I thought I’d share a gardening story that has similarities with OCD. As a plant-lover, it bothers me to see a plant with droopy leaves, so when I see one, I water it, then leaves perk up after a while and I feel better. Recently I saw a cantaloupe plant with droopy leaves in my greenhouse. My first reaction was to water it. A few hours later, I didn’t notice any results, so I watered it some more. Again, no reviving of the leaves. I was about to water it again when it hit me. Maybe the leaves are droopy because the plant is drowning in water. I needed to do the exact opposite of what I was doing. Sure enough, after few days of no watering the plant revived.
The problem with plants is that sometimes the same symptom, in that instance, droopy leaves, requires two opposite treatments: more watering or less watering. One needs to investigate more to decide which treatment to apply. Isn’t it the same with OCD? Sometimes we experience a ‘not quite right’ feeling when exposed to some circumstances, and we react to it by searching for more certainty or reassurance in order to get rid of it. Though we may feel some relief at first, the feeling of discomfort doesn’t subside, which prompts us to look for more certainty or reassurance, and so forth. We don’t realize we need to do the exact opposite and look for less certainty or reassurance for the uneasy feeling to eventually fade away. How to determine which treatment to apply? Maybe we need to ask ourselves whether we have enough reasons to be at peace with ourselves or some action is required to appease our mind. Then it’s a matter of sticking to one’s conclusion, despite the temptation to follow the inclination of the moment. Believe me, it wasn’t easy to resist the temptation to water the cantaloupe plant with droopy leaves every time I passed by it, even if I knew it would make the matter worse.
What I learned from that experience is that it takes as much effort from my part to leave alone plants that thrive on neglect as to pay attention to those that require great care. Likewise, I’m facing two main challenges in maintaining good mental health: the difficulty to ignore problems that solve themselves with the passing of time and the difficulty to address those that require my attention, and the first difficulty isn’t any less than the second one.
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