Hi there. My name is Anna and I have OCD. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I count...a lot. And I separate sentences. I do not wash my hands, and I do not keep everything super clean. In fact....I'm a slob! When I'm with my contemporaries, I really feel like OCD is drastically misconceived....and sometimes it makes me feel sucky.
If I were to ask most people if they knew what OCD was, they'd answer, "Oh isn't that the thing where you wash your hands, like, a lot?". But it's not just that. OCD is this huge, confusing, painful world that a lot of people live in. I remember being about 9-years-old and doing things that felt right, but no one else was doing. I didn't understand why I rearranged letters on license plates to make words, or alphebetized simple phrases I saw along the street. I just had a gut feeling that no one else did that, and I should keep it secret. I still do it to this day sometimes, but I understand more.
Every morning I wake up and go downstairs, starting with my right foot on the first step, and silently counting each step going down, noting the 8th stair and landing on my right foot with my 13th step. Sound like fun? It's not. Even as I write it, it sounds much more intricate than what my brain perceives. I just do it. When I was younger, if I accidentally started on the wrong foot, I'd go back and do it again.
Most of my childhood was filled with secrets that I felt ashamed over, and weird. I counted my steps, and asymmetry made me cry. It made me feel pretty crappy, and I didn't start understanding it until my teenage years. I heard about Obsessive Compulsive Order when I was in the fifth grade, and it quickly hit home. All these strange symptoms I read about seemed to fit me. And then I was scared. Am I crazy? Why do I do this? How come I can't stop? Does anyone else do this? When I was about 17-years-old, I began seeing a therapist, and they along with a psychologist quickly diagnosed me with having OCD. I began taking medication to help the symptoms, and joined a dialectical behavior therapy group in which I met other people of all ages living with the same problem. Not the exact same symptoms, but with all the same desperate feelings. Counters, washers, pickers. We were all there.
I learned different ways to cope with this, and eventually decided that it would be best for me personally to come off the medication. My symptoms have lessened, although some are still here. I still silently count stairs, but now I just move on when I use the wrong foot. I take long showers, and I focus my attention on other things, like art and theatre.
So, when I am in class and someone announces that they are really OCD today about cleaning their dorm room, or their backpack...I feel weird. Do they really know what it is like to have OCD? Do they really know how frustrating and difficult it can be? Is their dorm room really causing them distress in life? Who knows, maybe it is. But I just wonder to what extent. I just wish that people understood what they were saying before tossing around that term. You just never know who's going to be next to you....and whether or not they count every step they take.
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I'm ADHD (and my little sister is too and one of my brothers is ADD) and people constantly blurt out, "OMG I'M SO ADHD." I almost failed my freshman year of High School, and I was diagnosted with it when I was going into Sophomore year.
It irrirtates me when kids say stuff like, "whaaa, my attention span is so short." or "whaaa, I'm always hyper."
It's hard when someone is trying to teach you something and your brain is elsewhere. I totally get where you are coming from.
Ive always been really smart, but my grades were pretty bad until I was diagnosed and got help. But the thing that most annoys me about ADHD is that some people think its not real. Like its just an excuse to get seperate testing sites and stuff.
I know. The whole seprate testing made me feel so awkward. But I'm over it all now, and I'm not on medication. So hopefully school will be okay.
I have OCD also. I used to cry when we made too many left turns in the car and not enough right to make me feel balanced. I count while I chew and if I lose count, I have to spit it out. I stopped wearing sneakers because one shoe always felt tied a little tighter than the other. The point is I know a lot of people who used the term lightly like that, and it really does bother me, because they obviously have one preconception of OCD. Cleanliness? I'm a slob too!
yeah, it's so hard sometimes. People just say what they want, not realizing it makes someone else feel bad about themselves. You go through life feeling like crap about these things, and then someone tells you it's okay. Just when you think you're normal, someone else comes along and sort of chips away the foundation by saying things like that. At least, that's how I feel.
Yeah I don't have OCD but I agree with people just throwing the term around like nothing. Recently, I told my friend that I'd feel a lot better if he didn't call me OCD (I am just a neat freak
) because I know people that have it and it's not fun or something to joke about. He apologized and brought me coffee, so we're still cool lol :-) The point is, sometimes you watch what you say out of consideration to others because you never know who's listening.
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http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/npsm18
Sara, we'll definitely have to talk some time! It's really comforting to hear about someone my age who does really similar things. I've searched for OCD support groups in my state, but there are few and the only ones I can find are tooo far away.
I'm really glad I posted this now. It's good to know people who don't have OCD or another mental problem can understand and still relate on one level or another :-)
I agree, it's just like the new phrase or something. People used to go, "That's so gay" and now people are like "I'm so OCD". I get after my sister all the time about her and her supposed OCD because she's just a little weird. She refuses to sit on the left side of the car. I think she's just being a baby about it. I have other friends who go, "oh dear..that's an uneven number or that's not in line, I must have OCD". I'm sick of hearing people and their self diagnosed problems.
Major kudos to you for giving people the chance to better understand OCD.
Common sense is as rare as genius. ~Emerson
I am so glad that you wrote this. I don't have OCD or any other disease/syndrome/disorder, but it bothers me to no end when people use the terms as if it's some grand joke. These things are so stigmatized by society that those suffering are made to feel like freaks simply because people are ignorant of what having the disorder really means and treat it like it's something to laugh about or treat people that suffer from these disorders like they have the plague. So.. thanks for sharing and reminding people that it's not funny or just something to say.
