Standing up to Fear: My Journey with OCD
By Chloe Sybert
Hi! My name is Chloe. I am twenty-one-years-old, love my life, enjoy warm hugs, and appreciate living mostly free from fear. But this wasn’t always the case.
When I was twelve-years-old, my parents and doctors noticed that I was a very anxious kid. I would ask for reassurance that didn’t seem necessary to onlookers. I was obsessed with cleanliness, and would hardly play outside like I used to. I was very particular about who I touched, what I touched, and what items I let near me. Eventually, I was diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and, soon after, I learned I was also on the autism spectrum. My family and I didn’t find out until much later that OCD and autism are often both present at the same time and often work together. Autistic people tend to have more severe OCD, and a harder time overcoming the symptoms than those without autism.
OCD is a disorder classified by ruminating on irrational fear and then engaging in repetitive irrational actions in order to cope with the fear. I was a germaphobe who thought I would die if anything unclean merely touched the surface of my skin. I would avoid touching grass, trees, shoes, light switches, door handles, water faucets, and physical human contact like the plague. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to live a “normal” life. I was jealous of everyone who could live every day without a fear of dying.
I wanted to hug my parents and my friends. I didn’t want to feel like a burden anymore. I knew my disorder was not only causing me distress but radiating stress to my family members and friends.
I wanted to sit in chairs without having to cover them with a blanket. By the time I was fourteen-years-old, OCD was debilitating. I was clinically depressed and hated myself. I felt like a hopeless prisoner in my own body.
It was at this point that I knew something had to change. I wanted my life back and knew it would take hard work. I was determined and excited and told my friends I was going to get to a place where I could hug them. I was going to beat OCD. My friends were very supportive and made it clear that, although they would love to hug me, they would never pressure me. I told my parents afterwards, who were willing to do almost anything to help me.
Unfortunately, not everyone was supportive. One day, a teacher overheard me talking about my goal to overcome OCD and told me I was kidding myself. This was very hard to hear and it was tough not to cry. But I made the right decision to prove him wrong.
My journey began with Dr. Linda Wirth, a therapist in Nashville who specializes in anxiety, depression, and OCD. Every week, my supportive mother drove me an hour each way to and from Nashville to work with Dr. Wirth, who told me what therapy would consist of. I was discouraged. I would need to go through exposure therapy and response prevention. Exposure therapy meant that, if I was scared of touching the ground, I would have to touch it. Not only that, but to be sure the fear was faced, I had to then rub my hands all over my body so I could learn how to face full exposure. I would have to face my fears and not engage in compulsions. Response prevention meant not to bathe or change clothes or do anything to take the fear away. I had to wait it out and learn to be brave. I had to touch various things without washing or asking for reassurance. At first, I wouldn’t budge. I really wanted to be free, but I was scared of change. Looking back, I think that the fear of change had something to do with autism. I hated my rituals but doing them helped me feel like I was going to survive.
My time in therapy was exhausting for me and my family. Oftentimes, exposure to my fears would become so frustrating that I would lash out at my family in response. One day, I was so afraid of opening a door (because I would need to touch the handle) and felt that my sister had to open it for my safety. I was so frustrated and yelled at her for not doing what I asked. Afterwards, I felt like a baby and was ashamed for being such a “scaredy cat”. I was constantly hard on myself. I blamed my outbursts for every argument my family had. I felt like a burden. Being autistic already made me different from my sister. I would tell myself that OCD was yet another reason for her to resent me.
For all the guilt that I felt, I wasn’t just going to fight OCD for me, but for my family as well.
To push through, I imagined how great it would feel to be victorious over this. I decided to be nice to myself and to do the very best I could every day. I learned that, if I pushed myself too hard, I would fall back on my progress. For example, sometimes I used my shirt to open the car door instead of my hands like I was supposed to. Being kind to myself and showing myself respect was something I had to learn the hard way.
Every week, my therapist, parents and I continued to get together to face my fears. It was a lot like boot camp without physical exercise. We started off small and worked our way up to harder and harder things on my list of fears. One of the more daunting fears on my list was touching our dog’s leash. I was so scared of touching it that I refused to walk the dog, even though I missed being outside and walking used to be fun for me. To combat this fear, I brought the leash to a session and laid out on the couch in Dr. Wirth’s office with my my bare arms and legs loosely wrapped around it. For the first 15 minutes, I felt very uncomfortable. Eventually, I felt better and continued by going home without washing. Lots of tears were shed but eventually, after enough exposure, the fear wasn’t present anymore! I moved on to the next fear feeling empowered.
OCD was limiting, but every fear I beat opened up a new freedom. I was slowly getting confident enough to do more and more things I couldn’t.
This went on for a year. I would feel so empowered as I was free to do more and more everyday things I couldn’t do with fear. The fear was still there, but I was improving! I met less frequently with my therapist and started doing FaceTime sessions instead of face-to-face meetings. If I felt proud of a fear I beat, I would email her with a huge smile on my face. I finally felt confident that an OCD-free life was possible.
One day, with Dr. Wirth’s approval and support, I set out to face every last remaining fear on my list within two weeks. On the first day of this experiment, I didn’t wash, seek comfort, change clothes, or anything else in response. I went straight to bed. When I woke up the morning after, I wasn’t scared! I ran down the stairs screaming “Mom, Mom, I think OCD is gone! I think it’s gone!” We went to the therapist who confirmed and gave me a certificate. That felt good, but getting my life back felt better.
I was recently telling my story to my doctor who specializes in autism. He told me I should be proud because autism makes beating OCD harder for many people! Autism comes with its own set of anxieties. I was bullied partly because I couldn’t communicate what was going on and people misunderstood me often. Emotions have been hard to regulate and change hard for me to enact.
When I first met Dr. Wirth, I was one of her most difficult cases. My family remains proud of me to this day.
Last October, we went out to eat to celebrate the five year anniversary of me getting my certificate from my therapist. I proudly tell my story to encourage people to face their fears and to remind people with disabilities that they can do anything they set their mind to. I am proof that autism is awesome, disabled people are capable, and that fear doesn’t have to stop you. That, to me, is amazing.
