OCD & My Broken Brain.

First, let me just say, I’m thankful. I’m thankful that I’m not the one turning on and off my lights 23 times before I can enter or exit a room or lock my door 17 times before I can go to bed without my obsessions taking hold of me. I know others struggle far worse than I do. But excuse me while I have complaints.

I was floored when I was diagnosed with OCD in 2020. Me? OCD? No no no no no. There was nothing I did in repetition with crippling anxiety so there was no way I could have obsessive compulsive disorder. Right? Well, that’s a big fat ole lie.

I remember when I was a teenager, living with my dad and (at the time) step-mom, my parents came into the room and told me that they knew I had watched the MTV special on OCD I needed to cut my crap and stop acting like I had OCD. Well, spoiler alert, I had not watched the MTV special on OCD the night before and thought that this was some big joke that I was a tad too slow to catch onto. I went as far as telling my parents to ‘shut up’ in a playful way and completely blowing them off (again, thinking it was all a joke). To this day, I really don’t know what signs of OCD they thought I was displaying but it has stuck in my mind since.
When I went to college, I already knew I was diagnosed with Bipolar type I so I decided to take some psych classes and learn as much as I could about all the things I had been diagnosed with (PTSD, depression, anxiety, Bipolar I…but who am I to brag?). The class obviously went over the classic signs of OCD, I remembered what happened when I was a teen with my parents, and then didn’t think twice about it. I didn’t have OCD and hey, it’s super possible that I actually did not have OCD at that time.

Let’s fast forward a bit to 2020, about 8 years later. I have regular appointments with my talk doctor and am covering all the topics but really focus heavily on my anxiety, mostly surrounding these intrusive thoughts I have which I always associated with my PTSD. Typical stuff like worrying that my whole family is going to die in a violent and horrific car accident, being afraid to wake my kids up in the morning because I know that they will have died in their sleep for whatever reason, and not going to the mall because of my crippling fear of dying by the hands of an active shooter. Basic stuff here. I also cover the anxiety I feel about my living space and how, as a part of coping with stress, I’ve learned to put my possessions (to include my emotions) in their proper place because it brings me great peace. I mention that, when things are not in their proper place, it makes me so uneasy that I feel like I am going to have an anxiety attack and have had them before. I’ve always been told I keep a tidy house and I feel that to be true. And I am sure we all feel like our items have a place they belong, right? Right. I explain that I have had to start over with nothing quite a few times in my life so physical possessions are a bit tricky to me. I don’t develop any real attachment to what someone would call ‘normal’ instead, I form attachment to things that highlight a happy part of my life, like the mug I ‘stole’ from Ihop when my bff took me out for my birthday. It is too tiny to use for coffee, if you’re a sane person, but I keep it and cherish it because it reminds me of a happy time. I posses one thing from my childhood and it is a stuffed animal I have manage to hold onto for my entire life. Everything else basically, I could throw away at a moments notice and feel nothing about it. So, the things I have collected are specific and serve a purpose. They all have a specific place where they belong. If I get a new item that needs a place, it usually takes the place of an old item and I, very easily, get rid of that old item. You could pick up anything in my house belonging to me, big or small, and it will have a place where it belongs.

Now, if something is out of place and is not where it belongs, nothing is right in my world. Everything is off by just a few seconds and that can mean the difference between life or death. The coffee mugs aren’t in the order they are supposed to be in? Extreme anxiety and agitation. The black forks are mixed in with the silver forks? Well, something has to go wrong because the world is out of balance. And then I noticed it started being strange things like, if i don’t tap the gas then the brakes then the gas then the brakes again before I start the car, my family is going to die in a car accident or if my husband doesn’t send me an ETA of when he is supposed to arrive home, he is going to die.

There were other things I mentioned to this talk doctor, too, things I was more concerned about like the sudden violent thoughts that would pop into my brain. I’d be sitting in a restaurant and suddenly my mind would focus on the small crack in the mirror hanging on the wall. I would envision myself calmly walking over to it, breaking off the rest of the piece, and then violently stabbing everyone in the restaurant to death. I think I am a fairly creative person so my mind would really create some of the most imaginative ways I could kill everyone without even breaking a sweat.

