ABSTRACT
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a chronic and potentially debilitating mental disorder. This chapter explores issues of stigma and mental disorders through the lens of OCD. OCD has the potential to impact people's quality of life more negatively than schizophrenia and is associated with suicidality. People with OCD experience obsessions and compulsions about everything from contamination, symmetry, and harm to sexuality and religion. Partly due to this heterogeneity, researchers have had difficulty understanding the causes of OCD relative to other emotional disorders. Stigma is the result of how people label and stereotype others in a negative way, treating them as "other" than themselves. OCD is currently represented more widely and in more humorous ways within media. Also, the term "OCD" is used in a trivialized way on social media. People with OCD can be reflective in considering how people might perceive them, taking into account societal norms and public perceptions when devising strategies for representing themselves.
