Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a psychiatric anxiety disorder most commonly characterized by a subject’s obsessive, distressing, intrusive thoughts and related compulsions (tasks or “rituals”) which attempt to neutralize the obsessions.(taken from Wikipedia).

AAAH the OCD character. A character destined to make every thing in life germ-free and aligned on a desk straight. Or is that what is happening? OCD typically tends to come in a cycle of 4.

1.Obsession:The intrusive thoughts that make everyday life unlivable normally. Thoughts like, “I can’t shake my bosses hand…what his hand touched a toilet seat, or he just masturbated and didnt wash..” Now normal people just seem to grin and bear it if they even have these thoughts at all, but not obsessives.

2.Anxiety:This is where most of an obsessives’ time is spent. Fretting over whether or not you need to wash your hands 10 or 20 times because your girlfriend pet the dog, then rested her hand on yours. The anxiety part of the cycle is inevitable, and it’s in all of us. When one of those annoying little obsessions pops up, it will gnaw at your mind until you do the next step.

3.Compulsion:The compulsion is the act of fulfilling the obsession. In other words, you accidentally touch the garbage can on the way to your car, and you obsess over how dirty it is and your mind is not at rest until you take 2 baths. At which point you have relieved the obsession and moved onto step 4.

4.Relief:D-Do I really need to explain this one?

After they have completed this cycle, OCD-ers continue on normally until it arises again…Which could happen 3 seconds later, or 30 minutes later. So we’ve got this very intrusive disorder which interrupts everything with worry and anxiety, and it’s being portrayed predominately in comedies?

Most characters portrayed in American TV show no desire to get over their OCD, and many view it as a quirky personality trait. Monica from friends has the symptoms and NBC even sold the character as obsessive, but no one ever thought anything of it. Niles from Frasier is always seen wiping things off only for comedic effect.

In Anime we get a very similar workup of the characters.

Take Soul Eater for example. People see the Death the Kid character and think “LOL OCD is funny”, and while he could have OCD he is a contradiction. He frequently worries about symmetry, and yet his hair is unsymmetrical. Whenever another character brings this up, he goes into depression for a little bit and recovers. This is not how an OCD person would act. If I were that worried about symmetry and had such a glaring contradiction, I would just shave it off, but instead the writers choose to be lazy and keep there for a cheap joke.

Take Chiri-chan from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. She is obsessed with symmetry as well, but makes sure her hair is always perfect, and until it is she fixes it. She is used for comedic effect, but at least they make her consistent.

Take Chiaki from Nodame Cantabile. When he visits Nodame’s apartment he absolutely cannot control his compulsion to clean her apartment. Again it was done for comedic effect, but here it poses an interesting dichotomy of Chiaki’s perfectionism vs. Nodame’s randomness.

So what are we to do? Shows without quirky characters seem dull, and too many seems to make the show only appeal to crazy people in the first place.

I propose that all characters be made quirkier. People in real life are weird and have quirks, and aren’t at all like tv makes them out to be. We are all a little OCD at times, and a little depressed. No one person hordes any psychological disorder to themselves…I like to think we all share.

edit:thank you for the quick comment kitsune. I originally posted this a while ago, and the first draft version was preachy and depressing. I edited it finally, and just so you know Kit, I did take your advice and go get some help.