Much of emotional life is carried on the Jingle Channel. For many, the Jingle Channel is not the pleasent elevating experience. Sometime the lyrics are about loss and hopelessness. " She is gone, She is gone, She is gone, and She is never coming back" or " I am a born loser" are the sort of phrases that intrude when we are in a low mood. When these kind of Jingles are dominant and recurrent, we call the listeners depressed, and their thoughts have been named rumination or automatic thoughts. For others, the Jingle channel is a nightmare channel, A production of Stephen King that may feature ferocious animals or poisonous insects, or scenes of humiliation. These people are called object phobics or social phobics respectively. For others, the channel features thoughts of a heart attack or of going crazy or of loosing control - these peoples problem is called panic disorder.
For still others, when they tune into their jingle channel, what they hear is alien, repugnant, fearful, and depressing. Worse, they have a loud channel that frequently intrigues unbitten on them during work and play. Their most common themes are dirt and contamination, checking for danger, and doubt. These people have a problem called obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), which is named for the two elements that make it up. Their obsession is a thought or image that reoccurs, and their compulsion is the ritual at performed to neutralise the thought. When thought of dirt dominate the jingle channel, the person will wash his hand for an hour, or scrub her baby's room from floor to ceiling three times a day, or open doors only with her feet to avoid having her hands contaminated by germs f the door knob.
Washing and cleaning rituals can take up large swaths of the day when, One 14 Year old had to wake up at 4.30 every morning in order to clean herself thoroughly and make the bed so that it was exactly right before she left for school at eight. She was plagued with a severe skin rashes and abrasions that result when you wash your hand for an hour or more at a time.
Checkers find themselves waking many times each night to make sure that the gas in the kitchen is off, or that all the doors and windows are locked. One man drove to a cross road near his house ten times a day for months to make certain that there was no corpse lying there that he had run over and failed to notice on the last trip. Another woman always peered down into the toilet bowl to make sure that there was no baby in danger of being flushed away. Toilets, incidentally, are often featured on the OCD jingle channel : One otherwise successful and healthy dentist always had to flush in multiples of three - 9, 27, 81 or 243 times - before carrying on. He wasn't much fun to go drinking with.
Do you or any of your loved one has OCD symptoms. Surely go and seek help. Do not indulge in self diagnosis.
