Photo from Glee when Emma "outs" herself for Lady Gaga's "Born This Way"
I'm pretty sure I've always had OCD. When I was younger I was always a little quirky and have been known to be described as "particular" but it wasn't until middle school that it became a problem. We calculated out that I was often doing up to 8 hours of rituals a day. 8 HOURS PEOPLE! THAT'S AS LONG AS I WAS AT SCHOOL. Rituals are things that people with OCD do to relieve the anxiety they feel (did I mention I got a combo-pack of OCD/Anxiety?). I "came out" about my OCD for a Christian Leadership project in high school that a group of us did about mental illness. A lot of people said that they had no idea I was living with OCD. That could be the same for a lot of you, or not, but hopefully it is. I know that OCD is just a part of who I am and it make me a little more me but I still worry that it will change people's idea of me when they find out. It isn't some dirty little secret, I'm still the same person I was before you found out. I'm just lettin my flag fly.
There are different types of OCD (WE DO NOT ALL WASH OUR HANDS CONTINUOUSLY). There are the counters, the cleaners (hand washers), the phobics, the checkers, the judgers. I am a counter, checker, and a bit of a phobic. I say a bit of a phobic because I don't have any real phobias but almost all of my compulsions are fueled by the thought process that if I do something or say something just the right way then something bad will not happen to somebody I love. I am a checker; locks are a focus. I always instinctively lock doors behind me (this was a big issue in college when I would more often than not lock out my roommates, whoopsie). This is a common thing but now I don't obsess over it, it's just a compulsion so I let it hang around. Safety first!
My biggest OCD symptom of my life has been numbers. When asked, on occasion, I have broken down my counting issues for people and they almost always just go silent and look perplexed. I figured I'd break it down here for those who are interested. Buckle up people, keep your arms and legs inside the cart because you have just boarded my crazy train.
Good numbers vs. bad numbers: 1= good, 2= also good (one of the only good even numbers in fact), 3= one of the best, 4= not awesome (even though it is made up of two 2s it looks funny and has a bad vibe), 5= pretty fantastic (how can you argue with 3 and 2 put together), 6= is one letter off of sex and according to my 9 year old brain- pretty gross (I hate the number 6, it looks like it fell on its butt and also has biblical relations to the devil), 7= good to go (7 was my best friend, Annie's, favorite number in middle school so I liked it too, and it's supposed to be lucky right?), 8= another stupid even number (who do these even numbers think they are, so perfectly dividable. Get a life evens!) an 8 looks like a forgotten snowman that never got a head, 9= borderline awesome (9 is made up of three 3's, hence why it is awesome but it is only borderline because it looks like the 6 got up off its butt), 10= neutral (not many feelings around this one), 11= absolutely terrible because to my 9 year old brain again 11 is when puberty (and pretty disgusting things) would start to happen, 12= on par with 3 (12 and 3 are both beautiful, I love them almost equally).
There is my number breakdown only up until 12 (I like to end on a positive), but I literally have feelings about every single number. The terrible thing though is that if I do not like a number I have to find a way to make it okay which often involves complicated mixtures of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and long division. For example: E and I originally planned to marry on August 20. August 20, 2011 had a nice ring to it and I was satisfied with the numbers. When we switched to August 19, I was headed for a tailspin. Don't worry, I pulled out of it thanks to my OCD savant-like number neutralization.
