I have OCD. I do not make excuses for it, explain it away or try to figure out its derivation. It just is. What I do spend quality time doing is trying to ensure that my issue does not affect others. I consequently spend hours engaged in emotional flagellation not just for the obsessive need to fix things that are not broken, and to right things that are not wrong, but also for every associated emotion that I experience which is not on par with those of “normal” people.
I go home every night and spend an hour setting back in place every little things that my family has moved or adjusted in even the slightest way. I do not yell or say anything to them because I secretly wish I could be the person who leaves dishes in the sink, or leaves a bed unmade, or who does not care what shelf the juice is on in the refrigerator. I have no idea why I do care, why those things are in my consciousness enough to drive me to compulsion. I truly wish that feeling of liberation that comes so easily to others was something that I could achieve, but day in and day out I return to the obsessive righting of the imaginary wrongs. I have tried testing myself to break out of the rituals but derailing that train has eluded me. The ensuing depression and guilt are more apparent when I do affect someone with the behaviors I cannot control. There is not a single person who wants to experience being made to feel as though they have done something wrong when in actuality they are just living life innocently and spontaneously. I suppress a lot. I suppose I can be grateful for the ability to exercise that level of control, but in introspection, the suppression adds to the anxiety. I spent months agonizing over having invited my family to live with me while they closed on a new home. I obsessed in anticipation of the things that might be moved, messes that might be made (my definition of a mess is very out of proportion with a genuine mess) well in advanced of their arrival. Then I spent nights crying and losing sleep over how selfish and horrible a person I am for caring about trivial things even though in my OCD brain they are anything but trivial. Hey have been with me for 3 months and I have truly loved having them with me and will be distraught when they leave. I will experience remorse and internal suffering for the compulsion they may have witnessed or been subject to not realizing that a disorder holds my horse’s reigns and that my behavior is only slightly under my control.
In my head, I often think how much better it would be for others if I lived on the top of a mountain isolated from the potential of hurting others. Isolation is my greatest fear and most present reality. Catch 22 rolled into an inconvenient web of neurosis.
You articulate the experience of your illness the way I wish I could mine -- candid, vivid, exact. In a vicarious way, you've given expression to pain that I -- and, I'm sure, many of us -- have felt. It's quite a gift you have -- I know it comes with a great burden -- thank you for sharing both here.
Thank you for being out there. I realized as I typed that , that I say that a lot. I think that I value knowing that there are people in the "out there" very much because there is such a noticeable lack of people in the "in here" present world of my existence. I do appreciate you, and your presence in my life. I am struggling to find balance with my writing here. I am by nature extremely transparent and honest to the point of possibly tipping the scales of social etiquette in the wrong direction. At the same time I loathe self censoring because it causes me stress. I suppose I am learning to trust that if I err on the wrong side I will rightfully be put in my place. As for you ...to appropriate from Nike...just do it. Don't wish... candidly unleash the words that are in there behind the pain and give them voice... your voice. That liberation is a foot in the door to rising above the murkiness in our minds to what I know is beyond.
At the risk of courting envy, I should clarify that what I wish for is the perspicacity and verbal skill you demonstrate in describing your struggle with OCD. Or -- and all apologies to the Nike brand -- I do it...I just don't do it well.
It takes me ages just to write a short message like this (three days and counting now), in part, because of the way OCD permeates my thinking -- it makes it hard for me to get words on the screen, and sometimes harder to keep them there, as I revise them into an alternate syntax or out of existence entirely.
It's not all bad, though: I find this somewhat compulsive need for revision essential for writing poems. By revising, I can encode the tenor of feeling -- lately engendered by the distress of mental illness -- in the music of poetry. But my shortcomings as a writer almost always ensure that the feeling will be lost in translation.
Anyway, this is my meandering way of saying that I admire your writing for accomplishing what I cannot in my own, and that I'm grateful to read it from my quarter of the "out here."
To deflect completely, I am as given if not more so to self editing. I write everything in WORD and then spellcheck, and then delete, and then re-write, and then revise, and then spell check , and then delete, and then revisit about 12 times before I scrap it all and start again. Imagine being a student and writing 12 page papers sometimes 30 times for one assignment! Fortunately, I have days when I wake up angry. When I am angry, seeing shades of crimson that Crayola has not yet dreamed of, that is the only time my OCD is thwarted by my pee pee poor attitude and I don't give a flying yaks hiney middle finger to the world. That is when my mind can say "I just do not care today." Then and only then do words fly unabashedly from a grammatically incorrect, utterly incoherent blissfully uncensored free mind. I suppose that is a confession and a warning for the future. Poetry... I do hope you will share. Back in the days when I was able to write...poetry...music...those absolutely beautiful expressions of the soul...I was much more at peace. Indulge my over sharing nature if you will. I was robbed of that freedom of expression. Perhaps I should say I allowed myself to be robbed. I wrote from the age of ten. There was something about the smell of stationery and the feeling of a brand new fountain pen in my hand. I was, and remain infatuated with crispness of an unmarred virginal journal the first time that the cover is opened. I could spend hours and go broke in Barnes and Noble, or the musty old book store near my home that sells leather bound journals, but I can't bring myself to buy one, or if I do, it winds up in a drawer. I'm a private person who only ever shared my poetry, or music with a chosen few. I became close to a minister and his wife a while back. They were comfortable facsimiles for the family that I had moved out of state from, and he a I shared a bond that I believed was special. So much so, that I would write him letters sharing with him things I had never shared with anyone else before. I later found out he let those letters be read by my now ex-husband. To say I felt violated would be a colossal understatement. To add insult to injury, my ex-husband felt compelled to not only read, but share my journals with his attorney during our divorce proceedings. I haven't written since. There is a block. I pick up a pen and nothing. I value that you can and do write poetry no matter the length of time it takes to produce what your OCD will allow.
I was just reading your latest post and I could see a poem in it, a bittersweet ode to autumn and the vagaries of life. I hope you will write poems again, whether you choose to share them or not.
I have shared a couple of my own poems here in the HealthUnlocked forums, and they can be found among my posts on my profile page; I felt it appropriate to share the poems because I was moved by my experience with this community to write them. Otherwise, I keep my work to myself, until I feel it's revised enough to publish.
I agree with mrmonk - you totally nailed the experience....just curious, have you ever seen a therapist and/or tried any medication for the OCD? Did it help at all???
Hello, Thank you for your kind comment. I had previously visited a therapist with no particular preconceived outcome or diagnosis established. The experience was not a positive one in that he predominantly sat in silence and took notes without offering any feedback whatsoever, which I felt was not a productive use of my time or finances. Although I feel medication serves a valuable purpose for those who choose that route, I am one who prefers alternative less invasive methods of treatment , and would not use medication except as a last resort. I hold this position regarding physical illnesses as well.
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