OCD Reflections

So I've heard anxiety and discomfort described in a number of different ways:  panic, stress, nervousness, disgust, shame, etc.  Tack on the word "attack" after any of the above descriptors and you have a name for those episodes where said feelings overwhelm the person experiencing them.  While I have most certainly experienced all of these emotions as part of my OCD, they don't quite capture the essence of what I feel when when my anger and frustration is not directed at a certain event or situation, but rather at myself.  Those times are more like "self-hatred attacks."  That's really the best way to describe those times of pure self-loathing and reproach.  Not pleasant.  Not at all. I'm sure everyone experiences self-hatred from time to time, or even frequently.  But sometimes I feel like I have molded it into a highly refined art in and of itself.  Don't get me wrong.  I certainly don't presume to have the market corned on self-rep...

Yes, sometimes I'd rather hide.  Hiding is easier.  Absorbing myself in the world of OCD ritual is easier.  Solely focusing on one singular aspect of my life and devoting all my attention to it is easier.  Avoidance is easier.  Easier.  Easier.  Easier. But boring.  I suppose. So for the past 24 hours I have really avoided doing anything other than eat, sleep (on my bay window sill...because, well, I feel too "dirty" to sleep in my bed), and sit in front of my computer searching for something to hold my interest and fulfill the void of doing nothing while procrastinating life.  Yes, life. And the reason for aforementioned procrastination? Answer:  The dread that comes with the need to shower. I have not slept in my bed.  I have not gone out (other than to buy more shower products - I came home from my trip to discover that my bottles of soap and shampoo and the like had fallen off their rack...or at least I am assuming this ...

Sometimes when I come home from a vacation (or sometimes when I start one) I find myself floundering to adjust to the changes around me.  I like vacations.  I also like coming home and getting back to my independent lifestyle - my schedule, my routine - especially after spending a significant amount time with my family.  But sometimes abruptly returning to my usual world leaves me feeling off balance and unsure how to proceed.  Basically, I feel lost. Being with my family, and only my family, is like existing in another universe.  When I am initially catapulted back into that environment, it's strange.  On the outside, I go on as usual.  I talk, I laugh, I smile and comment.  But part of me is somewhere else.  That part of me is distinctly aware of the sharp change in my surroundings, and I feel like I have to re-learn how to exist in that space.  Meanwhile, I keep a protective barrier around me, a bubble of reminders of "who I am."...

Over the past several days that I've been out of town, I've missed writing here and having the chance to read and respond to others' posts.  It actually makes me a little anxious being away, which is why I have been half trying to keep myself away intentionally and half avoiding it unintentionally because I don't want to write something incomplete.  I don't want to begin putting my thoughts down if I might have to stop before those thoughts have been captured accurately.  And, I have been avoiding reading and commenting on others' blogs because I have difficulty looking at just a few if I can't read them all.  I am always too anxious and eager to read more.  So, for the most part, I have been avoiding it altogether. Nevertheless, I think this has been good for me.  I still have a couple days more of my trip and separating myself from this site and the internet in general is probably a healthy change of pace.  Getting out of my head, out of my usual r...

Today was a ROUGH day for me, as much as I can let myself admit that.  I overslept this morning and got to my therapy appointment late.  Normally I can deal with this because I am just so glad to be there getting help, even if my time is cut short by my tardiness (often a product of some sort of OCD business...).  But today, wow, I just shut down.  I just didn't know what to say. Normally I am overly loquacious when it comes to therapy appointments.  I always seem to have a million things that I want to say or ask for which there is never enough time.  So it must have been strange for my therapist indeed, when I just kind of sat there, looking down at my exposure log, listening but making limited eye contact and not saying much in response.  I was just so wrapped up in my frustration and anger at myself.  I just couldn't seem to pull myself out of it long enough to really think and engage in the conversation.  Meanwhile, it seemed like the ...

Maybe I am young and naive to believe such a thing, but I like to think (and sincerely hope) that I will never work as hard as I did in high school ever again.  High school, looking back, was like one long OCD marathon that kept me constantly exhausted and feeling like I was on the verge of emotional breakdown.  I pushed myself so hard because the alternative seemed unacceptable.  I wasn't sure how I would be okay with myself if I didn't.  So I pushed, and pushed, and pushed, and as such, my life was school, and school was my life.  It was a love/hate relationship - a relationship saturated with the compelling force of a mental disorder. I'm pretty sure that at times my teachers both appreciated and were simultaneously annoyed by my dogged attention to detail, perfectionism, and tendency to push my limits - theirs and my own.  I was almost always the last one to finish a test, making the rest of the class wait in impatient silence long after most others ...

I often have a hard time knowing what to do because I sometimes feel like I am forcing myself, or even choosing, to perpetuate my OCD through the performance of rituals.  I get confused and go around in circles in my head, wondering if, unlike everyone else out there with OCD, I should be held more responsible for my symptoms and am less deserving of help because I might actually be "making myself" have the disorder.  However, trying to figure this question out is next to impossible, and I suspect that needing an answer is really just another compulsion - feeling like I need to know the answer to this before I can engage fully in treatment is just another OCD trap. On the flip side, I often have a hard time with myself because I feel like I should be performing more rituals and doing them better.  Instead of feeling bad for choosing to do compulsions, as described above, I feel bad for not choosing to do them, as well.  After all that I have learned about OCD, ...

