Can cleaning craze be a disease?

Homemakers know that keeping the house clean and organized is a laborious but necessary task. However, these same concerns about housework can become excessive when repeated over and over again in a short time and when accompanied by great distress. So what are the limits to whether the cleaning craze can be considered healthy or not?

When a person's relationship with cleanliness or dirt is distressing, time consuming, or significantly interfering with a person's daily tasks and social life, it may indicate the manifestation of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

OCD is a chronic mental illness characterized by behavioral changes that manifests itself in the form of obsessions and compulsions. While one recognizes that these excessive obsessions and concerns about cleanliness are thoughts, ideas, and impulses that are the fruit of one's own mind, one cannot get rid of them.

Generally, these thoughts are accompanied by anxiety and discomfort leading to repetitive and intentional behaviors, performed to reduce distress.

The person feels that he needs to clean the floor of the house again, otherwise something bad can happen to him, for example. Another example is doubts or checks, which lead one to wash the same garment several times because he / she is not clean enough yet.

The cleaning craze is one of the most affecting the family relationship. Many women end up spending much of their time cleaning doors and windows, cleaning floors, dusting, polishing furniture, unaware that they are losing control of their lives at the same time.

Attitudes such as cleaning in places or objects that are already clean, redoing the cleaning service because she did not think she did it properly, washing her hands at all times, asking people to take off their shoes before entering the home are just some of the signs of this disorder. However, the list of crazes related to contamination and cleaning is immense.

Although OCD is a chronic disease, follow-up with a psychiatrist or psychologist is essential to help greatly improve a person's quality of life by controlling or even curing the disorder.

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