Have you found yourself facing intrusive thoughts, or having repetitive behavior that you aren’t able to control? Some of the more familiar symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) are obsessions and compulsions. Oftentimes, mental health conditions like OCD have a more significant impact on different aspects of your cognitive functioning – memory included. So does OCD lead to memory loss? In this post, we’ll explore the connection between OCD and memory head on, and investigate if this mental health condition can change the way you remember, process, and recall information. What does that look like for your everyday life? Let’s take a deeper dive into this relationship
What is OCD?
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a chronic mental condition that involves two main symptoms, obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions are thoughts, images, or urges that happen without rational control – in other words, they pop into your mind and persist without your permission, causing anxiety and these are called intrusive thoughts. In an attempt to decrease the anxiety and distress associated with their obsessions, individuals with OCD perform compulsions; repetitive behavior or acts (mental) that they cannot stop themselves from carrying out.
Those compulsive acts are meant to neutralize the anxiety, relieve the distress, or prevent the feared occurrence from happening. Sometimes the compulsions bring a small amount of relief, but only temporarily; other times the compulsions become time-consuming and disrupt daily life and routine. As an example, someone with OCD may worry incessantly that they left a door unlocked (that fear is the obsession). They may check the door painstakingly many times throughout the day (this is the compulsion). The compulsive checking may provide them momentary comfort but never full comfort. And they waste a significant amount of time.
Link Between OCD and Memory Loss
OCD is generally classified as a disorder of the mind and emotions. But many of the people living with OCD often have issues with cognitive function, particularly with memory itself. It is not that OCD itself causes overall memory loss like we would see with dementia, but research does show that people with OCD report memory problems and lack of confidence in memory. Although reports differ in how individuals with OCD describe their symptoms, it is commonly reported that the issues such as global memory problems, trouble with concentration, trouble with executive functioning, problems with attention, and trouble with short-term verbal and visual memory exist.
Cognitive changes in situations such as missing appointments, forgetting assignments, trouble getting organized, and little lapses of everyday problems like losing keys, are also frequently reported by people living with OCD. But, is distracted memory loss a clear cut manifestation of the disorder itself?
How Does OCD Affect Memory Loss?
1. Cognitive Load and Mental Fatigue
The intrusive thoughts associated with OCD are mentally exhausting. With the brain so bombarded with unwanted and upsetting thoughts, it is made more difficult to concentrate or focus on something. Being mentally engaged in a stream of obsessive thoughts can lead to cognitive fatigue, possibly affecting memory. When a mind is curious about its obsessive thoughts, it may not have enough resources left to properly encode or store new information. For example, it may be difficult for some with OCD to remember where they put their keys or what they were doing just seconds before because they are consumed by thoughts of being contaminated or contaminating something with their keys. All the mental effort diverted to the intrusive thoughts is using cognition that could have been used for memory.
2. Role of Anxiety in Memory Impairment
Anxiety is a major component of OCD. The distressing levels of anxiety associated with obsessive thoughts can impact memory in many ways. It has been well documented that chronic stress and anxiety affect the hippocampus (the area of the brain responsible for the consolidation of memory). In fact, research indicates anxiety has an impact on both short and long term memory processes. Many people with OCD report having difficulties remembering specific details, which could potentially relate to the excess anxiety they are under. In addition, anxiety gives rise to difficulty creating new memories. When a person has high anxiety levels, their brain prioritizes neurotransmitters related to survival, and is likely to forget non-urgent facts and details, making it more difficult for individuals with OCD to store new information.
3. Memory Impairment due to Compulsive Behaviors
The compulsive behaviors that people with OCD have been repetitive and can take up most of their waking hours. The time invested in compulsions can lessen the opportunities for someone with OCD to live in their present (which includes remembering things that are a part of daily experience). For example, someone with OCD that has certain cleaning rituals may become preoccupy with the cleaning and simply forget the moment entirely, engaging their present in something that has no direct consequences with the past – in this case, forgetting a conversation from several moments before. Compulsions disrupt ordinary participation in everyday life, and remembrance of recent happenings, or in some cases can affect ordinary thinking and living in the present.
4. Medications Side Effects
Individuals with OCD are often prescribed medications, including selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), and other classes of antidepressants. Although medications may help reduce OCD symptoms, they may also affect and create side effects and impairments that could interfere with memory abilities. There may be medications that result in drowsiness, which could affect attention and have subsequent effects on remembering information fully. Additionally, medications could have an impact on cognitive/attentional abilities, which in turn affects memory function because attention is mandated to specific types of learning.
Does OCD Directly Cause Memory Loss?
OCD can certainly affect thinking, but it is not synonymous with memory loss. Memory loss is usually defined as an inability to store or recall information that has been previously retrieved. While OCD may affect how quickly someone is able to access their memories, OCD does not directly cause someone to forget information altogether. This is because in OCD memory loss occurs when the disorder affects the ability to store new memories and to retrieve previously stored memories. OCD also affects attention, which then may give the impression of memory loss.
In other instances, the effect of OCD on memory might be less apparent. An example of this is someone who has OCD having trouble focusing on a conversation because they are too busy with the obsessive thoughts that are intruding in their mind. This will mean that the person may not retain the information shared in the conversation and it would be easy to perceive memory loss as they could not recapture that part of that conversation. This same example applies with someone suffering from OCD potentially forgetting the small gritty details of daily tasks or events like birthdays because their own mental distractions due to their obsessions and compulsions would attribute them to forgetting.
Memory Loss vs. Memory Impairment in OCD
It is necessary to distinguish between memory loss, and memory impairment due to OCD. Memory loss is a more severe condition where the person will essentially be unable to bring to mind learned information and experience. Memory impairment, on the other hand, simply refers to a difficulty in recalling or processing information and not total loss. While OCD does not appear to result in total memory loss (i.e., the person not being able to recall anything), it can inhibit one’s memory to a devastating degree. People with OCD can have some difficulty accurately remembering certain things, they may forget a recent event or conversation, and they may have difficulty retaining new information. These examples have more to do with the level of cognitive overload that is happening and the anxiety and compulsions related to this disorder than it does with a neurologically caused state of permanent memory loss.
Conclusion
OCD does not cause memory loss, but it can severely impact cognition, which relates to memory. Intrusive thoughts, compulsive actions, and anxiety can affect memory retrieval and memory storage, as well as attention and focus. There are effective treatments for OCD such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and medication, which can help you manage OCD symptoms and cognitive function. If you’re struggling with OCD and memory problems, seeking an OCD therapist in New York can be a meaningful step toward treatment, and being able to reduce your obsessive thought patterns, compulsive behaviors, and anxiety can help in letting you clarify and focus on what’s important in your daily life.
References
- Weber, F., Hauke, W., Jahn, I., Stengler, K., Himmerich, H., Zaudig, M., & Exner, C. (2014). Does “thinking about thinking” interfere with memory? An experimental memory study in obsessive–compulsive disorder. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 28(7), 679-686. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2014.07.009
- Konishi, M., Shishikura, K., Nakaaki, S., & Mimura, M. (2011). Remembering and forgetting: Directed forgetting effect in obsessive-compulsive disorder. Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, 7, 365. https://doi.org/10.2147/NDT.S21047
- Begum, Jabeen, et al. “OCD: Types, Symptoms, Causes, Diagnosis, Treatment, and Related Conditions.” WebMD, 4 April 2024, https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/obsessive-compulsive-disorder
- “Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.” MedlinePlus, 17 October 2023, https://medlineplus.gov/obsessivecompulsivedisorder.html
- Memory impairment (Concept Id: C0233794) – MedGen – NCBI. (n.d.). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/medgen/68579
