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I don't think that fear and anxiety are exactly the same thing. (fear being a very basic response to a very concrete (perceived) threat, while anxiety is more diffuse, constant, covering larger timeframes)

Assuming we are talking about the same thing (anxiety), why do you think that not everyone suffering from OCD has that as the cause? What other types do you know of? It is possible that I was focusing too much on intrusive thoughts and related issue, but my current understanding is that the OCD mechanism described above is the same for any type of OCD and that it is by definition an anxiety disorder.

The discomfort you are describing could be the same thing as the anxiety I was speaking of, although discomfort is maybe not intense enough to describe the internal experience of the disorder.

As always: these things are distributed on a spectrum with better/worse days and cases between people. It only becomes a disorder if you suffer from it on a regular basis in some phase of your life.

[coldtea]

>I don't think that fear and anxiety are exactly the same thing. (fear being a very basic response to a very concrete (perceived) threat, while anxiety is more diffuse, constant, covering larger timeframes)

That could just be a historical product of the English language. Other languages don't necessarily discriminate this way between fear and anxiety.

E.g. we can equally talk about someone "fearing" they have forgot the stove open or "being anxious" about it in this here parts.