Symmetry disease is a disorder that troubles people's daily life. It negatively affects the person and his/her relationships in daily working life, home life and family life. If people with symmetry disease are not treated, these disorders can become more difficult. People with symptoms of symmetry disease often have a perfectionist structure. This perfectionist structure makes people feel the need to organize themselves and most things around them.
What is Symmetry Disorder?
The basis of symmetry disorder is obsession. The person feels the need to correct anything they see because of symmetry disorder.
Symmetry disorder is the need to organize and correct most of the things that the person sees and is exposed to around them.
A person with symmetry disorder becomes automatic and is usually not aware of this condition. He realizes this when people around him warn him, but he continues his habit.
Symptoms of Symmetry Disorder
- The person's desire to be constantly in clean and hygienic environments
- Constant desire to clean
- Thinking that bad events and situations will happen to you
- The constant need to disinfect oneself
- The desire to fix and organize something for no reason at all
- The desire to constantly change the objects around you in an uncontrollable way
- The urge to focus on objects they perceive as disordered and to strive to correct them
- Extreme perfectionism
There are different severities of symmetry sickness. Some experience it more severely and some experience it more mildly. A person may feel the need to tidy up the painting in the living room, on the table. If he does not do this, he feels very bad. If these obsessions are very severe and obsessive, they can turn into a psychiatric condition that needs to be treated. Obsessive compulsion and OCD can be symptoms of a disease. It is also necessary to look for other obsessions besides symmetry disease. For example, constant hand washing is actually a kind of obsession. The person may have frequent control rituals. "Did I lock the car door, did I unplug the iron?" etc. The person constantly returns home and checks.
In symmetry disease, obsessions may be individual or together. If the severity of the obsessions in symmetry disease is very intense, they need to be treated. If the sum of these obsessions exceeds one hour in one day, the disease is in question and should be treated. Because these obsessions disrupt the person's relationship with the environment and functionality.
The disruption of the person's functionality is divided into 3: Social functioning, family functioning, family functioning. (should be corrected to social functioning) Such individuals have difficulties in all three areas. They want to do their work very well, so the work is never finished on time. In home life, control rituals continue over and over again. In social life, they cannot leave the house. This affects social life.
Thoughts, feelings and behaviors mentioned in psychology. In individuals with symmetry obsession, there is a thought. "I closed the door, I didn't close it." This thought creates anxiety and fear. The behavior is that the person goes and checks the door. In fact, all behaviors of individuals with symmetry obsession stem from the feeling of anxiety. The purpose of all these behaviors is to eliminate the feeling of "anxiety". However, each repetitive behavior causes this feeling to become more solidified.
Symmetry disorder seriously affects the social life of the person. If the mirror on the wall is not symmetrical, the person may not go to that friend's house. This is avoidance behavior because the individual tries to prevent the feeling of anxiety he/she will experience when he/she sees the mirror that does not stand properly.
In individuals with symmetry obsession; anger is very intense. The person is angry both with himself/herself and with the other party. The individual feels anger towards everyone, thinking that he/she is not understood.
Symmetry Disease Treatment
Symmetry disorder is a treatable disease. However, symmetry disorder treatment takes a long time. Individuals who say that symmetry disorder treatment is unsuccessful are usually individuals who do not follow the treatment protocol or experience OCD very severely. In this case, the success rate of symmetry disorder treatment may decrease. Symmetry disorder is usually treated with medication. Deep TMU is also an alternative and supportive treatment. If OCD is very severe and resistant to treatment, ECT can be performed. If none of these treatments yield results, surgical methods are also available. Psychotherapy is used in all cases in the treatment of symmetry disorder. After the treatment, the person will have a feeling of whether he/she closed the door or not, but it will not turn into behavior.
Who Can Have Symmetry Disease?
Symmetry disease can be seen in everyone. Genetics is important in symmetry disease. If it runs in the family, the incidence is higher. It usually starts in childhood. The incidence rate is equal between men and women. Sometimes the person sees the obsession with symmetry but does not try to correct it by turning it into behavior. However, he/she thinks this thought intensely. This is only an obsession in the dimension of thought. Such people are very skeptical and want to control everything.
Symmetry Disorder Family Attitudes
Symmetry disease obsessions can be seen in children at certain ages. But if children and adults have obsessions, it is useful to seek a psychiatric opinion. If obsessions are not treated, their duration and number increase. Approving the patient increases the obsession. This is the most common mistake families make.
When individuals with OCD come to treatment, they say that they are aware that their behavior is absurd. However, when we start treatment, we see that the person is experiencing these things and feels intense anxiety. In therapy; no matter how much they suffer from anxiety, they do not actually want to get out of this situation. If they are not aware of the obsessions and do not recognize the obsession, then the diagnosis changes. Such patients are unsure of their behavior and want to have every behavior approved. After a while this becomes a battle and the patient usually wins.
