OCD Reflections

It's been A LONG time.  In fact, so long that I'm just relieved to see that so many of the wonderful bloggers that were out there before are still around.  I'm grateful to be able to come back to this world and know that it is still here. My life has drifted away from focusing so much on my OCD (which is good) but I have also drifted away from actively fighting it on a daily basis (which is not so good).  In fact, I've found it's easy to forget how much I'm letting things slip when I am not checking in with a therapist as frequently and when my life is so full of other things.  I've been working up a storm, but in-between, when I'm at home and on the weekends, the problems persist.  I've just gotten really good at working around them.  I want to return to this world, though, and to keep fighting and sharing my stories along the way.  This place has been an invaluable outlet in the past - a forum to relate, share, learn, and feel "normal" ...

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...

It's been a long time since I posted and even longer since I've made posts regularly.  But, tonight, well I'm feeling in the mood to write, and goodness, there's plenty to write about. A couple weeks ago now I began an intensive treatment program.  I'm basically in treatment about 20 hours a week.  And in the time since I started that program, well, I have done things that I am not even sure I would have done BEFORE my contamination OCD flared out of control.  As I write, I feel dirty, but I am also determined to keep going, to resist the urges to avoid and perform other compulsions that would be so easy to give in to.  I feel as though I'm finally making a solid effort to wholeheartedly commit to doing ERP as I know it needs to be done.  I'm finally breaking the rules that, for so long, I felt couldn't be broken, even while I was doing active exposure work in the past.  I am rebelling against my OCD and doing what I know, deep down, I want to do - ...

I haven't written a particularly introspective or well thought-out post in a while.  And I'm afraid this one isn't going to be any different.  Maybe it's the whole almost working full time thing.  Maybe it's the half-way normal life I'm living and trying to balance with my OCD.  I know there are OCD impediments that I just don't even really notice anymore. For instance, tonight I realized I don't have anything to wear to work tomorrow.  I can't fathom doing laundry now or even determining whether I am "clean enough" to do laundry.  I can't (aka won't) pick a skirt (that I just wore once before condemning) out the dirty laundry - too contaminated.  So what am I going to do?  Take the least offensive route - find a dress that I haven't unpacked in over a year and wear that, even though I'm not sure if it was "clean" before I packed it or if it's "okay" to wear since it's been in a box for so long,...

And so, the countdown begins...to next year's conference that is!  I had an amazing time at the 2011 IOCDF Annual Conference - heard a lot of inspiring stories and  learned even more about this disorder that I have personally found so debilitating yet so fascinating at the same time. I'm definitely in a post-trip funk right now.  I think the normal lows that can come when an anticipated vacation is finally over are exacerbated by the fact that, for a few days at least, I felt like I could be my complete, honest self.  No hiding my OCD.  No hiding my past.  No working around the truth of how and why I have gotten to where I currently am.  My life is about much more than just OCD, but for a couple days I didn't have to keep this part of my life a secret.  So it's a bit tough coming back into the "real" world, where you aren't surrounded by other OCD sufferers who know too well the toll this disorder can take and who aren't surprised or weirded ou...

This week I have something to look forward to as I plan and prepare for my short trip to San Diego for the International OCD Foundation's Annual Conference !  Woot!  I'm pretty excited, I have to say. :) In case you don't know what this is, let me give some quick background:  every year the International OCD Foundation (IOCDF) , a fantastic resource for learning about OCD and finding treatment, hosts a 2 and a half day conference with TONS of presentations and panels, all of which address aspects of OCD and related spectrum disorders and their treatment.  Basically, it's my chance to totally geek out for an entire weekend while immersing myself in OCD education.  What makes the conference even better is that, for a couple days, I feel like I can let my guard down a bit because I am surrounded by people who understand OCD and have first-hand experience with this disorder, either as sufferers themselves, as friends and family members of sufferers, or as treatmen...

So life has been a bit all over the place as of late, and I haven't been writing as much.  I think it's partly because I feel pressure to write the "right" kind of post - you know the kind where I come to some new level of self-awareness in the process of writing or where I finally put into just the "right" words the thoughts I've wanted to share about OCD.  I haven't been feeling super "inspired" by my OCD or by the process of fighting it as of late, (perhaps because I am gradually getting better and spend less of my time cloistered in a room with my laptop writing posts :), or perhaps because I've been a bit down lately).  But in reading one of Pure O Canuck 's posts this evening,  Here we go Again - More OCD ERP experiences. , I was struck by how nice it was just to hear about how she was doing and what specific ERP homework assignments she is now courageously tackling.  So perhaps I will do the same, so I feel a bit less out of...

