OCD

With all the misery in the world at the moment, I'll try not to add to that with this blogpost but things have been so desolate that it may dip into the morose at times - sorry.

I have been through a mammoth struggle in the past year and I really just want to get my thoughts out and to hopefully raise awareness of a disorder that can be utterly debilitating and left untreated can lead to all manner of problems functioning in life. It may seem a little selfish to talk about myself so much in this blog post but I really need to explain what has been happening.

As you may know, I have obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). I have had OCD since I was about 8 years old but it was only really diagnosed formally a few years ago. I've spent my entire life knowing that there was something that wasn't 'right' with me mentally but I didn't know exactly what it was.

Many people seem to have an inaccurate view of what OCD is, people regularly say to me - 'If you have OCD then at least your house must be immaculate!' which is just not true, I have a fear or chemicals that trumps my fear of contamination so I tend not to scrub things meticulously. My flat has 'safe' areas that I feel are clean and 'unsafe' areas that I feel uncomfortable in and are untouched for long periods of time. I also do not feel completely compelled to gain symmetry in everything as is often portrayed on the TV, some OCD sufferers do but others don't. Everyone with OCD has different obsessions and compulsions and it is important to understand this.

My first real memory of OCD behaviour was when I was a child. I remember being told that if you didn't drink enough that you would become dehydrated, I became extremely anxious about this, not knowing how much I was supposed to drink to keep hydrated. One night I drank as much water as I could before I went to bed, assuming that this would keep me hydrated. However, when I got into bed I became more and more anxious and got up several times to drink more water. As you can imagine, this lead to needing the toilet rather a lot but every time I went to the loo I became utterly terrified that as I had gotten rid of some water that I needed to drink more - so the cycle of going to the loo then drinking water from the tap continued throughout the night. I remember my parents getting cross with me, not understanding what was wrong, and telling me to go back to bed but every time I did I needed the loo, then I felt utterly compelled to drink more water.

In isolation this may just seem like the episode of an anxious child who perhaps got the wrong end of the stick when given some advice but some of my other behaviour highlighted that this was not just an isolated incident.

In my early years at secondary school I developed a series of tics that I couldn't control and for which I was generally mocked. I would clear my throat every few seconds, the compulsion to do so was overwhelming even when I didn't feel necessarily that my throat needed clearing. I developed a nervous cough and the more people mocked it, the worse it got. Surpressing it just made it worse, surpressing it led me to start sniffing every few seconds instead so then I was mocked for that. I found that in later life, surpressing my OCD behaviour would result in me feeling compelled to blink a certain number of times every few minutes.

I was a complete nervous wreck as a child for little reason, I worried about everything. If a disease was mentioned I would become completely consumed with worry that I would get that disease - I thought that every dog would give me rabies, that everything I touched would make me ill or poison me, that even walking under certain trees would cause me harm. I became terrified of death, every time I thought about the death of people around me or my own I would become almost hysterical.

My main problem was that, despite being absolutely terrified of pretty much everything, I was too scared to tell anyone about my thoughts. I was worried that I would be taken to a psychiatric hospital and locked away or that people wouldn't believe me. Every time I tried to explain to people what I was worried about and get reassurance people would look at me as if I were mad. My main phrase in life as a child seemed to be 'will I be alright if I do (insert anything here)?'. I must have driven my parents bananas with my constant asking for reassurance. Because no one actually knew what the problem was, no one could really help me. I felt so ashamed, asking for reassurance so often and so I developed ways to cope. Unfortunately these coping mechanisms were to make my anxiety and my life a whole lot worse.

I would check things copiously and often unnecessarily. The worst part of OCD is that, there is a part of your brain that says 'I know that I have locked my door' or 'I know that I have switched the tap off' but there is another more insidious part of the brain that continuously questions and doubts whether you do know that things have been done.

Looking back, my OCD has affected large parts of my life - I almost missed an exam at college as I had to go back home and check that my hair tongs were off, despite the more rational part of my brain knowing that I had unplugged them before I left the house. I have often missed out on going places because of anxiety about food, available toilets, fear of contamination, fear of not locking the door of my house properly. In one of my jobs in my life I was the only girl in the office and was completely terrified that the tap would be left on in the female toilets and that I would be blamed even if it wasn't me so after leaving work I would often have to go back and check the taps several times - no matter how close to home I got. I would touch things with tissues in my own home if I felt they were 'contaminated'.

