Can You Catch Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?

From the NY Times Magazine:

To suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder, many patients say, is to ''know you are crazy.'' Other forms of psychosis may envelop the sufferers until they inhabit the delusion. Part of the torture of O.C.D. is, as patients describe it, watching as if from the outside as they act out their obsessions -- knowing that they are being irrational, but not being able to stop. They describe thoughts crowding their minds, nattering at them incessantly -- anxious thoughts, sexual thoughts, violent thoughts, sometimes all at the same time. Is the front door locked? Are there germs on my hands?

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