My Strange Addiction is a TLC

TLC (TV channel)

TLC is an American cable TV specialty channel which initially focused on educational content. Since 1991 TLC has been owned by Discovery Communications, the same company that operates the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and The Science Channel, as well as other learning-themed networks...

 documentary television series about people with unusual compulsive behaviors

Compulsive behavior

Compulsive behavior is behavior which a person does compulsively—in other words, not because they want to behave that way, but because they feel they have to do so....

. These range from eating specific non-food items and ritualistic daily activities to bizarre personal fixations or beliefs. Season 2 started on July 17, 2011.

Despite the title of the show, few of the show's subjects have what would medically be classified as true addiction

Addiction

Historically, addiction has been defined as physical and psychological dependence on psychoactive substances which cross the blood-brain barrier once ingested, temporarily altering the chemical milieu of the brain.Addiction can also be viewed as a continued involvement with a substance or activity...

, neither conventional (substance-related) nor behavioral. Rather, the cause of their behavior varies and may include a variety of psychiatric diagnosis. Examples of disorders on the show are:

• Obsessive compulsive disorder
• Pica (disorder)
  Pica (disorder)
  Pica is characterized by an appetite for substances largely non-nutritive . For these actions to be considered pica, they must persist for more than one month at an age where eating such objects is considered developmentally inappropriate...
  
  
• Schizophrenia
  Schizophrenia
  Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
  
  
• Psychosis
  Psychosis
  Psychosis means abnormal condition of the mind, and is a generic psychiatric term for a mental state often described as involving a "loss of contact with reality"...
  
  
• Alzheimer's disease
  Alzheimer's disease
  Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...
  
  
• Exercise bulimia
  Exercise bulimia
  Exercise bulimia is a subset of the psychological disorder called bulimia in which a person is compelled to exercise in an effort aimed at burning the calories of food energy and fat reserves to an excessive level that negatively affects their health...
  
  
• Trichotillomania
  Trichotillomania
  Trichotillomania, which is classified as an impulse control disorder by DSM-IV, is the compulsive urge to pull out one's own hair leading to noticeable hair loss, distress, and social or functional impairment. It is often chronic and difficult to treat....
  
  
• Body dysmorphic disorder
  Body dysmorphic disorder
  Body Dysmorphic Disorder is a type of mental illness, a somatoform disorder, wherein the affected person is exclusively concerned with body image, manifested as excessive concern about and preoccupation with a perceived defect of his or her physical features...
  
  
• Dermatillomania
  Dermatillomania
  Dermatillomania is an impulse control disorder characterized by the repeated urge to pick at one's own skin, often to the extent that damage is caused...
  
  

External links

• Official TLC Show Website