or perfection; right or wrong Hoarding and saving keeping unimportant, unnecessary items and/or trash; storing items of no particular value; sorting through trash to ensure that nothing important has been thrown away
Sexual forbidden or perverse sexual thoughts, images; disturbing sexual impulses, desires; homosexuality; molestation; sexual acts toward others Superstitions touching or tapping routines to prevent bad things from happening; avoiding stepping on cracks or lines; avoiding "unlucky" objects or places
Hoarding/saving losing things; throwing away objects that might be important
Miscellaneous knowing or remembering certain things; saying things exactly right; not saying certain words or phrases; intrusive images, sounds, words, music and numbers Miscellaneous mental rituals; needing to tell, ask or confess; ritualized eating behaviors; excessive list making Source: The Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale and the Children's Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale