The More You Know: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

There is a page on my website featuring my personal battle with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or OCD. Recently, I stumbled upon an online conversation about what does or does not constitute OCD, and as always, I found myself getting involved, receiving questions, and handing out advice.

Since I focus all my awareness on OCD, I do feel obligated to state the following: no neurological disease is fun. If you have or know someone who suffers from anything, be it manic depression, paranoia, generalized anxiety, bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia, OCD, POCD, or anything that has a daily impact on their lives, do your research, show compassion, and be a friend. I'm still discovering things about myself that I can link to OCD, and I assume I will for the rest of my life.

So here's My Life as an Obsessive Compulsive as posted on my website. If you follow the link, you'll find links to other sites and book recommendations on the subject. I'm including a section at the bottom for those people with OCD who might stumble across this blog. I hope it's useful; it has invariably helped me.

First of all, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder isn't the funny thing you see in the movies, a twitch, or something to be taken lightly. I often get frustrated with people who use the term "OCD" flippantly; I work with several girls who have repeatedly said, "I'm so OCD about that." It's harmless, yes, but these are people who will never know what it's like to truly suffer from this disease. For those who have OCD, it is no laughing matter.

There are different types of OCD. Obsession, which is what I suffer from, and that obsession can lead to compulsion, which I have suffered from in the past. The compulsive part of OCD is what I believe comes to mind most frequently for people unfamiliar with the disease. This involves counting, methodical washing of hands, and other degrees of compulsive behavior. When I was nine or ten, I became convinced that I was going to die of lead poisoning and scrubbed my hands to the point where they cracked and bled. It drove my mother insane, but no matter how often she tried to calm my fears, I wouldn't listen. It took going to a professional to kill this particular compulsion, and I haven't had a spell of frenzied hand-washing ever since. I don't know why it hasn't come back to haunt me, it just hasn't. I consider myself lucky.

It wasn't very long after my hand-washing came to an end when I first started having dark thoughts. These frightened me, made me feel isolated, afraid of myself and for others, and I spent three months with what felt like a demon in my chest. I was petrified of telling my mother for fear of her reaction, and I felt completely closed off from the world - I felt abnormal and wrong. These thoughts plagued me the summer between my fifth and sixth grade years until I cracked and told my mother, who did not handle it properly. She treated the thoughts like something I was contemplating, rather than something by which I was plagued, and I'm not sure if I've ever recovered from that.

Obsessive, violent thoughts are not uncommon in people who suffer from OCD, and this was something I didn't know until very recently. The following is copy/pasted from the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation.

1) Obsessions are thoughts, images, or impulses that occur over and over again and feel out of your control. The person does not want to have these ideas. He finds them disturbing and intrusive, and usually recognizes that they don't really make sense. People with OCD worry excessively about dirt and germs and become obsessed with the idea that they are contaminated or contaminate others. They may have obsessive fears of having inadvertently harmed someone else even though they usually know this is not realistic. Obsessions are accompanied by uncomfortable feelings, such as fear, disgust, doubt, or a sensation that things have to be done in a way that is "just so."

Common obsessions are: contamination fears of germs, dirt, etc., imagining having harmed oneself or others, imagining losing control or having aggressive urges, intrusive sexual thoughts or urges, excessive religious or moral doubt, forbidden thoughts, a need to have things "just so," and a need to tell, ask, or confess. Common compulsions are: washing, repeating, checking, touching, and counting.

Obsessive Compulsives with disturbing thoughts are often treated by the undereducated as "hearing voices." This is a problem I frequently encounter when someone asks me to explain my OCD. As noted above, people suffering from OCD know the difference between reality and unreality - the thoughts themselves are not considered "real," rather intrusive and frightening. Most of all, it's a NORMAL symptom.

I had no idea my obsessions were perfectly in-keeping with my particular case of OCD until recently. I'm not certain if it helps others afflicted with OCD, but the knowledge that I was NORMAL probably saved my life. For as miserable as I was, thinking I was wrong and twisted and evil, finding out that my disease had a name and there was nothing I could do to prevent it, nothing I was at fault for thinking, was the biggest blessing I've ever received.