A fierce wave of apathy and a new level of busyness in my life have led me away from blogging recently.  This lessening of interest creates additional anxiety on top of everything else:  why am I not so interested in writing anymore?  Am I losing my fascination with OCD?  Am I losing my identity as someone who has suffered and continues to suffer from OCD?  Is finding out that I have OCD no longer an intriguing life revelation and now just one thing more thing to deal with?  I hope not.  Of course, that's exactly why I start obsessing about it. As I mentioned in a previous post, so much has changed in my life recently.  I have a new apartment and a new roommate.  I also have a new job.  However, with the initial training period for that job now complete, I have drastically fewer hours, and the limited number of hours and my somewhat unpredictable schedule have me feeling less useful than I'd like to feel.  Lack of purpose breeds a...

Right now, life is so different.  New home, new rally to fight against OCD, new job.  It's that last one that has me tired and anxious today.  Today was my first day at a new job.  Granted, I'm still just doing training, but even so, it's not so much the job as the small unrelated challenges that come with it - things that I know others take for granted - that place strain on me.  I feel like there should be some sort of support network out there for people who have overcome or are overcoming severe OCD.  A support group for those who are re-entering "normal" life and bravely facing the exposures that come with it.  A place where those who are "in recovery" can guide and mentor those who are getting back on their feet.  In general, I wish there was more available in terms of rehabilitation, guidance and support for the challenges that OCD sufferers are likely to face as they re-integrate themselves into society.  I certainly feel like I cou...

I'm not even sure what to say.  Other than the fact that I'm definitely in new territory.  I'm finally committing to a more extreme method to ERP (at least what seems extreme to me), and I'm not sure what to do or how to feel about it.  Let's just say it's not as bad as keeping myself out of contact with water for days on end, but it feels that way to me.  I still get to shower and wash my hands, but not in a way that really provides any sense of cleanliness.  It seems all wrong, and it's only been a few hours since I started this new regimen. How did this all get started?  Well, after I ended my outpatient intensive treatment program back toward the end of February, I went back to the standard once a week therapy regimen.  I improved a lot during the few months that I did the intensive treatment, but little by little, things have begun to slip again  over the last month and a half.  So yesterday I scheduled a last minute session with my th...

Life has been a bit crazy-making lately.  A few weeks ago I started to titrate down from my uber high dose of Zoloft (sertraline) so that I could try out Prozac.  And as I much as I feel like the Zoloft never really noticeably affected my thought patterns or my ability to fight my OCD, I have been hesitant to proceed in going down in dosage.  Meanwhile, my psychiatrist is out on leave, and I have been further hesitant to call the psychiatrist covering for her in her absence.  But I haven't proceeded with the schedule for decreasing medication dosage, and I should probably talk to someone about it. Part of my hesitation to going down in dose is rooted in OCD, I believe.  OCD is probably also the reason I stayed on the Zoloft (and my super high dose) for so long.  It didn't seem to be harming me.  I WAS getting better, albeit ever so slowly, as I continued to move forward in CBT.  And if my ability to progress was, in fact, facilitated by the meds...

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...

As much as I believed there would come a point in time when I would feel ready to climb the hierarchy of exposure to minimize my OCD, a time when it would feel "right" and "easy," that time has yet to come.  It seems that I can't reach the top without first having to commit to exposure whether or not I'm sure it's "okay" or "right."  I had hoped I would find another way, but it appears the only way to go is, in fact, up.  Sometimes no matter how many times you read things, they don't start to make since until you've gone through them yourself.  I am admittedly a huge nerd when it comes to OCD and OCD treatment.  I love reading about this disorder - in books, through articles, on others' blogs :), you name it!  And yet, despite all I have learned from all the reading I have done, despite all my time spent in therapy, and despite the fact that I BELIEVED in what I had read and what my therapists recommended, some thin...

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...

I need this.  And by that I mean - time taken for myself.  Time taken doing something soothing and familiar like writing here.  Something to bring me back to a place and state of mind I know.  Life has been so busy lately that writing hasn't been on my mind.  Or, if it has been, I just haven't had the energy and will to do it. This past week I FINALLY began a new part-time job that I have been waiting to start for months now.  For reasons related to OCD, I had to wait a long time from the time I was hired and trained to actually begin working. (Apparently my excessive washing over the last year and a half has wreaked havoc on my fingerprints, making them pretty much impossible read digitally.  Digital fingerprinting was required for my job, and since mine were dreadfully unclear it took FOREVER to jump through all the necessary hoops for approval.  I had been interviewed, hired, trained, and had all the necessary paperwork in line, but for month...

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...