August 19, 2011 includes these numbers: 8, 19, 2011. Which I then broke down to 8, 1, 9, 2, 0, 1, and 1. 8+1=9 (off to a good start), 9+9=18 (voting age, I can handle it), 18+2= 20 (2 and 0 are solid), 20+1=21 (drinkin age, good to go), 21+1=22 (the 22nd is my and E's anniversary date as well as the date he proposed, PROBLEM SOLVED!). That was an easy one. Let's have another shall we? A problem I had a lot in school was reading because we would have assigned readings each night and the readings would often end on pages with numbers that I thought meant bad omens. I just opened a book to find a number to work with and landed on page 257. As you may remember I enjoy 2, 5, and 7 but when they are together they look like they are up to something. Let's take the easy road on this one 2+5+7= 14, shucks, um.... 1+4=5 and that's okay. Or 14 is really just 7 two times which is pretty good. Or 14 could be 10 and 4, the 10 could be taken down to two 5s and the 4 is just two 2s but I'm still not feeling great about it. I wish I hadn't picked this one, it's actually starting to bother me. I actually had to stop and think about it for a minute but I got it: 2 is a good number, 5 can be broken down to 3 and 2 which look good together, and 7 can be broken down to 4 and 3 (I know I don't like 4 but when it is paired with 3 it is okay).Whew! We made it. Still with me?
One of my darkest moments with OCD comes from high school. My freshman year of high school my books were stolen from my locker. This sparked a constant fear of this happening again and so I developed a ritual of turning my lock combination to zero and double checking that the lock was actually locked. One day this ritual spun out of control and I began doing this to other people's lockers. The freshman wing alone had at least 130 lockers. The bell rang for class and I was stuck: 1) go to class and have my anxiety reach an astronomical level or 2) be late to class to finish all 130 locks. Number 1 was not even an option, I knew that I had to check every single lock. To this day I do not know how I was so blessed to have two amazing friends in the hall with me that day. Brian and Jay figured out what was happening and actually helped me turn all the locks to zero and double check them. We even made it to class on time. It has always blown me away that in a matter of moments two people could understand and actually accept what was wrong with me and do everything in their power to lessen my stress. Wherever you two are, know that you helped me more than words when I needed you the most and I will never forget it.
I'm not sure if all counters do this but some of us have favorite numbers that we use to do things like check locks or check lights. My favorite number when I was younger was 12 but checking locks 12 times seemed a little obscene so I made the conscious decision to use the number 3. I could put-off my anxiety and still be able to make excuses about why I was doing odd things 3 times. It worked. People continued to think that I was just particular. Though I do not often do things 3 times anymore this "particular-ness" has stuck around and comes in handy. I'm an artist when it comes to sorting. Just yesterday I sorted a whole living room of children's toys into specific piles based on category. The family I nanny for call this my "toy magic".
There are two choices for OCD: medication or behavior therapy. I was way too busy with school to go through the stress of behavior therapy and facing my fears so I went with the meds. I was on Prozac all through high school. It wasn't great, it began to change (and dull) my personality. I wasn't really myself. Thankfully (or not!) I became really ill my freshman year of college and did not find a cure for it until the middle of my sophomore year. Because I was so sick I could not keep down any medications which meant that the Prozac had to go. I am proud to say I have not taken a single Prozac since that day. I cannot tell you just how proud I am of myself that I have been OCD med free for over 4 years. I handle it all on my own and will often even challenge myself to face things. Once in high school my friends ( thank you Kasey and Taryn!) helped me paint my room with stripes and I did not measure the widths of the lines of the white space in between the stripes. It may sound like a little thing but it was the first time I gave my OCD the finger, per se. Since then I have been giving it the finger every chance I get. I often don't share these occurrences with others because it may seem like a small accomplishment but I feel like I have won a battle each and every time. I am no longer afraid of myself, which I really and truly was for a long time, I now have more of a "bring it on" attitude.
I often keep my OCD quiet for fear of how people will judge me but with people that I trust I will tell them because I am proud of how I feel I have overcome this obstacle in my life. I decided to "come out" again on the blogosphere to hopefully encourage others to willingly share things with others and also to inform people about OCD (I've said it once and I'll say it again WE DO NOT ALL WASH OUR HANDS CONTINUOUSLY!). I want to give a big thank you to all those who put up with me through my tough times and who recognize how hard it has been to get to where I am. I couldn't have done it without those very special people. My love to you all!
The following photo was posted on PostSecret.com over 3 years ago. I printed it out and have carried it in my purse ever since because it reminded me that other people live with the same thing and are still understood and loved.
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