It’s been a long time since my last post (I know, I know, I’m sorry). To summarise the last year in some brief bullet points:
- I worked in an office, but still spent a lot of time in coffee shops
- I got engaged (wheee!)
- I applied for a PhD
- I stopped working in the aforementioned office and now work in another office, but still spend a lot of time in coffee shops
- I was accepted to study for a PhD (yay!), but am so far not having much luck with the whole ‘securing funding’ thing (boo!)
I will address all of these things in time, you lucky things. But today I’d like to talk about this completely non-coffee-shop-related bullet point:
- I took steps to sort out my OCD and was mostly successful
I came out about my OCD on Facebook yesterday, because this ‘article’ has been doing the rounds. Quite apart from the fact that it’s badly written (what on earth is a ‘twerk’ of personality supposed to be? It sounds painful), it’s also just plain wrong. These pictures, whilst amusing, and the feelings of annoyance and general WTFery that they provoke have almost nothing to do with OCD. I had a bit of a paddy about it and subsequently received lots of very nice comments, but also a few questions, which I thought I’d do my best to answer here. They can be categorised pretty much as follows:
a) Are you alright?!
b) Really? I never even realised you had OCD…
c) So what actually is it if it’s not all colour-coded pencils?
d) I think I/my friend has the same problem, what should I/they do?
So, here goes.
Are you alright?!
Yes! I’m totally fine. Sane as the next person (interpret as you will).
Really? I never even realised you had OCD…
There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that I’ve had it (or at least, been aware of having it) since I was about 11 or 12. That’s a long time to develop ‘coping’ mechanisms or, more accurately, ways of hiding it – and I was pretty good at hiding it. It was, as far as I was concerned, weird and embarrassing and I wanted as few people as possible to be aware of it, even my family. It wasn’t stopping me from working or studying or having friends and so I was happy/apathetic enough just to let it get on with whatever it was doing.
The other reason you might not have noticed it is because it largely only affects me when I’m on my own. My particular strain of OCD (yes, there are more than one) is predominately ‘checking’ and, for me at least, it’s based on some quite extreme feelings of responsibility. It also mostly hits when I’m leaving the house by myself. If I’m with someone else, I can leave with nary a backwards glance. If I’m by myself, then I’m crippled by thoughts of accidentally setting fire to my block of flats by leaving the oven/my straighteners on, of flooding my downstairs neighbours by leaving a tap running, or by inviting in burglars by leaving the windows open or the door unlocked. You name it, if there is the slightest chance that it could cause danger, then I’ve worried about it at some point. I used to schedule about 15-20 minutes of checking time into my morning routine, more if I was leaving the flat for longer than a day. It once took me more than 45 minutes and a lot of tears before I was able to leave the flat for a weekend away (I got stuck on whether or not the boiler was off, of all things to be worried about). It was that particular occasion - that and the fact that the checking was beginning to creep in at work - that led me to think that maybe I wasn’t coping with it as well as I thought I was and that I should start investigating what I could do about it.
So what actually is it if it’s not all colour-coded pencils?
This one’s a bit trickier, because OCD is not the same for everyone. I’ve mentioned that mine mostly takes the form of checking, although I also have a lesser strain which tries to convince me that I’m really ill despite reassurances (its newest trick is doing its utmost to convince me that my hair is falling out, despite all rational evidence to the contrary, which includes but is not limited to the massive mop of hair on top of my head). There are loads of different types and I’m by no means an expert.
I think it’s fair to say that what most types of OCD have in common is that the intrusive thoughts/voices are often ones that everyone gets from time to time. ‘Did you leave the oven on?’. ‘Was that mole there last week?’. It’s just the way that OCD makes you react that’s different. While most people, on checking that the oven is indeed off or hearing their GP tell them that their mole isn’t dangerous, go back to what they were doing before, OCD just doesn’t know when to give up. Checking the oven just means that you have to check the oven again. Asking your GP once just means you’ll ask another doctor’s opinion or go on internet forums about skin cancer.
I suppose the easiest way to think about it is that OCD takes perfectly rational human concerns (not wanting to harm others/yourself, wanting to be healthy) and then preys on them, prising them wide apart and filling them with vicious and irrational thoughts. It lets you think that the little rituals that you develop are helping you to control these feelings, when actually all they’re doing is handing the control over to the OCD.
One of the first things I was told in CBT was to think of it as a bully and that’s pretty much exactly what it is. You pay off the bully one week by giving in to its calls to go back and check the oven once, because you’re clumsy and you could easily forget something like that. The next week, you have to check it five times and take a photo for good measure, because you’re forgetful. The week after you’re checking it ten times, oh and you should probably count the knobs because that’s a really good way of making sure that a stupid person like you doesn’t miss something important.
You get the drift. Basically, having OCD is like living with a total arsehole. A many-headed Hydra of an arsehole, at that.
I think I/my friend has the same problem, what should I/they do?
Again, there are lots of ways to approach it. If you feel up to it, there’s the self-help route. There are plenty of books. I tried some a few years back but although they helped me to clarify that what I had was very likely OCD, I couldn’t make any real breakthroughs by myself. I found this website really useful for finding out basic information, including what is and isn’t OCD.
You can talk to your GP. I didn’t do this, because my local GP surgery is where hope goes to die and I generally try to avoid going there unless bits of me are falling off (this is probably why I’ve seen a reduction in my illness-related OCD since moving here). Instead, I stumbled across something called the IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) scheme. I found out that I could self-refer and that there was a centre just down the road from where I live. I got their contact details, then dithered for a fortnight over whether or not to bother them. What if it wasn’t OCD? What if it wasn’t severe enough to warrant their help? What if they just laughed at me?
Eventually I sent them an email that basically said ‘I think I have OCD, can you help?’. It was a really easy process – they sent me some forms, I sent them back, they sent me some more forms, I sent those back too, and about a month later I was invited in for a quick chat/assessment. I met with two lovely and very professional professionals who listened as I detailed all of the odd things that I did to get me out of the house in the morning. At the end of it all I was told, to my utter relief, that yes, it did indeed sound like I had OCD and, yes, they could help and in fact with a course of CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) I was likely to see some real improvement. I started the following week.
Initially the CBT was slow to have any effect. I picked up the theory quickly enough, but actually found that for a while my checking was getting worse, probably because I was dissecting it on a weekly basis with my therapist. And then, suddenly, as we moved on to the behavioural side of it, things started to click. Bit by bit I was able to take back more control simply by letting a little more uncertainty into my life. My initial, rather timid, goal of being able to leave the house in under 3 minutes was blown out of the water. It actually got to the point where, for the first time in my adult life, I was able to leave the house without checking anything at all. This doesn’t happen every morning, but it’s something that now feels like it could be possible. The OCD is also not something that will ever completely go away; I'll need to keep an eye on it, particularly at stressful times as that seems to be a trigger (so, what with applying for PhDs and getting married I'm not exactly making things easy for myself), but I know now what the warning signs are and how to look after myself if/when it strikes.
I know that it doesn’t sound like much, being able to leave the house in one go, but every time I manage it I feel totally invincible.
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