OCD

I have mentioned this before, but I have had a lifelong struggle with OCD. It started when I was 5 years old, and it has come on and off throughout my life. I've been on 5 different medications... some made it better, some made it worse, but the ones that made it better made me a different person. OCD comes in waves. I can go two years with very minimal problems, and I can go two years with rampant OCD symptoms. It usually comes when you're very stressed, which I have been for the majority of my life. Pregnancy is exacerbating it. This past week has been absolutely horrific. I believe my hormones are playing a large role in it, and I'm not sure how to make them stop.

One thing I want to explain about OCD, since it's not widely understood by the general public, is that OCD is not a disorder of wanting things to be clean, or objects to be in a certain alignment. That's one form of OCD, but the root of it is not the cleanliness or the organization. It's the intense anxiety you feel when your hands are not clean, and the rituals you undertake to "neuatralize" the anxiety. OCD is not logical in any way, and it makes you FEEL things normal people wouldn't. It's intensely emotional, and so people wash their hands until they FEEL clean, which might be an hour after they started washing.The entire time the sufferer knows his hands are clean, but doesn't FEEL like they are... and must continue to wash. This process is mentally and physically draining, as your body is constantly pumping out stress hormones and your mind is racing a mile a minute. Television shows and movies make light of OCD as an interesting quirk, but OCD is truly devastating for the sufferer and his family. It makes you feel crazy... it makes you feel isolated... and it hurts physically and emotionally.

My OCD is not about cleanliness. It used to be. I was that person washing their hands for an hour. They'd be cracked and bleeding and I couldn't stop. And the best way to cope with OCD is to face your fears, meaning, not washing your hands despite fearing you're going to contaminate our family with hepatitis. Rational or not, it's how it feels. I liken it to taking someone with an extreme fear of heights to the top of the Empire State Building, making them walk to the edge (with nothing to hold on to) and stare down and not stop.

My OCD currently focuses on unwanted thoughts. Random things that pop into my head and I think "Why would I think that? What's wrong with me? What kind or person am I?" etc. It's a very strange disease to have because it feels like OCD is someone else that lives in your brain. Not like someone who is delusional. You know it's just a chemical imbalance coupled with a predisposition and some learned behaviors. But it feels like some evil monster is sitting in your head, searching for whatever makes you most vulnerable, and then feeding on it. Mine is morally motivated. I want to be "good". I put my expectations of myself onto my husband, too, so I'm often prying into his psyche, wondering what thoughts go on there. And I know... I KNOW that we don't always control our thoughts. Sometimes things just come out of nowhere and you think "WTF? I don't think that..." But the OCD causes you to think that it MUST be true. It's difficult to explain, but, again, torturous.

I decided something today, though. My husband has been frustrated and irritable today, and he says he's tired, but I think some of it is exhaustion from my constant seeking of reassurance that neither he nor I are crazy. My baby girl has been making her presence known as well. And I guess I realized that I have things good. OCD is a disorder that cannot be cured, but it can be coped with. I am incredibly lucky to have a supportive family (both my brother and father have OCD) and a husband who knows me inside and out. And I'm tired of living this way. I've overcome OCD before. It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I tell my husband regularly that if I was given the choice to get rid of OCD or my kidney disease, I would pick OCD without hesitation. But I don't have that choice. The (much harder) choice that I do have, is to overcome it. And I know that thoughts and actions are two very different things. And I'm tired of letting this fear run my life. So I'm done letting it. I'm finally feeling ready to begin the hardest battle I've ever had to endure. Life is too short to spend it worrying about things that simply are not going to happen.

I'm glad that I've consciously made this decision. But I've made it before, and it's not easy to stick to. But I have to.