Go Teal for OCD Awareness Week

(Film flyer courtesy of OCD Rhode Island)

Have you noticed the State House lit up in brilliant teal this week?

The green-blue hybrid is the universal color for obsessive-compulsive disorder awareness and is projected on the Rhode Island capitol in preparation for OCD Awareness Week Oct. 12–18. Next Tuesday, Oct. 14, the Sakonnet River Bridge in Portsmouth will also shine teal to mark the occasion.

Ryan Glode, founder and vice president of OCD Rhode Island, says the organization is joining with the International OCD Foundation to raise awareness and reduce stigma toward OCD and related disorders. Glode is a licensed mental health counselor specializing in OCD treatment in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

“Our mission is basically to help individuals within the community who have OCD to get connected to resources, whether that’s support groups or some of the OCD programs and clinics in the area, or direct providers,” he says.

As part of the week’s events, the organization will co-sponsor a showing of Unstuck: An OCD Kids Movie with the Pediatric Anxiety Research Center at Bradley Hospital on Wednesday, Oct. 15, from 5 to 6:30 p.m. The film will be followed by a panel discussion featuring teen patients with lived experience of OCD. (RSVP for the event online here.)

“They want to share their experience to help other kids and families who want to engage in treatment or need a higher level of care to understand why OCD is important and why treatment is effective,” Glode says.

About one in forty adults has OCD or is expected to develop it at some point in their lifetime, according to the International OCD Foundation. Symptoms often appear between the ages of seven and twelve, or during the late teen years and early adulthood, making early intervention key to getting children and teens the help they need, Glode says.

Rhode Island has a close connection to the world of OCD treatment. In 2004, the Pediatric Anxiety Research Center at Bradley Hospital participated in a landmark study demonstrating that exposure-based intervention was just as effective as medication in treating mild to moderate OCD in children and teens. Exposure-based intervention, a form of cognitive behavioral therapy, is now considered a standard treatment in helping kids get their lives back on track following an OCD diagnosis.

“It has an 80 percent efficacy rate, which is huge in the mental health field,” Glode says. “Kids and adults who engage in exposure therapy and commit to it see a significant reduction in OCD symptoms and improvement in quality of life.”

The International OCD Foundation has resources adults and parents can use if they suspect they or a child may have OCD. OCD is marked by intrusive thoughts that revolve around contamination, violence, responsibility or other topics, as well as repeated behaviors that could indicate a compulsion. For kids, this could look like spending an excessive amount of time engaging in the same behavior over and over again with no clear reason, Glode says.

“It can also look like avoiding certain situations. For example, with contamination OCD they might be avoiding touching things, or they might be obsessively washing their hands to the point of being bleeding or raw,” he says.

For more information about OCD Awareness Week and to connect with local resources, visit OCD Rhode Island.

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