Casey, Me, and my OCD
A story of struggle, love, and healing.
A Kindred Spirit
When my brother and I left for college, my parents replaced us with golden retrievers. My brother Jeff’s place was taken by Tucker, a majestic blonde beauty (your classic golden child), and two years later, I would be replaced by a red wiry anxious little fellow. It was ever so fitting.
But Casey was not merely a replacement with ironically similar personality traits or even just one of the many animals in my life that I would come to know and love beyond measure. He was a kindred spirit, a soulmate, a guardian angel. He was everything I believe to be true about the pure goodness of animals.
The Relapse
I suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and for most of my life, I’ve existed on a spectrum from managing my symptoms exceedingly well to becoming entirely debilitated by my illness. About ten years ago, I had a relapse.
When I moved back to Minnesota after living abroad for several years, my disorder reared its ugly head and overtook my entire being. After living independently for several years on the other side of the world, I suddenly found myself trapped in my parents’ basement, completely incapacitated by the disease.
Obsessions and Compulsions
OCD is a strange and evil entity. Like a demon, it possesses the mind and tricks you into believing things your rational mind knows are untrue. My particular brand of OCD convinced me that everything was contaminated. I performed endless cleaning rituals to decontaminate any place, space, or possession I deemed dirty. My existence revolved around mentally tracking every square inch of the house and identifying its items as either “clean” or “dirty.”
It became so exhausting that most of my life was relegated to a single couch layered in blankets, so I couldn’t contaminate the sofa. And the couch couldn’t contaminate me. I washed my hands and arms about 50 times daily, leaving them cracked and bloody. When I found the strength to shower, it would take me several hours, and I could only use paper towels to dry off.
I threw away endless belongings and got to a point where I didn’t want to touch anything at all. Because either I would contaminate it, or it would contaminate me. I was running out of strength to clean, wash, and discard. I could barely eat because my anxiety level was so high, and I was becoming a skeleton of my already slender self.
My Companions
Throughout this all, I had my parents and dogs by my side. By some saving grace, the nonsense of my OCD didn’t include fear of dog contamination, so my dogs were my life. They were with me all the time.
At that point, my parents still had Casey and a new dopey teddy bear of a golden named Sunny. I also had my dog by then: a stubby little black and white pit bull named Chiquita. They were all my best friends and a huge comfort during this time of great distress.
But in Casey, I had a kindred soul. You see, he was sick and suffering right along with me. He had Cushing’s disease and a cancerous tumor in his stomach that made his once skinny frame swell up like a bloated tick. He was clearly in a state of extreme pain all the time.
And on top of that, he was highly anxious and hugely attuned to the emotions of others. Whenever I would cry out in distress, Casey would come racing to my side or hopping onto my lap. Whenever I was trapped in panic mode, performing endless cleaning rituals, Casey would sit by me, whimpering and looking on in concern.
Every time the monster inside my head told me to go to the sink and scrub my hands until they bled, Casey would sit in the bathroom doorway, looking on and panting in concern. And whenever I could rest, I would sit by Casey’s side, stroking his back, telling him how sweet of a boy he was and how I wished I could take his pain away. As I fussed over and reassured him endlessly, he worried about and comforted me just the same.
This particular OCD relapse lasted about a year and a half. Throughout the grueling time trapped by my mind and inside my parents’ house, I was admitted to three different mental hospitals and treatment facilities. Every time I left, I asked Casey to please hang on to his life until I returned. Perhaps it was selfish, but I couldn’t bear to lose him while I was away.
The Waiting
The first two attempts at residential treatment facilities were failures, and I returned home just as sick as I left. And so I waited to get into the country’s best treatment facility for OCD. I spent that summer at home, confined to a cycle of obsessions and compulsions but also determined to get into the right mindset for healing. I studied Buddhism, meditated, and spent as much time as possible in the backyard with the dogs.
I was weak but tried to exercise daily by walking in loops around my parents’ yard. As Sunny and Chiquita ran around, chasing squirrels and balls, Casey walked right by my side. He was obviously in pain, and his bloated stomach made his body wobble about strangely.
We did this every day until summer turned to fall, and by Halloween, there was an opening for me at the treatment facility in Boston. Before I left, I hugged Casey goodbye and asked him, once again, to hold on to his life while I was away.
Healing & Homecoming
What happened in Boston (like all my experiences in treatment) is a story in and of itself. But the important part is that I finally got better. My determination and excellent treatment team put me on a path to success. I could finally live like a “normal,” functioning, healthy human being. I could stand up to the bully in my head and live the life I wanted, not the life my OCD told me I had to.
The world felt magical, and the once grey and muted world was filled with vivid color. After three months, I returned home, ready to keep fighting my OCD and get back to living. The reunion with my dogs was magical. I was elated to be back with the creatures who stuck with me through it all and still loved me at my very worst. I was so relieved to find Casey still breathing, still living, still plugging away at life as I had hoped.
I took the dogs outside to run around two days after I arrived home. It was February and cold but not too frigid. Chiquita, Sunny, and I ran around, leaping and bounding into snow piles. Casey didn’t join us like he usually did. Instead, he sat at the top of the stairs leading down to the backyard. He just sat there, peacefully, watching over us. Eventually, we all went back inside, and I patted Casey lovingly on the head.
A few minutes after being inside, a strangely high-pitched yelp pierced the airwaves, and I heard a crash in the corner of the room. It was Casey, crying out in pain, falling into and knocking over a small table. I ran to his side, touched his chest, and felt his heart beat out. I knew there was nothing I could do. So I just knelt over him, buried my face into his neck, and wept.
Casey was desperately ill for so long. And he was in excruciating pain. Yet he was worried about my pain. My suffering. And so he stayed. He stuck by my side until I finally found the strength to heal. Naive it may be, but I believe he peered down on me that day from the top of the stairs and saw that I was better.
He knew it was his turn to find peace again. I’m not very religious, but I like to believe there is a place where all my animal angels live, waiting for me in the afterlife. And Casey will be among the first to greet me when I arrive.
