Organized Chaos - Volume 7
Fear, Advertising and OCD
by Jared Kant
Research has shown that events that occur in our lives that produce anxiety will exacerbate obsessive compulsive brain activity.An anxiety disorder feeds off distressing things, and OCD is the prime example of this. Lately, with what's been on television and on the radio and even in the papers, I've come to the conclusion that the world is so tremendously chaotic, I couldn't possibly make it any worse, no matter how many times I forget to wash my hands.
We learned very quickly after the terrorist attacks in September of 2001 that an incident that occurs anywhere in the globe can leave hundreds, even thousands of OCD sufferers wondering if they didn't cause this catastrophe and what they have to do as penance. When Hurricane Katrina devastated nearly 400,000 homes in New Orleans alone, another wave of OCDers found themselves wondering the same thing. Did I do this? Was I not praying enough? Am I being punished?
However, this is only the tip of the iceberg, pardon the cliche. If you really look into it, we live in a culture that thrives off of the idea that fear is the best selling concept next to sexuality.With fear, of course, OCD is never too far behind to shake things up even more.
The other night, my girlfriend's mom walked over to her son and me, carrying a box of wet napkins soaked in an insect repellent.The box advertised in big letters, white on blue, that “this product repels mosquitoes that may carry WEST NILE VIRUS.” Suddenly, looking at this obnoxious ploy to exploit people's natural instinct to survive and general ignorance about the viability of these claims, I found myself convinced that the strange markings I noticed earlier that morning on my chest must have come from one of these insectborne diseases. I panicked and lifted my shirt. “What is this?” I asked them.
No one really knew. I spent a long time today researching it, and I think it's a spider bite, or rather a series of them. Regardless, all that anxiety was over nothing. So it should have come as no surprise to me when an intrusive thought kicked in at the same time as I was examining a bottle of body wash and a strange looking blemish. Suddenly, I became concerned that I was in an advertisement for a name-brand body wash. It's almost twentyfour hours later and not having slept, I'm still concerned that the world is trying to use me as a billboard.
So what can we actually draw from this? It's easy to put down facts and figures, but can we extrapolate any useful information from this episode? I think the first thing we need to realize is that there is simply too much media around us. Media is a great thing, understand that, after all, you are reading an article in a great publication, but not all media outlets are positive.As well, there are people working around the clock to exploit your fears and anxiety to get you to compulsively hoard coupons and stockpile batteries and bottled water, buy name brand bug spray and overwash yourself.
We can infer then that the best treatment for a media overload as it relates to OCD is to reduce the amount of stimulus in your immediate vicinity. If nothing else, consider putting blank stickers over all the product features on boxes that use this “culture of fear.”
Exercise your ability to remove yourself from the situation when a tragic event happens.You cannot affect the world's oceans, even if you try. So remember that you did not cause the Tsunami, the hurricane, or even the recent snow in South Africa.You're living in a complicated world with a complicated disorder. Just be careful how complicated you let it become.