Sometimes it didn’t involve other people. Often times it just included me and the multiple ways I could casually kill myself. I’d like to think that everyone, once in a while, thinks about driving off a cliff and plunging to their death. Right? You ever think about just randomly falling on a knife, literally? Well, I am aware that most people don’t think that way but I always thought it was an idea that everyone kind of entertains. “Oh, I’ll just speed up a bit till I’m at a smooth 80mph, merge into oncoming traffic, and plow right into this semi truck in hopes to decapitate myself”. I wouldn’t call myself a suicidal person, especially now that I am living within a happy family, but the thoughts still come of me losing it and randomly murdering the patrons in the Mexican restaurant or calmly killing or harming myself. Sound horrible?

I’m a worst case scenario person. I think I have lived through enough trauma that I am just waiting for the other shoe to drop in the most extreme fashion, as has happened in my life. The less details I have about something, the more I am going to obsess about what could happen. Take planning a vacation, for instance. The second I know I am going to go somewhere, whether it be a half a year in the future, I start planning every detail that I can. I am going to know where I am going to eat, what I am going to wear, how long the drive is to get there, what I am going to do there day by day. Everything. I look up the weather in the Farmer’s Almanac if I can’t check to see the 10-day forecast. I will pack months early, just so it’s one less stressor on my list. I’ll look at menus to the places I am going to eat so I know what I am going to order before I get there. Because I honestly believe I will die if I do not do this. And I realize it sounds nuts. I do. I know that not knowing what socks I am going to wear on vacation doesn’t mean I am going to die but there is no way to convince me otherwise. The less details I have, the more I am convinced that somehow…I am going to die or my children or my husband will die.

I’m supposed to go to NYC this weekend. My first time in New York and my first time in NYC with my bff, Laura. I do not believe I am going to live to make it there. I am not sick, I am not in any immediate danger. Nothing of the sort but because I do not have every hour and activity planned, I do fully believe that I am going to die before I get to NYC or that I’ll get there and somehow die. Gosh.

And I know all of this sounds so ridiculous. If you have made it this far….I know how it sounds. I do, believe me. Let me just put your mind at ease a bit and tell you that I am on medication to help treat my OCD symptoms and am in regular talk therapy where we deal with my anxiety involving my OCD (well, not anymore since my therapist broke up with me BUT I am in the pursuit of a new one). I can say just as easily as you can that this is all nonsense and know it to be 100% truth but still cannot do a damn thing to change it. I can’t.

Therapy helps. Ketamine is God sent. My mindful practices help. I am even able to let things get a bit out of place in my house now that I am well medicated. But dammit if I don’t still feel the anxiety over some of my OCD symptoms. My doctor explained to me that my OCD probably developed because of my lack of control through my life and now that I am able to be in control…well dammit, I’m going to be in control like you wouldn’t believe. She explained that this is just how my OCD manifests itself and that it’s common to feel this way about these things when you have OCD.

I look back and try to figure out exactly what I did for my parents to call me out as a teenager and can’t think of anything. I’ve always been an anxious person and I feel as though I’ve earned that because of the hell I have lived through. I can’t imagine having the safety practices that some people have such as opening and shutting a window multiple times or saying a word over and over again until you’ve reached the proper count. For now, I will deal with my safety practices (that’s what they are called) and feel grateful that this is all I go through, because I know some people are living in a deeper hell than I can imagine, especially with their OCD.

::SIGH:: This was a lot wasn’t it? My OCD has been seriously triggered as we are getting ready for a move and are going through items we own that do not have a ‘place’ in our house. I feel broken. My brain feels broken. But I’m trying. I’m trying my damned hardest to be mindful of what my spouse needs, what my kids need, and the healthy steps I can take for myself and for them.

I hope you are well. Take care of yourself.

If you or someone you love is suffering from OCD and need additional help, please check out the International OCD Foundation for more information.

If you or someone you love or know is thinking about harming themselves or others, please contact 911 or call 988.