A lot of my life has revolved around my OCD and it has prevented me from doing so many things. At several points in my life my hands have been cracked, sore and bleeding due to the sheer amount of handwashing I have done to ease my anxiety about contamination. I kept quiet about it, tried to hide my coping behaviours from people but that has always made them worse and I have suffered clinical depression for most of my adult life because of my OCD. Whenever I tell people that I have suffered from depression they usually say 'but you seem so cheerful!' - sadly I have tried to cover my misery most of my life that I tend to think that everyone wants to see me cheerful and have done so. OCD can be such a destructive disorder.

Over the past year I have had the biggest flare up of my OCD that I have ever experienced and I have had to finally face up to the rather grim reality that, although OCD can wax and wane, there is no absolute cure. I think that this was the biggest cause of my depression, I had to face up to the fact that my OCD is a disability which I will probably fight against for the rest of my life.

I haven't been very communicative over the past year or so, my OCD overwhelmed me. I have isolated myself and been too afraid to see people. For the past year or so I have not been able to function in any capacity. There was no one single event that caused this relapse, just a slow decline into the worst period of mental illness in my life.

About a year or so ago I was coping with my OCD symptoms. I would check things but not obsessively, wash my hands but not to excess. I was able to get buses, travel places, go to supermarkets - all the usual things that most people do on a daily basis. Slowly I started to notice that I was checking the floor more often, worrying that I was standing on sharp things like knifes or needles, this fear started to escalate until I could barely go anywhere without worrying that I had cut my foot open and that I would bleed to death. I have always had checking and washing behaviour but I was unprepared for the horrors of my OCD that were to come.

While sitting on a bus one morning there was a girl sat behind me talking on her mobile phone, I was fiddling with my MP3 player and not paying much attention. The bus came to my stop and I started to get up and walk down the bus when I suddenly thought 'What if I have hurt that girl in some way?'. Now, you need to understand that while people have intrusive thoughts all the time, most people dismiss them - consider the last odd thought that crossed your mind, you probably dismissed it right? With me and a lot of other OCD sufferers, we tend to attach more meaning to those thoughts than they really require. I thought 'I wouldn't hurt anyone physically, ever! I didn't hurt the girl' but my brain wouldn't let it go. I then thought 'Aah, but you were worried that you had hurt her so maybe you did'. I searched my memory and in my heart of hearts I knew that I hadn't hurt her in any way or even gone near her - but my brain kept doubting my memories. I turned back to look at the girl and she looked fine, chattering away on her phone, but my brain told me that maybe I was confused and perhaps I had hurt her but was seeing her as fine because I wanted to. I started to feel anxious and as I got off the bus I continuously checked that the girl was ok, she was fine but I couldn't convince myself of that. As the bus drove away I could see the girl and knew she was fine so why was I worrying that I may have hurt her??? I couldn't breathe properly, my breathing was coming fast and my heart was beating so quickly I thought that it was going to beat out of my chest. I started to feel light headed and my fingers tingled, I felt like I was going to pass out or have a heart attack. To say it was awful is an understatement. I don't want to hurt anyone, I never would hurt anyone deliberately so why would I worry that I had hurt a complete stranger? I have since found that the anxiety is due to the disparity between what you think and your general ideas on things - I never want to hurt anyone and even the thought that perhaps I had hurt someone caused massive anxiety.

During the course of that day there were several instances of the same thing, I started worrying that I had punched people or shouted at them in the street. I started to worry about what I was saying and doing and this hyper vigilance just served to make things worse because the more I tried to remember what I had said or done, the more my brain would say 'Well, if you thought it then you must have done it'. The absence of the memory of shouting things, doing things etc just made me think that perhaps I had done those things but couldn't remember. I had so many panic attacks that day that I had to go home and when I went home I simply went to bed as the mental exhaustion was horrendous. I worried that my thoughts made me a bad person, that I was somehow evil deep down and that was why I was having these thoughts. I worried that I was being possessed, I felt so confused and scared all the time with no reason whatsoever.