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Fallon
"It is never too late to give up your prejudices." Henry David Thoreau
"In case of dissension, never dare to judge till you've heard the other side." Euripides
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Fallon, I will admit that I when I first decided to write the blog, I did not think how it would affect those without OCD or even those with it. I'm so glad people are responding well, because it encourages me to be more open about it and helps me feel better. So many times I feel like a freak, and I know I shouldn't.
Thank YOU for being compassionate enough to realize this happens to real people, and not just 'psychos'.
Times flies like the wind; fruit flies like a banana.
I don't know if I have OCD (I've never been to a psychiatrist for financial reasons though at times I felt like it might be helpful), but I have developed weird habits that I know are illogical but when I try to stop doing them, it almost hurts and it makes me feel panicky. It got reaaaaally bad a while ago and I would waste about ten minutes picking up an item and putting it back down, picking it up, putting it back down, (like I had to do it an even number of times and EXACTLY the same way) I wanted to cry I'd get so frustrated. And it would be so embarrassing becuase people would notice me (lol) throwing things into the garbage, then picking them back out, and so forth. Then I started praying about it and no lie, it really helped me to calm down and realize that I didn't have to do it and if I concentrated, I could make myself keep going so that I could have a fairly normal day. It would hurt and I'd feel panicky like "I HAVE tO GO BACK AND DO IT AGAIN!!!" but praying just really helped me to relax and keep my focus.
So meh *shrugs* maybe praying/meditating/yoga even might help? Like I said, I'm not diagnosed so I have no idea if this is actually OCD or me just being weird, but praying really does help me sometimes and over the past year it's gotten a lot better or at least, I haven't had as much anxiety or felt so much need to do those things. Of course, I've had to make effort on my own part as well to make myself stop but the prayer is kind of like rubbing aloe on a burn after I force myself to stop.
Peace
Exactly Fabirella. I personally did not like being on medication. I was on a few for different reasons (I have Bipolar I) and the cocktail did not work for me. In my DBT group(Dialectical Behavior Therapy) we practiced something called mindfulness. In short, it's almost a form of meditation where you focus only on the immediate present. Not what is going on in your life or your grocery lists for later, but your actual breathing and body at that precise moment.
It was very difficult at first, but then it started to really help. I focused on nothing but my breathing and the way my heart felt beating in my chest. Every time another thought other than the present came into my head, I was told to send it away on a cloud and bring myself back. Just picture a could rolling into your mind and drifting away with the thought. Then go back to your breathing. It became easier for me, and at one point we did an exercise where we took a tic tac in our mouth and tasted it...for two minutes. That's all. Just focused on the tic tac. It sounds weird, but it really helped me slow down and take control of myself again.
If you really think you have symptoms of OCD, I would strongly suggest maybe seeing a school counselor of some sort? They might be able to help you out if you don't have money for a therapist/counselor. And want to know what I did? I read. I read on the condition, I read about other people, and came up with a system that worked for ME. Also, the internet is full of resources for OCD.
The best of luck to you!!!
Times flies like the wind; fruit flies like a banana.
I am OCD too. If I can't check how much the gas costs as I drive by I obsess on it and I feel so uncomfrtable and then I have to drive by later just to check. It also took me oer an hour to put books on one shelf because everytime I would get up and walk away I would just sit there and stare at it and immediatey have to jump up and reorganize it perfectly. I also am anorexic, and ocd pretty much goes along with that. It must be really hard to not have people understand though. My mom and brother are too, so we can all comiserate.
Don't worry. I'm 17 and I still count my steps. I am not as clean as some others, but I'm completely organized in my filth.
Nicholas Aden
Self-Promotion
I'm really glad you decided to bring awareness to something as scary as OCD. I must admit that I, at one point, had preconcieved notions about OCD and the whole cleanliness factor. That was until last year when my child started exhibiting some weird behavior and it was suggested to us that she might have OCD. My wife and I get a lot of suggestions about our middle child because she is willfull and too much for most people to handle. It's been suggested that she is bi-polar because of her outbursts and some of the things she says. I think part of her bahavior problem is she is exceptionally bright for her age, and with that comes a lot of frustrations for her. But I digress. She wouldn't take off her socks and shoes, not even at night. Not that that in itself is that weird but she acted as though it hurt her to take them off. Almost as if there was something wrong with taking her shoes off. And she hates to get wet. We get so frustrated because she will spill water on her clothes and have to change them. If we make her stay in her clothes she acts as if the water is hurting her. We've been looking out for her counting things, but that's hard because most of that is in your head and you don't share it with other's, just like bostonactress didn't share her idiocyncrasies. We have to be ever mindful that this is something that she might be growing up with and I thank you for opening up discussion on this issue. It helps when people are informed.
No day but today
-RENT
Wow. I just posted a blog entry about this and I saw yours in the "Related Blog Posts" list and decided to check it out.
You really hit home with this blog. I have OCD too, which is not something I like to admit. I personally am a balancer. I describe it in my blog "Deep Dark Secret" so I won't waste time here.
I feel awkward if someone uses the phrase "I am so OCD today!". It doesn't feel very fair, but then again it's not like these people know they are in the presence of a person who really does feel "so OCD today".
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