“My OCD Story”, a first person account by B.S., a young adult, writes of the change in perspective that allowed him to move forward in his treatment, and captures the essence of living a valued life, even with OCD.
The other week I went to the JFK Museum up in Boston, Massachusetts. It felt good to get out into the real world after several days of intensive treatment. I’m currently at McLean Hospital’s OCDI Jr. for what’s pretty much implied in the title, OCD. At the museum I read a famous quote ironically not from JFK but from FDR that said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself .” That made me think for a while and reflect on my current situation. What if what you fear is yourself? What if it’s your own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Don’t those shape who you are? Even scarier yet, what if your fear is that who you are isn’t really you at all. That you are so intertwined with your disorder that you don’t even know which is which, as if in some matrix. Then is that quote actually true? My name is [xxxxx] and I’m battling with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. This is my story…
It all started in fifth grade. At the time, I was already a perfectionist. Infact, that year everyone in our class got an award and mine was “Over-Thinker” and “Over-Doer”. However, my OCD took control of me when our class began a poetry unit, and I had to brainstorm ideas. At first I was jotting down a few poems in mind, but soon I couldn’t stop. Even throughout the rest of the year, I would constantly write down any poem idea that came to my head. I would usually use any piece of scrap paper I could find and put them in this red ottoman I have in my room to this day. However once I got a phone, I began putting all my poem ideas as one large name in my contacts app. This would be the start to a whole complex system I developed to live a life puppeted on the strings of chemical misfirings in my head.
As I write this, I wonder why didn’t I tell anyone early on? Did I really think this was how to act? When I reflect back on it, I realize I was so immersed in my disorder that I didn’t know that it wasn’t me. I felt I was becoming a perfect of a a version of myself. The satisfaction I got from my compulsions was so intoxicating that I became oblivious to the fact I was becoming the opposite. Perfectionism became my focus in life, and it used OCD as its partner to make it that way. And so, I became enslaved by my own mind.
When summer finally came along, it was time to head off to sleepaway camp where my OCD took hold of its own. I would constantly have to hoard thoughts by writing them down on paper. It started off as tasks I wanted to accomplish during the course of the summer, to any abstract idea that came to my head. On top of that, my area of the bunk was a nightmare. Everything that I owned had to be perfectly aligned, like a grid. Nothing could be moved out of place. Nobody could sit or be near my bed. Constantly, I had to be on high alert to clean or fix anything that got moved out of place. I would like to apologize to Wyatt for having to put up with it. I could only imagine what he was thinking.
There’s a lot to say about Middle School. It was the peak of my OCD where it manifested to the point of out of control. Up until eighth grade, despite the absurd amount of rituals I had to do, I was still a straight A+ student for the most part. However, life was tough. Almost every thought that came to my head I had to write down. I would wake up several times in the middle of the night, simply to write notes. My phone became this hub that contained thousands of pages worth of printed notes. Don’t forget voice recordings. I would spend hours every night until early morning sorting my agenda book, let alone homework.
High School was a rough realization because everything academically now had gravity to it. For once the school work actually mattered and impacted where I will attend college. The cards are finally being dealt, and the consequences of handing assignments in weeks late, missing days of school at a pop, constantly writing notes, copying students binders, spending hours organizing my backpack until it felt right, all hit hard. Worst of all my OCD wasn’t getting better. I went from therapist to therapist trying to find one that would work. I even did a research study with a new medication at Columbia. Hours and hours of questionnaires and retelling my OCD story to each psychologists without any result really took a toll on me and depression sometimes hit. The truth is though, it wasn’t them. It was me. I wasn’t ready to change. I wasn’t ready to take that leap of faith, and leave my current self with the trust that there’s a new perspective on the other side. And so on March 16th, 2017, I headed into the OCDI Jr. with a hope I will finally get better. It wasn’t until April 6th, when I finally took my first leap.
What I learned through my treatment is that my questions were false and FDR was in fact right. Your feelings, thoughts, and behaviors aren’t you. That’s only on the surface and temporary. Once you trust that’s valid, you can begin to dig and uncover/discover. For me that was finding the real [xxxxx], smothered by layers and layers of OCD muck. What my therapist up here at Mclean told me is that you’re like a cup. Everything filled in it, isn’t really you. Somedays you can have a gross drink in the cup. Those are the times you feel really sad and depressed. The intrusive thoughts are surrounding you and are as strong as ever. Other days you could feel great and be kicking OCD’s ass. That’s when your cup is chilling with chocolate milk in it. However regardless of how you’re feeling, remember that you’re the physical cup. The content inside will change and make you feel like you are too, but in actuality you don’t and will always remain yourself. Whether it’s fate that I have OCD or not. Whether it was a gift or a curse. I have it. And through this experience and treatment, I have strengthened the control I have on my mind in ways many couldn’t even imagine were possible. With that said, instead of sitting in the passenger seat and writing about my life, I’m finally able to live it.
-B.S.