My OCD story starts when I am in fifth grade, standing to the side of the stage. We are rehearsing for a school play, and I am a lead. Although I’m shy and socially anxious, I’m comfortable onstage. This has often been the case. Onstage, my lines are scripted. I’m in control.
But waiting in the wings, something comes over me: a feeling of dread, like nothing will ever be OK again. I’m struck with this horrible feeling that I cannot resolve. At this point, it’s not attached to anything in particular — not my immediate surroundings or anything else I can pinpoint. Just this feeling that things are not OK and never will be.
From there, I start to become hyper-aware of my hand movements, to the point where a friend remarks I have “interesting” hands as we play a board game.
At some point, intrusive thoughts about cannibalism start. I am looking at my teacher and an image of her roasted on a platter comes to my mind. Thoughts like these continue to intrude, in which I become hyper-aware that humans, like animals, are made of meat. Somehow, I am convinced this means I probably want to be a cannibal. This feels true.
Themes change and morph over the years, from blushing and social interactions to bodily functions and reading comprehension. If you know you know. If you don’t, you are probably wondering why I wasn’t washing my hands repeatedly or checking locks for hours.
Well, there was a period of time in which I felt the temperature of my bedroom door in the morning to make sure there wasn’t a fire outside. But for the most part, my obsessional themes involved mental, not physical, compulsions. That’s why I thought I couldn’t have OCD.
Then, as an adult, I developed POCD. I didn’t know what it was, and I found myself lying in bed, trying to convince myself that it was worth it to keep living. Thank goodness my fluffy orange cat crawled onto my chest, purring.
Then, I discovered Pure, by Rose Bretécher (now Rose Cartwright). This book illuminated everything for me, and I realized: I am not demented, I just have OCD. The kind informally referred to as “Pure O,” because compulsions performed are mainly mental or less observable. Of course, observable compulsions are just outward manifestations of pain, of coping with intrusive thoughts — that’s why it’s all OCD. But in my case, the more obvious outward symptoms weren’t on display.
Just the knowledge that I have “Pure O” was enough to dispel POCD.
Next came Relationship OCD (ROCD). If my brain couldn’t convince me that I was a cannibal or a predator, then it would be trickier. It would attack my relationship.
It’s normal to doubt your relationship. It’s normal to think about breaking up. And although I’ve been with my partner for more than a decade, I’m not immune to these thoughts. In fact, we’ve had our struggles. And now that I am even better informed about OCD, I can see that it had already attached itself to the relationship in certain ways. Sometimes that’s one of the hardest things to tell — where OCD ends and I begin.
But this time, I had a full-on meltdown. For context, I had just returned from a stressful trip to the East Coast, and my partner was still there, so I was back home by myself. My mother had died the previous year, and I had heard that one should not make major decisions in the first year of loss. So, now that we’d reached the year marker, and I was in my late thirties, clearly I needed to decide, right now, whether it was time to try for a baby.
Cue Relationship OCD.
Now, I can see that jumping to the question of having a child was a huge leap and there are many other things in my life that need to be evaluated and worked through first. But as a woman reaching the end of her supposed fertile window, the question begins to feel very pressing. And although I know that I want kids on some level, there are so many layers of fear on top of that. OCD wants certainty, and the antidote is to accept uncertainty. But this is one decision that feels like it should be on solid ground.
Instead of obsessing about whether to have a child, my mind went to my relationship and quickly concluded that rather than having a family together, my partner and I should break up.
The terror swirled and churned and convinced me of many things. I tried to measure my love and compare it. To evaluate it in no uncertain terms. I scoured the internet for advice columns. I called my dad while pacing my apartment, interviewing him about his several significant relationships. He told me he “never loved” my stepmother, and I spiraled. What if I made the same mistake? Did I love my partner the “right” way?
Unfortunately, OCD cannot abide uncertainty. It also cannot obtain certainty. The intrusive thought/feeling occurs, demands research and rumination, resolves for a moment, and begins again.
There are no answers.
For two days, I barely ate or slept. I called my doctor and I could hear the shock in her voice at the state I was in. She gave me an emergency prescription.
Online, I discovered Relationship OCD, and for a time, this helped me calm down, knowing there was a label for what I was going through. But this time, that wasn’t enough to quell the doubts.
I’d noticed a local OCD center when I was moving to LA, and thought, OK, well, if it gets bad again, I can go there.
Now it was time to take the plunge.
I work with a specialist now. She has rainbow glasses and pink hair and likes cats too. My progress has been all over the board and back again, and that’s partly due to the various medications I’ve been on and off. I thought the state of meltdown was temporary. Then I went off of an antidepressant that caused insomnia. Once it was out of my system, I was more or less right back where I started.
Months later, I am still fighting this battle. I never knew how intense OCD could be. No doubt the stress of recent years has contributed to this flareup. I’ve never felt this bad before. I’ve never felt so mentally ill.
I don’t know what the future holds. I’m terrified of getting older. I’m terrified of impending change. I’m just terrified.
But I’ll persist. That’s all I can do.
