Extra Obsessive, Pretty Compulsive

TRIGGER WARNING - Mental Illness, Irrational Fears, Death, Tragedy

Truth: I have been to prison, and I have been to the funerals of so many of my loved ones… Okay, maybe not really. But it definitely feels real in my head. The actual truth is that I live with OCD. I was not ready to share during mental health month, but something about an emotional late-night blog feels right today, like it could lift some weight off my chest.

What does OCD look like for me?

First, I don’t mean I just like order or wash my hands until they bleed. There’s a difference between people who say “haha, I am so OCD!” and actual obsessive-compulsive disorder. This is not to say that people with OCD can’t feel that way; I certainly feel more at ease in a clutter-free environment, and obsessive thoughts lead to compulsive behaviors that can often surround cleanliness (such as hand-washing, etc.). However, it goes deeper and is not something I can casually laugh about with strangers.

Although I’m newly diagnosed, I believe I have been dealing with OCD since I was very young. For me, I have always obsessed over really irrational fears and catastrophized to the highest possible degree. For example, when I was about 11, I was convinced that if I had a nightmare, I would act it out and hurt someone even though I didn’t want to at all. I couldn’t let go of this fear that I would wake up to a terrible crime scene I was unknowingly responsible for and end up going to prison. That was the obsessive fear. To calm this fear, I would try not to sleep by doing something like counting my breaths or counting how many times the colon on the digital alarm clock blinked. Eventually, I would fall asleep, but it wasn’t restful. The staying awake/counting was the compulsive behavior that I was using to cope with the obsessive thought.

Another wild fear that I had was during middle school, which was a stressful enough time on its own. For some reason, I obsessively feared pooping my pants in class. (It’s fine, you can LOL at this one!) There was never any reason to believe that I would or had pooped my pants, but it was the craziest thing! I would sit there on the verge of tears and either try to avoid getting up altogether or take a discreet way out of the classroom to go look in the bathroom mirror. In my head, I KNEW that there was no way I would go to the bathroom and see that I had an accident, but I HAD TO check (obsessive-compulsive).

How did I suspect I was struggling with OCD?

My first-time hearing about OCD was in a psychology course, and I was surprised to learn that it was very different than the common mainstream idea of it. I never really connected the dots that the fears I was often experiencing were symptoms until I was pregnant and listening to a podcast called Marriage and Martinis. One of the hosts was talking about her OCD and how she was convinced she had burned down a shopping mall, even though she knew that she did not set anything on fire. She had to call the mall to make sure everything was okay before she could let it go. I kind of had a eureka moment, in which I realized that what I was going through was very similar to what she was describing. I was way too busy with work and fatigued by pregnancy to really do much about it, and then came Myles.

How did having a baby affect my mental health?

Obviously, having a newborn is incredibly stressful. I was so sleep deprived, did not have a ton of help and was seriously considering quitting my job so I would not have to leave my precious baby. After two weeks back at work, in the thick of postpartum depression (a story for another time) COVID-19 blew up the world. Talk about a nightmare for a new mom experiencing PPD and unknowingly suffering from another mental illness. In all honesty, I was a wreck. I felt awkward trying to get used to working again, and I had a very difficult baby; I was unsure of every next step all of the time. On top of that, I was having health issues that caused me chronic pain and frequent falls down the stairs. I was isolated due to COVID and saw no end in sight. My fears morphed into huge, all-consuming monsters to the point that I could barely function. I would try to sleep at night and my skin felt like it was literally vibrating. With everything going on, all of the fears I might have been able to push aside before felt so much more possible.

Every trip I took to the grocery store, I thought about how buying a frozen pizza was not more important than my baby’s life, because obviously that specific pizza was a COVID breeding ground and we’d all become horrifically sick. I visualized falling down the stairs and crushing my baby. Or tripping up the stairs, knocking my front teeth out and not being able to locate an emergency dentist that was still open. Or that the meal I cooked would give my whole family food poisoning and land us in the hospital. Or dying of a heart attack from all of my anxiety and my baby being left crying until his dad came home from work. And losing my job because I couldn’t keep my shit together and becoming homeless. Whenever I drove somewhere with my baby, I worried that I might have left him in the store, even if I was looking at him in the car seat mirror. I had to literally be touching him while driving home to make sure he was still there. When it came time for him to start daycare, I even had a fear that a car would crash into the daycare center playground, killing all the kids and having to mourn at a memorial service for them and never see my baby again. I was completely incapacitated by irrational fears that felt SO rational that I would do anything to prevent them and was on high alert 24/7. I couldn’t go places and enjoy myself. I couldn’t even spend time with my family without constantly zoning out into a cloud of endless worries and silently counting or rationalizing or planning something I could do to increase my son’s safety to comfort myself.

How am I coping now?

I decided I could not go on like this anymore. I had reached out for help before, but due to COVID my options were very limited. I finally got an appointment with a therapist and was able to start my healing journey. It took so long for me to get over the other huge fear I had, which was taking medication. I could barely take a Tylenol, but it was so necessary for me. I started on Cymbalta; usually they would recommend Zoloft, but I was put on Cymbalta because it helps with the chronic pain I suffer from as well as anxiety and depression. My therapist has been a saint. She assured me for weeks that it would not steal my personality away from me or make me feel horribly sluggish or incapable of working and caring for my son. She convinced me to just give it a try for a week, and if I did not see an improvement I could stop taking it. My body my choice.

Today, I am happy to report that I am working up to a suitable dose of the medication and continuing with therapy that is helping me to cope with everyday stress. I am able to sleep better, connect with people better, and shut off the constant reel of background noise that was keeping me from living my life. Instead of getting all the way to my son’s memorial, I am able to stop the car from even crashing. I still have a lot of work to do in terms of working on myself and talking out some deep issues and trauma that exacerbate things, but with the help of the medication I believe I can do it. I am a more present mom now and see things a lot more clearly. Most importantly, I am still ME! I’m just a little bit closer to who I am supposed to be, not the stress ball OCD twisted me into.

Please know that no matter what mental illness you struggle with, you are NOT alone. There are people who can help you, and you can get better for your family. It might seem scary and daunting and even impossible, but if the girl who obsessively feared pooping her pants can do it (still laughing at that one), you can too. I am rooting for you always.

#truthmom