OCD Reflections

Though I probably don't have enough of it to warrant a label, I think I do have some social anxiety.  It's gotten a lot better over the years - when I was a kid it was really so much worse.  Back then, I was often labeled "shy" or "quiet" and hated it because every time someone used one of those adjectives to describe me, it just seemed that much harder to overcome my difficulty of speaking up.  Those jolts of anxiety I got from voicing my opinion were intensified when I discovered that, despite my desire to be talkative and efforts to be outgoing, I was still perceived as being "quiet."   I had a hard time as it was being more vocal when not at ease, but when someone commented on how I was "shy," the self-consciousness would flare up even more, creating an even bigger hurdle to overcome when I wanted to express myself. Like I said, it's a lot better now.  I think through accidental exposure and repeated confrontation of social situ...

Sometimes I think I have a hard time seeing just how much OCD I have and have always had.  Today I was reading an article from my Winter 2011 IOCDF newsletter.  There was a personal account from a parent whose son had suddenly starting exhibiting OCD symptoms after apparently acquiring a strep infection (I still find the whole concept of PANDAS intriguing - in college, I did a fairly in depth project on a related neurological issue also caused by strep, Sydenham's chorea).  Anyways, when she mentions the things her son suddenly "convinced" himself he had to do, like twirl past his sister's room to prevent something bad from happening, the degree to which OCD has been part of my life for YEARS, since I was also a kid, becomes more apparent. I'm caught off guard by accounts like this one, thinking, "Wait!  But doesn't everyone do that?"  My day is probably filled with all sorts of these little compulsions that hardly even register anymore because I ...

Oh, how I have missed you, OCD blogging community!  I have missed a lot of things.  My life has become so busy as of late (in a good way), that I haven't had much time to reflect on my OCD and my progression in fighting back.  Let's just say that the work is going well, and that explaining further would require more explanation than I currently have time for.  But as usual, this is still where I turn when I feel like I need a place to express my feelings related to OCD, and the trials and triumphs in battling it. Instead of writing further this evening, I have been wanting to share a couple things I discovered when I went to my parents' house over the holidays.  By "things" I mean high school writing assignments.  These particular assignments caught my attention because they struck me as my attempt to try to capture, in words, this invisible and intangible thing forever keeping me bound and restrained - OCD that is. Back then, I didn't have a name for i...

It's been an interesting week.  I've been pretty busy and haven't had so much time to devote to blogging (or to think about blogging) as I usually do.  I start to feel "off" if I don't write as much - like I have something I want to say and am afraid I will forget if I don't write it down soon enough.  This is probably OCD in and of itself, but it's hard to know where the boundary lies between something you want to do and something you just feel you need to do because of OCD.  Writing probably falls a little bit into both categories. Anyways, one of the things I have been doing a lot since arriving at my parents' house is sorting through old papers - souvenirs, old school report cards, notes and cards from friends, etc. - that I had been stashing away for about a decade before I left for college.  Now every time I go home, there is a certain amount of de-hoarding to do.  This particular trip I happen to be tackling all the papers and documents I...

As the holiday season arrives, I sometimes think about how OCD affected this time of year for me in ways I never knew.  When I was struggling with scrupulosity, there was of course compulsive prayer surrounding the religious holiday of Christmas.  That was the most obvious form my compulsions took.  I felt compelled not only to pray, but to pray "right."  If I had bad thoughts while I was praying or if forgot important parts (or if I simply suspected that I might have forgotten important parts),  I had to start over.  So, secretly in hidden in my bedroom with the door closed, I prayed, hoping no one interrupted. Because, if they did, I would then have to stop, pretend like I had been doing something else, only to start over yet again as soon as they were gone. Sometimes if I couldn't seem to get the prayer "right" I would begin reciting the words aloud, hoping to make them stick, hoping to make them somehow seem more final and sure so that I wouldn't ha...

my favorite dysfunctional brain... I've been avoiding writing lately because I'm beginning to notice that it brings a sense of anxiety.  There's the idea that sparks the urge to write, followed by the desire to "perfectly" explain it all so that it feels "right" when I'm done, so that I feel "whole" and "complete" once I've finished spitting out all my thoughts.  Attempting to write a post with that goal in mind is starting to become more daunting than the idea of just holding all those thoughts in.  As often happens as my compulsions grow and take on a life of their own, I make myself perform them until the idea of DOING them finally becomes more onerous than the idea of NOT DOING them, at which point I just start avoiding whatever it is that I feel must be done in that compulsive way.  And I think that's what's begun to happen here.  I'm slowly starting to avoiding writing, even when I would like to, because I...

I was excited to come across this article on childhood mental health on Time magazine's website, an article that does a good job describing sexual orientation OCD, how it all too often begins at a young age, and how it can affect the sufferer over the years.  The reason I was so excited and surprised to see this type of OCD mentioned and intelligently explained was that, all too often, OCD is portrayed in a fairly one-dimensional manner by the media.  We hear all about the stereotypical washing and checking compulsions, while other forms often get ignored.  OCD can latch onto almost anything that we deem important in our lives, and the corresponding compulsions are equally infinite. As more types of OCD are given attention, perhaps more people will understand that OCD is not really about being a germophobe or being afraid of setting the house on fire.  It's about uncertainty and the strong desire to eliminate it; that's what unites all sufferers with the disorde...

I'm not exactly sure why, but I've been feeling a bit sad now and then lately.  Nothing in particular causes it - in fact, things have been going fairly well, for the most part.  But sometimes my feelings slosh around freely - up and then down, down and then up - without any real rhyme or reason.  But I know if I get up and make myself busy, if I engage my mind in things I want to get done, my mood will lift. There was a time in my life when I couldn't depend on such things to bring my spirits up.  Though I wasn't diagnosed, I really believe that I suffered from depression as a child and then later, in early adolescence, as well.  I also suspect that the depression that set in was related to my then undiagnosed OCD.  At that time, I didn't have a name for the fears that swam around in my head, the irrational worries that made me feel sick to my stomach and very, very alone.  It was only when I felt like I just couldn't go on anymore that I would fina...

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 ...

Having recently heard and read about others' experiences with having OCD as a child, I wanted to write a bit more about my own experiences growing up with the disorder. I have wanted to share these experiences for a while now, especially because these stories from my childhood are the ones that I have talked about the least, since my therapy and exposure work focuses largely on my current symptoms. But as I have alluded to before, I have had experience with different types of fears - different obsessions and different compulsions to accompany them. Some of these fears lasted for only a short while. Others gained momentum, took over my life, and then gradually faded away over the years. And then there are still others whose tyrannical legacy lives on to this day - obsessions and compulsions that are not my primary problem right now, but which wait in the background to be tackled as I overcome my most recent OCD issues. As I begin to write, I am realizing that I feel a lot of ...