Now, I just want to reitterate that I am in no way dangerous, I know that, my psychiatrist knows that and you need to know that. Apparently the fact that I have these anxieties is supposedly a good sign as it means that I have no desire to do any of the things I worry about and wont carry out any of these things.

I genuinely started to think that I was losing my mind and due to the sheer volume of panic attacks I had started to have on buses, in the street etc. I became utterly terrified to even go outside. This led to my agoraphobia. Every time I tried to leave the house I ended up having a panic attack, even the mention of having to attend any appointment gave me panic attacks.

Just because I didn't go outside didn't mean that the problems ended. I became scared to touch things in my flat, things that I had been able to touch perfectly fine before I now considered contaminated. I couldn't even use the phone or the computer at one point, fearing that they were somehow dirty and contaminated. I could barely eat anything as I worried that my food would be contaminated. It would take so long to go to bed as I had to check everything was off first, door locked etc. I couldn't read anything as I couldn't concentrate and slowly but surely my decline continued until I couldn't even leave my bed for several weeks. I couldn't make food for myself or wash my clothes, I became convinced that even my clean clothes were dirty. I would be totally unconvinced that the taps were off in the flat and would spend hours checking taps and that doors were locked.

The cruel thing about OCD is that even though you doubt everything that you do, there is still a part of your brain that is hyper aware of what you have done and haven't done so the confusion worsens as it is almost like having two conflicting people inside your brain. What's even more frustrating is that I knew that it was my own brain doing this to me but I was powerless to stop it, when I had a compulsion to check something for example I absolutely had to do it or the anxiety within me would rise to unbearable levels. Often it was easier to check whatever it was then walk away but then I wouldn't believe myself and would have to check again and again and again...

The anxiety was crippling, I felt nauseous pretty much most of the time and my stomach churned every time I even thought about doing anything that would involve me touching things. I stopped showering as the panic attacks made a shower last 2 hours and I would almost pass out. I stopped brushing my teeth, putting on make up and even brushing my hair. I had to do things over and over again until I felt right. Life became unbearable for both me and my poor long-suffering husband.

I really went to bits, the OCD was crushing me and my world seemed to get smaller and smaller with regards to where I felt I could go or what I could do. Due to the sheer helplessness I felt at not being able to control my thoughts and anxieties I became immensely depressed. I can't put into words exactly how low things got for me, I just felt that I was never going to get any better and that the rest of my life would be like that.

I am lucky enough to have a loving husband who did everything he could to help me. He urged me to see the doctor and he re-referred me back to my psychiatrist and they referred me to a mental health team. My husband went to every therapy session with me, held me when I was hysterical, shaking and sobbing, he supported me through everything. He even read as much about OCD as he could to see how he could help. The important thing is that he listened to me and never judged me and that made all the difference. In my life, whenever anyone noticed my OCD behaviour in the past they would often look at me with scorn, pity or bemusement and this just made me feel more ashamed. That's no ones fault, OCD is difficult to understand if you are not going through it.

I've been receiving therapy for several months now and I'm feeling a bit brighter. I accept that everyone has intrusive thoughts and that I am not a freak, but I have had to accept that I do have a mental illness for which there is unlikely to be no cure. I am learning new coping methods and trying my best to recognise my obsessive thoughts and apply what I have learned to get through them.

Without my husband I wouldn't be making such a good recovery today, his endless patience and support has kept me going through times that I just couldn't have borne alone. I have a long way to go and my recovery is slow but steady. I still find it incredibly difficult to get out of the house and walk around the streets without having anxiety attacks but I am getting better. I still worry that I have punched people or shouted at people on buses or in the street but it's getting easier to convince the doubting part of my brain that I haven't.

I am not looking for sympathy, pity or attention - the point of me writing this is to raise awareness of OCD, it can be an utterly debilitating condition. I may look funny when I am continuously checking things or if it takes me a long time to do something but it truly isn't amusing in any way. I would urge anyone with the same thing to seek help from their doctor as it may not improve on it's own. It is a distressing condition and one which can affect not only the person suffering from it but people closest to them. There are several treatments and although CBT may seem scary, believe me nothing is more scary than having to continue life the way I have been this past year.

I'm improving a little every day and with the help of my husband I know that, while I may not live a 'normal' life, things will get better.