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 - ...

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...

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...

So, I haven't written in a while.  I started a few posts and then either fell asleep or gave up, lacking the energy and drive to continue.  Lately the urge to "perfectly" capture the chaos in my head and my feelings about it has been strong.  Strong enough to drive me away from writing.  But I'm going to try to finish a post for once, whether or not it is the most perfectly accurate depiction of the inner workings of my mind. Lately I have been feverishly applying to jobs, sending out resumes left and right, and scouring the internet for more possibilities.  I've been going through a similar process in trying to find a new place to live.  My lease is up at the end of May (though I may be able to stay for June, as well), so the question of where I will live (and where I can afford to live) has been weighing heavily on my mind.  Meanwhile, I have drastically less work because my job is somewhat seasonal, and the combination of trying to find a new plac...

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...

Bad advice is everywhere when it comes to dealing with OCD.  Today I ran across one of those yahoo question/answer deals where someone described taking extra long showers with a great big helping of compulsive avoidance.  This person asked:  how can I make my showers more pleasant?  What can I do?  I never answer those sort of things, but as I read the answers that had been provided so far, I quickly changed my mind. The answers angered me.  And it's not the fault of those answering - they just don't know better.  Answers like "try listening to music to relax yourself," "dance in the shower," or "maybe take a bath instead so even if you don't want to touch certain parts of your body to wash them, they are at least getting a little bit clean."  These are the kind of answers that I got from the first therapist I saw when this all began.  Answers like, "Why don't you try to do some deep breathing exercises to reduce your stress?" o...

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...

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...

So I haven't seen a therapist in the last two days.  That makes this officially the longest I have gone without a session since the beginning of November when I began intensive treatment.  It's weird and it's not.  I am at home visiting my family.  I am in a completely different (less definitively trigger-laden) environment, and there are a lot of distractions.  It kind of scares me how at ease I am sometimes.  But at the same time, I haven't been doing much exposure either...and that certainly makes things easier.  So the decrease in therapy comes with an increase of other things to do and things to hold my attention.  But at the same time, like I said, haven't been doing much exposure :/. One thing that has been on my mind a lot (and a bit more than usual) is my weight.  Here at home with my family I can weigh myself (I have resisted buying a scale over the years because I know it would probably only lead to bad things, but here at my par...

Today I did a field session with my therapist at the mall where we proceeded to hit up just about every restroom in the place.  Correction, I hit up just about every restroom.  There was no therapist there to hover over my shoulder as I washed my hands.  No one to turn the water off.  No one to wipe the soap off my hands when I used too much.  No one to tell me stop.  No one to make me touch things.  But I did.  I washed my hands in, and even actually used , a public restroom. Some background:  half the battle for me in using public restrooms is the hand-washing part.  I never know what the conditions will be like:  Will there be enough soap?  Will I have to touch sink handles to turn on the water?  Will I have to touch the paper towel dispenser to get a paper towel?  Will there even be a paper towel dispenser or just those hand dryer things I don’t like to use (partly because you often have to touch them!)?  ...

Sometimes it seems as though everywhere I go, whatever I do, I come across things that remind me of OCD.  Then again, I think there is a lot of selective abstraction going on - I mean, I do pretty much have OCD and its treatment on my mind 24/7.  Literally.  I frequently dream about OCD predicaments, and it used to be all I would dream about!!  Every night it was another OCD nightmare, a dream that only I (and others with similar OCD fears) would find terrifying.  I recognize the absurdity of it, how silly it seems that such inconsequential things could be the central subject of a nightmare, but that's how it goes!  And I'm glad I can step back and appreciate the comedy in it after the fact. It's funny how when you are focusing on your OCD, the universe seems to leap out and offer you exposure wherever you go.  I was talking to a friend who has contamination fears, particularly with blood, and as she told me stories of the challenges she faced, it se...

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...