Ever since I was young, I would hear people throwing around the word ‘OCD’ left and right. If you were even the slightest bit meticulous, you were somehow diagnosed, and it didn’t sound like a good thing. If you organized your papers or washed your hands even slightly excessively, you were deemed to have OCD. People still throw around the word as if it’s a quirky quality, and interchangeably use it with the words ‘organized’ or ‘neat’. I never understood exactly what it was until I reached about 12 years old, and that’s when I was old enough to comprehend that I was suffering from it. According to NIMH, OCD is a chronic, long-lasting disorder where a person has uncontrollable, recurring thoughts (obsessions) and/or behaviors (compulsions) that the person feels they need to repeat over and over.
When telling the story of my experience with OCD, I have to emphasize that similarly to most people, it comes in waves. There are horrible days, and there are also months I can go without even noticing my symptoms. Not to say that they’re not there, but they’re peacefully there. There are times in my life where it feels like it controls all parts of my happiness. Sometimes I barely notice, making all these compulsions feel completely normal, as if they are just habits. Most people think of OCD as washing your hands excessively, and even though that is so far from a lot of people’s symptoms, it just so happens to be one of mine.
To represent what it’s like, I remember being 12 years old and putting hand sanitizer in my mouth at Discovery Kingdom, and it seemed completely rational. The irrational obsession that the germs were worse for me than anything, even ingesting chemicals, seemed like a good idea. I understand now that it was an irrational thought and the fact that I acted on it amazes me. The scary part is that if I had to relive it, I would probably do the same thing all over again.
I remember being 14 years old aching to cure my OCD, convincing myself that everything was in my mind. The reality is that the thoughts were so powerful, even though irrational, they felt unbeatable. I can’t explain the feeling of being afraid of your own mind, but in a way, it gave me a feeling of control. Knowing that I could perform these compulsions gave me a sense of power and comfort. If worst came to worst, I could create an escape plan that might cause minimal suspicion, but that would put my mind at ease.
Some things I’ve noticed about my OCD are that people expect me to be immaculate or some type of neat freak. There’s a huge difference. My OCD causes constant doubt and triggers my anxiety on a daily basis. The irrational obsessions that my OCD eventually causes me to act on are so tiring. Even though your mind knows that something is irrational, you can’t resist, because that would only make the thoughts worse.
For me, this is in no way a success story. Unfortunately, there’s no happy ending, and it’s probably something that I’m going to have to live with for the rest of my life. As old obsessions go away, and some still linger, new ones arise. It’s as if I am always one step behind and can never fully escape. I know how sad that sounds from an outsider’s perspective. I’ll admit that every day is a struggle to avoid letting my compulsions be obviously noticed. I think that’s the hardest part about living with it. I’ve come to terms with it, but the rest of the world hasn’t.
At the end of the day, I’ve learned to appreciate my OCD for what it is. The obsessions and compulsions do leave me feeling tired and worn down, but they also make me more understanding. They make me a more empathetic person. They makes me more alert and self-aware. To go through this battle has helped me understand that everyone’s going through something painful, and it’s our job to be there for each other. I will never purposefully try to make someone feel uncomfortable because of how uncomfortable I myself feel. At the end of the day, it is hard to know what parts of my personality are my disorder or who I truly am. But maybe everything’s a combination of both my personality and the OCD. Maybe at some point in my life, the line blurred. And that’s okay. At the end of the day, I only feel stronger because of it. I’m only more perceptive, tenderhearted, and understanding than I would have been. I’d choose that every day over feeling numb.