OCD & Me

I use to have a blog on Xanga called “OCD & Me” and when I was trying to navigate through this insane world that was my new normal; I’d write in there. A lot of it had to do with how my OCD bumped heads with my dad’s. But I wish that blog was still around.

It started when my ex brother in law stepped on the bed I had just took a nap on with his shoes on, not just that but he stepped all over the pillow with his shoes on. My ex brother in law had zero respect for anything or anyone for that matter so this wasn’t like, some off the way action but to witness it on a pillow you just slept on? Yeah, fuckin gross. That was the first night I went home and took a shower before I got in my own bed. And from there it just snowballed.

In 2004 there wasn’t much info on OCD, at all. There wasn’t much my therapist could tell me when I finally got help 2 years later either. The theory was that it could had been caused by a traumatic event; I had just gotten out of a fuckin crazy abusive relationship without actually facing/healing from it because I just didn’t know how so it made sense in a way. Small things started to bother me. The idea that something was “dirty” was becoming stronger and harder to make sense of.

I honestly thought OCD and people who crazy cleaned and saw things were drug addicts so I was so sure I wasn’t going through that. I was a 90’s kid, ok? All that DARE shit had people doing that shit which is really unfair. I spent hours and days researching as much as I could about what was happening to me because I literally had no idea what was going on. I don’t know why I didn’t just ask my mom who was a psych tech nurse. My ex husband (who was my bf at the time) will tell you that “if she had never looked it up it would had never been as bad as it got.” he would tell me that finding the things I did about it “solidified” that it was “a real thing”.

If there’s one solid thing my OCD has done for me it’s show how people really think and feel about you because of something you have zero control over. Which is crazy; people are so understanding about Cancer which can also go unseen but mental illness? Nah, they think that shit isn’t real or serious. I don’t get it but it’s a never ending fuckin pattern in my life.

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It’s OCD Awareness Week

It’s OCD Awareness Week

And ya’ll bout to be SICK of me by the time I’m done writing about OCD. I’ll try to be as transparent as I can be; but some of the things that happened when OCD started to creep into my life are things I haven’t fully faced yet. And from seeing signs of OCD when I was 19 to finally seeking help at 21 to 8 years of therapy just to accept meds at 29 to today is a lonnnng ride.

I guess I should start with the basics.

What is OCD?

OCD or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is what it says it is. It’s an anxiety disorder that makes the person do things compulsively. They either do it because they think “something bad will happen if they don’t” or because they’re just compelled to. Your mind goes into this never ending loop. But OCD is not just “being clean/constantly cleaning” there’s a bunch of different types of OCD and they change and flow constantly.

I suffer from germaphobia and intrusive thoughts as well as hoarding. My dad struggled with certain types of paranoia and hardcore checking. He would often get up from sleeping just to unlock the front door, open it and lock it again. And make sure he locked it. He would do the same with lights. It drove me fuckin madd. But my OCD tendencies would drive him crazy and he refused to believe either of us had OCD. It was so freakin weird. My mom doesn’t have cleaning the way I do, but she does have “cleaning”. And she definitely has hoarding. Like something freakin fierce.

Credit to OCDdoodles on Twitter

According to Google OCD is described as;

Obsessivecompulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental disorder in which a person feels the need to perform certain routines repeatedly (called “compulsions“), or has certain thoughts repeatedly (called “obsessions“), to an extent which generates distress or impairs general functioning.

There are 5 types of OCD:

  • Checking
  • Contamination
  • Symmetry & Ordering
  • Intrusive Thoughts
  • Hoarding

The worst part is, one person can have one of these types or all five. These types can change and drop and pick up. But usually there’s one steady type that stays the same. The scariest thing to know is that while this illness can be “treated” it can’t be cured. People can work through their OCD with a lot of hard work, anxiety attacks and self control. But this condition can’t be cured by drugs. And even on medication, it’s not completely gone, just easier to manage.

