One of the most frightening things in the world is to have your life completely controlled by something you know is stupid. As far back as I can remember I have suffered from what I now know is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but I was only diagnosed with it about three years ago. A lot of people know OCD to be when someone constantly keeps washing their hands because they’re scared of germs, or someone having to do something a certain number of times.. Like locking the door, or checking to make sure the oven is off. But OCD can be much more than that.. It can confuse your reality, and it can make you miss out on a lot of wonderful things.
My OCD became very noticeable when I would feel this obsessive need to do things such as only walk on certain tiles in my house or drink a root beer at that moment because I felt like if I didn’t, something horrible would happen to me or my family. Then it began to seep into other parts of my life.. like I felt like if I didn’t wear a certain leotard to ballet class that day that harm would come to my family. I started to then develop certain things to “keep me safe” such as bedtime rituals (doing things like brushing my teeth, washing my face, ect in only a certain order) and making sure that my blankets all faced in the **right** direction. I’d think to myself that what I was doing was absurd, but I was (and still am) too terrified of the consequences to stop this behavior.
I’ve tried getting help from my past psychologists, but the things they’ve suggested thus far have seemed to drastic for me to be able to do (one of them just basically told me to just stop all my behaviors overnight!). So I’ve tried to go the path of working on hiding my OCD from my family so they don’t worry, but that hasn’t really completely worked out.
Two years ago when my best friend was sent off to boarding school, I got some new obsessions as a result. For almost the entire school year I kept everything unmoved and mostly untouched from the last time she had been to my room. This included keeping cereal boxes and half drank snappels exactly where she’d left them. But my Mother went into my room and was completely horrified at the state that she found it in. I do admit that it was rather disgusting, there was dust everywhere and of course the left over bottles of juice were rather gross. Luckily I was able to force myself to clean it then, and things turned out alright.
I also have a horrible problem with is that when I have to say take a cookie from a platter of other cookies. I feel very anxious because I have this feeling that maybe the other potatoes are going to be lonely, or maybe I’m separating a family of cookies or a couple of friends. Now I know that you must be thinking right now that I am completely insane, but I feel that way as well. Part of the logical side of me tries to tell myself that cookies don’t have feelings and families, and yet I can’t stop myself from worrying about their feelings. This also goes for everything from spoons to books.
Some other obsessive things I do are when I’m getting ready to go to bed, once I’ve brushed my teeth I can’t look in another mirror until the next morning. That involves closing my eyes as I walk past my bedroom mirror. I have to keep things organized in a certain way or I feel that harm is going to come to the people I care about. I have to keep numbers that I consider to be “good” be the number of emails in my in box… these are only a few of the obsessive compulsive things that I do.
I honestly wish that one day I could wake up and my OCD would just be gone, I feel that as long as I have it, I’ll be holding myself back from a lot of opportunities and that it’s in control of me.
