Is OCD a "disease?"

I was recently talking to someone about my OCD and I referred to it as a "disease." They disagreed, and said they thought it was merely a disorder. This bothered me, because I think "disease" is more fitting considering the pain and anguish I'm in. I probably overreacted, but to me, "disorder" sounds more demeaning, like it's my fault that I have OCD. Any thoughts?

it's technically a disorder (hence obsessive compulsive disorder), but you can call it whatever seeing as you have it .

I know it is a disorder but sometimes I think about it as a disease. I guess that's due to the stress it brings on and the pain I feel. It really doesn't matter what you call it! Thanks for the reply.

This is what the dictionary said: Quote
"Disease:
Disease can be defined in three ways:


An interruption, cessation, or disorder of body functions, systems, or organs.Synonym: illness, morbus, sickness.
A morbid entity characterized usually by at least two of these criteria: recognized etiologic agent(s), identifiable group of signs and symptoms, or consistent anatomical alterations.
See also: syndrome.
Literally, dis-ease, the opposite of ease, when something is wrong with a bodily function (Dirckx, 1997)."

So I guess it can be refered to as disease, but I think these days that we associate disease with horrible occurences such as people fading away to nothing or their arms falling off. So perhaps the stigma associated with the word makes it unhelpfull to use with OCD. Particularly as we tend to stress about the morbid and horrible deaths.