A lot has happened for me this week - a lot of change and growing momentum pushing me forward into recovery.  And of course there is a fair share of anxiety to go along with this process, and that anxiety doesn't arise solely from cutting back on the rituals that brought me comfort, either.  There is also secondary anxiety created by the time that suddenly seems to be laid out in front of me - time that was previously occupied by compulsions is slowly be re-released for other potential uses.   I am not used to feeling like I have excess time.  Even without a real job, OCD can be a full-time occupation.  Fighting OCD (or giving in to its demands) has literally been my all-day everyday job for many months now.  Just the necessities of daily life took up my time for almost a year.  If I had free time, there was always something else I could be doing, there was always another load of laundry, trash to take out, general cleaning to do.  Just keepin...

(Image via Wikipedia) There is an analogy that strikes me as being particularly representative of what it is like to fight OCD in the moment, and sometimes I have to remind myself of this analogy before I begin something that I know will catch OCD's attention and lure it in.  For lack of a less nerdy reference, this analogy involves a scene from the 6th Harry Potter movie (and maybe the book, too, I just haven't read that far in the series, so I wouldn't know if it happens the same way in the original).   Though it is probably a common movie scenario, the Harry Potter version is just the one that comes to mind. If you have read Harry Potter, you will probably know what I am talking about better than I do.  Forgive me for any inaccuracies.  If you haven't, well, like I said, I think it's probably a common theme. The scene to which I am referring is one in which Harry Potter has accompanied headmaster Dumbledore on a mission to retrieve an object of particular i...

There is a blog about eating disorders that I like to read which I have referred to here before.  I like reading this blog because a) I can relate in the sense that, for a brief stint in my life, I suffered from an eating disorder in addition to OCD, and because b) the author has a wonderful writing style an ability to capture her thoughts and feelings in a way that draws many parallels with my OCD way of thinking. I was reading some of her past posts today and found one titled " Seeing the ED as the Problem ."  In this post she discusses how she had to fight to identify the ED, the eating disorder, as the issue, and not the various things that got in the way of her desire to exercise and restrict.  Her behavior and attitude towards the eating disorder were described as being " ego-syntonic " or basically in line with her self-image.  It wasn't something she shuddered at and wanted banished from her life completely (in which case the ED would have been ego-dy...

There are times I occasionally realize that I have been carrying around a lot of shame and/or guilt about my OCD, but I often come to this realization not when I am actually feeling these feelings, but when I discover they are no longer there in a particular setting or situation. Twice today I had that surprising experience.  The first was at the pharmacy.  I was there getting a new prescription filled (that is another long OCD-filled story) and I was advised to do a "consult" with one of the pharmacists on staff because I haven't taken this particular medication before.  During these kind of consults they usually just give me a quick run down on whatever my new drug is - potential side effects, what to do, what not to do, etc.  Well, today I actually had questions about my new addition, and it was as I was asking these questions that I realized I felt far more at peace than I usually do just being in the pharmacy and in particular when talking to the pharmacist....

     Like this sign, exposure therapy might seem a bit odd at first glance.  You mean I am supposed to walk through the mud?  You mean I am supposed to not wash when I feel like I should?  Why on earth would I want to do that?  A big theme for me this week has been the issue of trust, and by that I mean, trusting my therapist.  I agree with his exposure recommendations.  I don't think that the things he asks me to do are ridiculous or unnecessary.  And I really do believe that, if I were to go with his suggestions, I would get better.  I have had enough experience with this disorder, recently and in my past, to feel confident in the use of CBT.  If it means I have to temporarily walk through the mud, so be it, I understand the purpose and know enough to believe that it works. I have also read lots of literature on OCD, am quickly developing my own little OCD library, and even went to the International OCD Foundation's a...

        As I sit here munching away at my dark chocolate covered espresso beans, reading the latest updates of the various blogs I follow, I begin to get that all too familiar feeling of crawling in my skin...I want it off, NOW...and by that I mean any excess fat on my body. Unlike feeling dirty, there is no immediate fix for suddenly feeling fat out of the blue.  I can't just go wash it off to purge the feeling of panic,  nor can I perform rituals, that though time consuming, can, at least for a short while, banish the feeling of disgust.  I suppose there are methods that some people use - laxatives, diuretics, vomiting - that have fairly quick results, and thus I can see the appeal of them, but even when I was wrapped up in my eating disorder and at my worst, I never used these compulsive methods to make myself feel better, to get rid of that feeling of disgust.  My perfectionistic tendencies and eating disorder-related OCD told me...

So one of the things my therapist has asked me to do between now and my next session is to write down the things that I have lost due to OCD, the things that I am currently missing out on, and things that I could lose in the future if I continue to feed, through my compulsive behavior, this feeling that I NEED my OCD.  Although I have always felt this way to a certain extent, I suppose this feeling that "I need the disorder to be me" has become one of the core reasons I now continue to engage in some compulsions, in addition to my original contamination fears and my version of moral scrupulosity with cleanliness.  My therapist warned me that this a dangerous path to go down - the idea of just resigning myself to OCD's demands because it is "my cross to bear" is a slippery slope that can easily lead to unnecessary loss.  With that in mind I thought I would begin contemplating the things that I have lost, continue to lose, or could lose in the future if I simply...