OCD Reflections

It's been an eventful few weeks.  I can hardly believe it, but I have been in my intensive treatment for almost a full month now and am about 2/3 of the way through the program.  Four hours a day, five days a week, I've been in treatment for OCD.  And I think I'm finally getting what I needed to propel me forward - a more aggressive, thorough, and persistent attack on my disorder, a sort of fight that I struggled to make with just one hour a week of therapy. Perhaps I'll write more in depth on the actual experience of being in the program later, but right now I have another topic on my mind:  what will I do when I am out?  My number one fear:  slipping, losing not only the gains I've made but the forward momentum I've collected.  What I hope to take away with me is not necessarily the ability to face any one specific fear, but rather the willingness and readiness to do what it takes to get better.  It's so much easier to do what needs to be done...

This is my life.  I live with OCD day in and day out and suspect that I always have.  And because I have lived with it for quite some time, I have a hard time seeing it and just how much it affects my life.  I forget the cost, the toll, of giving into OCD's wishes, because, frankly, I have grown used to the sacrifices.  Indeed, I'm not even sure I know what it's like to not make SOME sort of sacrifice to keep this disorder appeased.  The more I learn about myself and how OCD has wriggled its way into the nooks and crannies of my life, I begin to wonder - how many of my decisions, in the past and in the present, have been based on my attempts to quell OCD's insatiable need for certainty, for feeling "right"? I have been a bit more reflective on these things this past week as I decided to take some time off from therapy.  I'm not giving up.  I'm certainly not done with treatment by any means, but I have been feeling, well, complacent, lately, and I fel...

I periodically do this thing where I decide that it's just not worth it to go to bed.  It's a bad habit, and I'm perpetuating that bad habit once again tonight.  I'm no longer in school.  The need for all-nighters has passed, and yet I still pull them, and mostly because of OCD. This is how I ended up making the decision tonight:  I have an appointment at 8am.  Before I go to that appointment I'd like to shower, which means that, even though I have gotten my shower time down to under 30 minutes, I should probably be sure to be up and about by about 5:30 to make time for all the other OCD shenanigans that usually end up taking place before/after my shower and while I get ready.  That way I can be ready to leave by about 7:00/7:15 for my 8am appointment.  Woo. Still not really a reason to stay up all night, right?  Well, there's more.  I woke up late today and had to head out to my office session without showering, which is something I like...

Some days I feel like I have somehow managed to bury myself by means of excessive avoidance and procrastination.  When I don't have things I HAVE TO do or HAVE TO be at, it is hard for me to find the will to do the things I dread - to shower, brush my teeth, clean, etc.  Even when there are places I had planned to go or things I had planned to do, there are times when the consequences of missing those things still isn't motivating enough for me to face the dread they stir up.  And so my life is put on hold, tasks accumulate, and time slips by as I sleep the day away or search my computer, numbly looking for something to entertain me, something to fill the time until I muster the courage to go face what I'm avoiding.   I seem to go through cycles.  First there is the dread that arises when I either actually need to do something or when OCD says I need to do something.  Usually it goes something like, "I can't do x until I have taken care of z ."...

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...

     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...

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...