You locked your car doors before you went into the movie theater -- or did you?

Your mind keeps replaying your actions, but you can't remember whether you locked your doors or not so you leave the movie theater to check.

Yep, they were locked.

Is this scenario a sign that you have obsessive-compulsive disorder?

Without diagnosis from a professional, there's no way to say for sure. What is certain is that thanks to people such as Howie Mandel and TV shows like Monk and Obsessed, awareness of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is growing.

According to the International OCD Foundation, one in 100 adults and one in 200 children have OCD.

But what exactly is OCD?

As the name suggests, it's an obsession and compulsive disorder of the brain and behavior. The mind of someone with OCD is often stuck on a thought or action, which causes anxiety. The anxiety fuels an ugly cycle that the person has difficulty stopping, said Yorktown Health and Diagnostic Center internist Derrick Williams.

"OCD is a very disabling chronic disorder where people have these obsessions with thoughts and impulses that they have to take care of all the time," Williams said. "They have these rituals that they do and they have to do them every time, or it creates anxiety ... It is an anxiety-provoking, intrusive thought that is repetitive in behavior."

OCD is one of several types of mental illness. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, one in four adults, experiences a mental health disorder within a given year.

OCD presents a constant struggle to control the anxiety, which can interfere with work or relationships, and make life difficult.

"It's all about anxiety," Muncie psychologist Frank Krause said. "You think, 'Well gee, they want to try to reduce the anxiety,' but then they feed the anxiety. It's horrible to have that much anxiety."

People might have OCD personality traits, but not the full-blown disorder, both Krause and Williams said. While the personality traits might be confused as OCD, it's not debilitating. No one knows what causes OCD, but trauma might be a trigger and genetics might play a role as well.

"There are those that it's their personality," said Krause, "but it gets to the point that it becomes a disorder that it gets in the way of their daily living, how it impacts their relationships."