Anxiety and OCD Exposed

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Holiday Anxiety and OCD

By Charles H. Elliott, Ph.D.

You’re going to see lots of blogs on this topic in the next few weeks. However, we recommend getting a jump on these issues early.

Do you suffer from depression, anxiety, or obsessive compulsive disorder? If so, the holidays may cause you to crash. You could find that panic attacks that had been dormant, reemerge. Or compulsions to clean, count, or arrange things uptick to the point you barely have time to do anything else. Sadness may deepen and you’re not sure why. For that matter, even if you don’t have some type of depression or anxiety disorder, the holidays sometimes create considerable stress and anxiety. Why? Consider these possibilities:

  • The stress of choosing gifts for people who are impossible to buy for
  • The stress of deciding how much to spend in an seriously impaired economic climate
  • The stress of seeing family that bring up painful issues from childhood (one of our favorite cartoons depicts a banner stretching across a huge ballroom declaring something like “Conference of Functional Families” with a single person standing alone in the room reading the sign)/li>

  • The stress of attempting to prepare a fancy holiday feast, wanting everything to be “perfect”
  • The stress of being around overly critical family members
    • Read the full entry… »

2 Comments to
“Holiday Anxiety and OCD”

Before posting, please read our blog moderation guidelines. The comments below begin with the oldest comments first. Click on the last comments page to jump to the most recent comments.

  • Kelvin Richardson 10:30 pm on October 16th, 2010

    Hi there, do you know who wrote or published the cartoon about Functional Families? I thought it was Gary Larson, FarSide, but wrote to them, and it is not. I need this cartoon for an academic paper, and am going crazy looking for it! THANKS!

    Reply
  • drchuckelliott 2:15 pm on November 8th, 2010

    Hi Kelvin,
    Sorry; I just saw this request. And now that I have, I am afraid I don’t have an answer for you. I really don’t recall. Wish I could. If you do find it, please let me know!

    Reply

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    Laura L. Smith, Ph.D. and Charles H. Elliott, Ph.D. are authors of many books, including Overcoming Anxiety for Dummies and Child Psychology & Development for Dummies.
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