When I was in high school, my doctor prescribed Fluvoxamine, a common drug to treat OCD. It has severe side-effects going on and off, but I have been on it for about eight years. The drug does not kill the symptoms, but it does soften the effects. I have struggled with OCD every day since I was diagnosed, in small ways and in large. I have extremely good days and extremely bad ones, though the really bad ones are few and far between now. Most of the time I feel just fine, but there are instances when I think my head is going to explode. This is something I am not quiet about. My husband knows, and we discuss it frequently because talking about it helps. He's done some reading and has, over the last few months, come to new understanding about Obsessive Compulsives, and recognizes things in myself that I can't always see. Whatever thoughts the disease gives me are not mine, they're just a symptom. It's like a runny nose as a result of a head-cold. Symptomatic, but not a part of you. Trust me, I know how hard this is. More than once, my husband has had to calm me down and take me outside myself so I could see where the OCD ended and Rosalie began. It has happened numerous times in the past and will continue to happen, but we work with it.

If anyone is suffering from OCD or any other disease of the mind, please tell someone. It's hard to convey in writing how much that moment, even as young as I was, saved my life. You can't keep these things to yourself; you are not wrong or bad or anything for what happens in your head. People afflicted with OCD or other neurological diseases (myself included), live wonderful, fulfilling lives - just don't let it control you. Every time I feel myself spiraling out of control, I think back to what I know about my disease. I can't control what my OCD feeds me, but I can control how I respond. Talk to people, do research, know as much about your problem as possible.

If you know someone with OCD, don't give them special treatment or guard your words around them (unless they ask). They do not like what is happening to them anymore than you do. And please, don't tell them to "stop." Being told to not do something will not help an Obsessive Compulsive; it will only make them feel worse.

This is a deeply personal matter for me, but I feel like I know enough about OCD, myself, and how people respond to be open about it. If you're uncomfortable talking to me because of it, quite frankly that's your problem. Obsessive Compulsives have nothing to apologize for - no one asked to be made this way. We just try to live in the world.

Likewise, if you have questions, you're free to email me. I will answer your questions honestly.

Thank you for your time.


Sincerely,

Rosalie Stanton

Coping Mechanisms That I Find Helpful

1) Don’t fight the thoughts—fighting the thoughts only gives them power. Just let them be there, if nothing else. Welcome them. They’re not you, and they’re not real. When you feel particularly obsessive, try to be as obsessive as possible. Try to get your thoughts to throw you something heavy. By welcoming your obsessions, you’re saying, “I’m not afraid of you,” and inadvertently stripping their power.

2) The part of your brain where obsessive thoughts originate is also the oldest part of your brain. It hasn’t evolved since our ancestor Lucy, therefore we always react to those foreign, intrusive thoughts primitively. Our body releases adrenalin, reacting the same way it would if we were spiraling toward the ground in a crashing plane. This goes back to Point #1. If you don’t give your thoughts that sense of urgent fear, your body won’t be in a cycle of adrenalin-induced anxiety.

3) Don’t catastrophize or terrible-ize your thoughts. They can’t hurt you. They won’t kill you.

4) Get angry. Tell the thoughts they’re idiotic. Scream at them if you must. After all, this is your life and they are not welcome.

5) If you’re stuck on a certain obsessive scenario, go ahead and play it out in your head. You’ll realize the action you’re seeing is not at all something you would do. Imagine the reaction of those around you. They might be horrified, but there would almost certainly be a sort of dark comedy about the events.

6) Think of obsessive thoughts as boggarts from Harry Potter. If you’re unfamiliar with Harry Potter, boggarts are an unseen force that takes shape of whatever you fear the most—it can be anything (germs), any insecurity (weight, appearance), any scenario (violent, abusive), but when push comes to shove, it’s all caused by the boggart. Boggarts in Harry Potter are diffused by turning the creature into something funny. Do this to your obsession—laugh at it. Like anger, this will diffuse the effect.

7) If you’re worried about something, you don’t need to worry about it. This is the same as, “I’m afraid of spiders, so naturally I’m not going to intentionally throw myself into a spider web.” It might not make that much sense in your head, but that’s essentially what it boils down to.

8) Don’t keep your thoughts in your head, if at all possible. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not you. It doesn’t make you bad, wrong, or evil—it’s involuntary, and you can’t control what you think anymore than you can control what you dream or how other people drive their vehicles. If you have someone in your life that you trust, trust them with this. It helps more than I can describe.