The difference between OCD and “just wanting to be clean or organized” is that those with OCD sometimes do their compulsions without even knowing it. There have been many times where I’ve done or said something OCD before even thinking of saying/doing it. It’s something that is on my mind 24/7. There are times your OCD will tell you you didn’t clean or do something “well enough” or that because of your OCD you’re a burden to everyone around you. And then there are times you get hit with random anxiety attacks and sometimes it just feels like way too much.

I’ll admit that the majority of my suicidal moments in the last 10 years have to do with OCD and the things it tells me.

And that feeds into my anxiety which feeds into my OCD and it’s this never ending fuckin cycle. And if you don’t know how to cope you’re in for a whirlwind of very intense emotions that can last anywhere from minutes to hours. When my anxiety attacks started it usually ended with me crying. Now a days I HAVE to go to sleep because I’m just so spent. So I do whatever I can to stay away from triggers and to prevent anything from “messing up”.

I’m going to try and spend this week talking about my experience, the ways I’ve learned to cope and all the things I’ve lost since being diagnosed with OCD. And I’m hope by the end of the week you’ll have a better understanding of what it all is.

Whew, I can feel the migraines now lol.

Mental Health — 2 Years Ago

I created this blog as a place where I could be as open and as transparent as I wanted about whatever I wanted to talk about — with that said there are a lot of things in the last 3 years I haven’t really expressed, shared or talked about because I just wasn’t in a place where I could and isn’t that strange? To have to suffer in silence for that many years?

Two years ago I was living with my boyfriend at the time who I had been dating for about a year and a half. We didn’t have a good relationship. We barely got along. I had been trying to break up with his since Easter after he had put his hands on me and slammed me on the couch with his hands around my throat screaming in my face.

Despite the many attempts I had tried to break up with him and kick him out, he just wasn’t listening. He’d start an argument with me and get more angry than me to appear threatening to get me to stop or shut up. We literally never resolved any problems we had — and we had A LOT.

On Memorial Day weekend his mom took us out for lunch and at the time I thought I had just been hit with really bad motion sickness. When we began dating I had been forced to stop taking anti anxiety meds cold turkey and since then my motion sickness had gone wayyy up so I figured it was just one of those moments.

Over a week it had stayed consistent along with dizziness. I couldn’t stomach very much food and even playing FFXIV would trigger my motion sickness.

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Mental Health: Medication Story

Bubba wanted me to write a very detailed and extensive blog post on OUR BLOG about my journey with anxiety and so parts ONE and TWO can be found there. I’ve debated on copying + pasting them here as well but I’m not sure…

With that said I’m jumping a bit ahead to the medication part of my story.

When I were first diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Anxiety in 2005 I refused medication; I figured if my brain had the ability to rewire itself, it had the ability to rewire itself back. I never assumed it would be easy, especially considering how intense my anxiety and anxiety attacks were back then. I went to group therapy every week and I went to one on one therapy once or twice a month until 2010.

Here’s the thing about therapy. It won’t work if you’re not ready. And if you’re not ready, that is totally fine. There’s no reason to rush a process that you’re not ready to dive in to. Just because you doesn’t mean you’ll beat this any faster than you plan to.

Working around and through your anxiety is a journey only YOU can take. Only YOU know your limits. And you should NEVER let SOMEONE ELSE direct that journey FOR YOU. Never feel like you’re disappointing someone by not getting over this at the speed they want you to get over it. YOU are NOT the disappointment, THEY are for pushing you beyond your comfort level.

Just had to throw that out there.

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Mental Health: & Music

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When I wrote yesterday’s entry I wasn’t aware that it was Mental Health Awareness Week. I feel like MHAW/MHAM come and go so often that it’s hard to keep track of these things. Not to mention in my world, Mental Health Awareness is pretty much an every day thing.

I feel like my life has all kinds of divides and chapters when I look back on it; from the time I was 13 until my anxiety full force kicked in at 20 I struggled HEAVILY with depression and suicide. I was constantly listening to music. CONSTANTLY. There was rarely ever a time I wasn’t playing music. Everything from DDR songs to 80’s Light Rock to Hip Hop to R&B to Slow Jams to Techno to Alternative.

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