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I was always an anxious kid who had a lot of trouble making decisions. Uncertainty was always the enemy. I can’t pinpoint when anxiety became more than minor generalized anxiety, or if I’ve had OCD symptoms since I was a child. More and more I think it is the latter.

There are a lot of misconceptions about OCD. Popular media portrays OCD as something quirky akin to perfectionism. Maybe a character likes order a lot, or washes their hands or has to count or tap something a certain number of times and those are certainly symptoms for some people with OCD but not all.

OCD is misunderstood, by the public but also by professionals. It is an anxiety disorder characterized by obsessive intrusive thoughts, and compulsive behaviours. The themes that an OCD sufferer can experience are basically endless but include among others.

  • Contamination
  • Health
  • Suicide
  • Harm/Violence
  • Sexual
  • Relationship

It takes the thing you care about the most and uses it against you.

Something that is brought up a lot in OCD forums are intrusive thoughts. Everybody has intrusive thoughts, you are standing at the top of a cliff and a little voice says “hey, what if you jumped” you hold a knife and think “what if I stabbed my hand.” You don’t want these things, and for most people the thought passes as just that, a weird thought. For someone with OCD sometimes these thoughts get stuck so “hey, what if you jumped” sparks “why would I think that? Am I suicidal? I think I really want to jump. I should leave right now. What would happen if I jumped? Am I going to jump.” Which is the start of the compulsive behaviours: rumination.

That’s another thing that people misunderstand, compulsions often aren’t visible to other people, they happen in our heads or in private.

  • ruminating
  • seeking reassurance
  • checking how our bodies and mind feel in response to a thought/picture/video
  • distraction
  • thought blocking
  • avoidance

All of these things are things that we are doing to reduce anxiety by either avoiding the problem or trying to be completely certain of the answer. And certainty doesn’t exist.

There are of course outwardly visible compulsions for some people as well. The classic organizing and hand washing. Checking way too many times that you REALLY locked the door. No one compulsion is common among all OCD sufferers and you don’t need to look like you have OCD to have it. Even professionals have a hard time getting it. Until an OCD sufferer sees a specialist they may be misdiagnosed and misunderstood which is especially scary for someone whose mind is trying to convince them that they are capable or harming someone else or themselves. For this reason many OCD sufferers suffer in silence too afraid to reach out for help because what if it isn’t OCD, what if it is true? OCD wants you to believe you are the bad thing.

What if? That is what it boils down to. Probability doesn’t mean anything to OCD if the what if is part of your theme, yeah you probably aren’t going to jump but what if you did? What if you want to?

The answer that we have to get used to giving OCD is So what? If we accept that yes, the thing is possible, we begin to take away the power. It is a part of Exposure Response Prevention which is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy which is the only clinically proven therapy for OCD.

You expose yourself to your fear, real or imaginary, and stay with it until anxiety reduces without the use of compulsive coping behaviours. And it SUCKS. It goes against everything your mind is telling you. It feels like you are in danger, until it doesn’t and things can start to get a little better.

Recovery for OCD unfortunately doesn’t look like the elimination of the thoughts, they probably will always be there. It is the reduction of the fear and the behaviours and the ability to do the things that align with your values despite your brain trying to make you question whether those are even your values. And new themes can pop up, just because you get one under control doesn’t mean a new one won’t appear, and you’ll have to do the work again. Or you’ll experience a backdoor spike. A therapist tells you, yes, you probably have OCD and you start worrying what if I tricked him into thinking that?

For me, my recovery journey includes being an educator despite my brain trying to convince me I shoudn’t, but here I am, almost four years after my OCD really spiked or started and tried to ruin my life and if you told that version of me that I would be pushing through it. She would have told you it was impossible.

It’s still hard, but it’s so much better.

Below is a song I wrote this year shortly after beginning therapy for OCD.