OMG! I Have OCD?

    Well, well, well. Guess who's back? 

    I did it again. I went way too long without posting on here. To be fair, I've been swamped with schoolwork and responsibilities, was sick for about 2 weeks straight, and have been struggling quite a bit. But I know none of this is an excuse, especially since I promised the last time that I would do my best to keep up with this. I need an outlet. So, I'm back, and I wanted to start by giving a brief update on my life before diving into the main topic for today. 

    As I mentioned, I've been very busy with my university coursework. I have begun student teaching twice a week this semester. I really enjoy the kids, and they love me. It has been going very well, but at the same time, I have felt a deep anxiety when I'm at school. I'm still not quite sure what's causing it, but sometimes I'll feel it lingering in my chest, and I'm just not quite sure how to handle it. Hopefully, it will dissipate before I begin student teaching full-time in January. At the beginning of October, my girlfriend visited me for the first time for a weekend. It was so much fun and was probably one of the happiest moments I had all year. For the rest of the month, however, I was swamped with projects and presentations. I was so busy, and I felt like I was choking. Finally, I finished my last big assignment at the end of the month. However, immediately after I contracted some awful sickness that left me barely able to move, eat, or speak. I was out of commission for 2 weeks, as I mentioned in the beginning. After that, I really hit a low. I was stuck in a funk where I didn't want to see anyone or leave the house, and it was causing me so much anxiety I didn't know what to do. Finally, I managed to snap out of it and invited my best friend to hang out last week. I don't know why it was so hard, but that was the step I needed to begin re-introducing myself into socialization. 

    It has now been a week since then, and I am still struggling a lot. I have been feeling so much pressure, but it is more than just that. I feel deflated and defeated. It's corny, but I feel like I am in a simulation. My dreams have been crazy, and have not been aiding in changing this mindset that I am trapped in. I'm not entirely sure what is happening, meaning I'm unsure how to fix it. I am still in therapy, and she has really helped me in some ways. Lots of issues have been identified thanks to my therapist, and I am going to speak about that shortly. However, when it comes to my current state of mind, I don't know. I just, don't. Hopefully, writing will help. It has before. But I suppose we shall see only with time if I can escape this....funk. Anyway, let's talk about OCD. 

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    It was my second or third therapy session when my therapist asked me if I had any compulsive behaviors. Things I did unwittingly all the time, or even little mannerisms I was convinced needed to be done or else something bad would happen. I thought about it for a second, and said no, that I didn't think so. She raised her eyebrow, and said, "Are you sure? No nail-biting, skin-picking or anything? No behaviors you find yourself repeating often, perhaps even daily just because you are convinced you have to?". After she said that, I realized that yes, actually. I did everything she mentioned, only I thought it was just because of my anxiety. My entire life, I have bit my nails. I couldn't bare the feeling of my nails being long. Sometimes, I would make a fist, and dig my nails into my palm to make myself focus, stop myself from having a breakdown, or just bring myself back into the present after disassociating. And if my nails were too long, I would bleed. Another issue was skin picking. My entire life I have picked my scabs, my cuticles, my acne, my lips, basically any piece of skin that was not smooth like the rest of my body. I would constantly bleed and would get scars because of it. My mom would berate me, saying if I didn't stop picking I would have scars all over me, I would be ugly and no one would ever want me. I wanted to stop, but I never could. I still constantly pick to this day, I just cannot bare to have imperfect patches on my otherwise smooth skin. The feeling drives me insane. It's a compulsion. 

    After that realization, I explained to my therapist everything I had just explained to you. She nodded and told me that I most likely had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I was shocked at first, as the only experience I had really had with OCD were stereotypes from television that I very much did not fit into. I felt a sense of imposter syndrome, feeling that because my case didn't seem that intense there was no way I could possibly have it. However, my therapist talked to me about it, and broke it down into simpler terms, explaining that there were different levels of severity, just like there is with any other mental illness. I was still skeptical, but then she asked me if I suffered from intrusive thoughts. I had spoken about that subject with my best friend before, as she suffers from intrusive thoughts often. For a while, I did not think that I had dealt with that same struggle until she explained to me what it was, and I told her about reoccurring thoughts that I had often. One is that every time I am driving alone, my brain will say Hey, imagine if you just crashed and got into an accident right now and died. Wouldn't that be so great? Or wait! What if you didn't die, but ended up in the hospital because you were injured?! You'd finally get a break without feeling guilty, plus you'd lose weight and finally be better-looking! A win-win! After my best friend heard that, she looked at me and was like "Yeah girl, that's literally textbook intrusive thought I don't know how you could've misinterpreted that." Now, I don't either. That isn't the only thought I have; some are way worse and don't involve only me being the victim of harm. Those are the ones that bother me more. 

    After telling my therapist about some of these thoughts, she gave me a few strategies, and one was to not try to get rid of them or scold myself for thinking that way. She said to recognize it and move on. But forcing the thought out of your head will never work, and she was right. At the end of that session, she gave me a test called the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale. It measures how intense your OCD is. After taking the test, I checked my score and found that it was a 25 out of 40. On the scale, I fall under the low end of severe. I was shocked. I had gone my entire life, suffering and dealing with these compulsions, feeling a need for control over certain aspects of my life and I had no idea that it was all because of this disorder. I felt robbed of a childhood I could've had that could have made things so much easier now. I felt angry at my family for not seeing it, for not seeing me struggling. I felt angry at myself, for not caring enough about myself to realize that something was wrong. I felt so lonely, and still do. 

    So many things make sense now after being diagnosed. I understand my incessant need for my room to be a certain way and the panic I feel when someone changes it. I understand my obsessive love of playing Barbies when I was a kid, where I controlled the people's lives in the game, creating their stories and weaving their lives to be whatever I wanted. I still play it today, only in the form of the Sims 4. My need for control over my possessions, and the things I own. The picking, the biting, the intrusive thoughts, the tics. My habit of having to always touch the bobblehead I keep in my car, because if I don't something terrible might happen before I leave. All of these things finally had a tangible explanation, and that gave me so much relief. I felt like I had finally found the missing piece to a puzzle I'd been trying to solve my entire life. 

    Although this diagnosis gave me a ton of relief, I am still dealing with a feeling of imposter syndrome when it comes to it. I don't want this to be an excuse for anything, nor do I want it to give me excuses for any issues I may have caused in the past. However, I also realize that I need to take it for what it is, and move forward being aware of this struggle. My therapist has given me a gift, and she has helped me to discover another part of myself, even if it's not a positive one. I look forward to continuing working with her and finding ways to deal with my OCD without letting it cripple me anymore. My journey through adulthood won't always mean I have positive discoveries, and I know that. But it is still important, and the positive part is that I have a therapist and best friend who are there for me, and will listen and help me through this time when I'm adjusting to my new normal. I know there are people in my corner, and that is all I really need. 

    Again, so sorry it's been so long everyone. I hope to write another post this week since I have a week off from college. I know this post was a bit all over the place, but that's how I feel about the subject, so I wanted that to come across. I'm not yet in a place where I can talk about this casually, as it is deeply personal. But, I've been meaning to talk about it for a while. Hopefully, you all learned a bit about OCD and how it's much more than the stereotypes we see. I know I did. As always, thank y'all for reading. See you soon. 

XOXO

- Rach