Speaking To Myself Through OCD

I have found that sometimes my OCD is actually trying to get my attention. It is an unhealthy response to me ignoring my better self. It is complicated to sort out and I can only do it when my OCD is at a low level. Otherwise there is too much OCD noise and not all of it has meaning behind it. Here are 2 examples.

I adopted a cat that was put out on the street by her owner. It happened gradually. First just feeding her outside, then letting her sleep in the house when it was cold. Eventually I got a litter box. I knew who her owner was, but I had never talked with him. I was afraid to go over to his home and discuss adopting the cat. I guess I felt guilty for how far things had gone, and I was also afraid he'd say no. Then I started to obsess that the cat had rabies. I really thought I had contracted rabies. It was my OCD telling me to "take care of business". Talk to the owner, then take the cat to the vet. As soon as I spoke to the owner, who was happy to see her go to a good home, my obsession went away.

Another example is this nose piercing. I am supposed to use cotton balls to soak it in salt water 10 minutes everyday. That is not happening. I even skipped a few days. Then I developed an obsession that I had a life threatening facial infection. It is NOT infected at all. I committed to myself to do the salt water for a few minutes everyday, no matter what. As soon as I did that, the obsession went away.

It is tricky, because I don't want to give the OCD a foothold by giving credence to the obsessions. But, what I find is that while the obsession itself is irrational, there may be something real fueling it. Sometimes my better brain is trying to get my attention. While I need to extinguish the obsession through ERP, I need to try to understand why it popped up in the first place.

I'd Rather Have Worms

I am glad to be back in the blogosphere. It has been a busy time here with adjusting to the "back to school" routine. I also had to deal with ex-husband nastiness. It was emotionally consuming.

Shana recently posted about the lengths people will go to survive. It brought me back to my early days of OCD recovery. My daughter just celebrated her eighth birthday. After her birth I was catapulted into an escalation of OCD that reached psychotic proportions. That doesn't generally happen with OCD. Although we may feel crazy, we generally don't completely lose touch with reality. But in the post-partum period, anything is possible.

Losing my facilities was an unimaginable ordeal. One month after the birth, I was ready to end my life in order to relieve the suffering. I didn't want to leave my children, who I knew needed me. So I asked to be brought to a local ER. I was so weak and distressed that I could hardly walk. But I made my way to the window, and told the receptionist that I have post-partum depression and I need help. I am pretty sure I looked awful. I was up-triaged and they took me right in, without making me wait in the busy waiting room.

Asking that woman at the window for help was my first surrender -- an expression of hope. I had no idea what would come next. I spent 7 days as an inpatient on a locked psychiatric ward. I received tremendous compassion. I got my label (You have OCD) and started to learn about my illness. When I was well enough to read, my doctor handed me a Y-BOCS with a list of all the varieties of obsessions. In that moment, my whole life made sense. I had been dealing with OCD for 28 years, thinking it was "just me". This was the start of my healing. In the end, being that ill was a blessing. The extreme disease I experienced motivated me to take my recovery with the utmost seriousness.

Exposure and response prevention is painful and just plain hard. But, for me, it has been the key to my recovery. Sometimes it is hard to know how far to take an exposure. I remember being fearful of eating spaghetti, because I had the notion that the sauce was dangerous. I remember thinking, "I am going to eat this, even it if it kills me." I did, and as usual, nothing happened.

I tackled my handwashing early on. I made the decision that while doctoring I would wash once before and once after each patient. This is the standard. No re-washing, because they still "seemed germy." However, when I was not at work, I decided to stop washing my hands under all circumstances (except when dealing with my children's food and bottles). It may seem a little extreme, but it took the guess work out. I knew that I could "catch something." But, I felt an urgent need to get well and be able to be a good mother. I had been so impaired that I was willing do anything to survive and beat the OCD.

I didn't die. But I did catch pinworms. It took about a month for those critters to take up residence in my lower GI tract. I called my doctor, got a prescription, and got rid of it with a pill. I started washing my hands after using the restroom and before eating. Once. No re-washing. By that time the obsession was extinguished 99%. I could wash normally without worrying. Was it worth it? Definitely! OCD or pinworms. That's easy. I'd rather have worms.

Read more about Post Partum Mood Disorders