Living with OCD: the Harsh Realities, the Curses and Gifts

JustMyTake

Imagine a star. This star

Living with OCD: the Harsh Realities, the Curses and Gifts

Just a star. A five pointed star. Half is black, half is white. In it of itself, this star poses no threat. There is no greater meaning or purpose. It just is.

Every time you see this star, you start seeing it twice as often. Everywhere you look, you see a star. Sometimes even in your dreams. Nobody else can see this star. Just you. People wonder why it matters. So what if you see this symbol everywhere you go. Does it pose a threat? It's just a symbol- it can't hurt you.

Five years later, you still see this star everywhere you go. You've tried everything in your power not to.

Sometimes, bad things have happened in connection with the star. Sometimes this star has gotten you into trouble. Sometimes you couldn't help but express your concern about an invisible star and sometimes that scared people. Sometimes those people left. You worry what will happen the next time you see the star. You try to avoid the star, but automatically, your eyes are drawn to it. Like how a small wasp diverts your attention away from a beautiful piece of art. You tell yourself not to look at the star, you chide yourself for doing so in the first place. You wonder why you can see the star but others can't.

In order to know the star isn't there, you have to look for the star. And when you look for something hard enough, whether or not you want to, you find it.

There are times when you don't see the star, but in order to recognize those times you have no choice but to acknowledge and focus on the star.

You can cover up the star. You can blend the surroundings. But, in the process, you might end up whiting out important details, beautiful imagery.

As you no doubt guessed from the title, this Take is about OCD from the perspective of somebody who has been dealing with it for the better part of the last decade and will continue dealing with it for many decades to come. Hopefully. (I'll explain later.)

Living with OCD: the Harsh Realities, the Curses and Gifts

OCD forces me to think about things I don't want to think about. For example, I'd never want to think about what my life would be if I didn't have OCD.

Throughout this, I will be sharing the thoughts I am having while typing this. Here's ten I've had so far

1. This is too melodramatic and I am looking for sympathy

2. By typing that I am attempting to avoid criticism of doing precisely that

3. These are miserable statistics and you know somebody with OCD will come across this. Could they look back on this and decide to do something to themselves, all because of this piece I wrote. And if #1 is true, I didn't write this piece with good intentions.

4. If number 2 is true, am I a narcissist?

5. Do I think #4 because I am a narcissist but I know worrying about being a narcissist is negatively correlated with narcissism and I don't want to believe I am a narcissist.

6. Doesn't the fact that I think this way make me a narcissist

7. Am I hiding my worst thoughts, the truly awful ones I have

8. Do I actually have OCD or was I misdiagnosed and I don't have OCD and this Take will expose me for the fraud I am

9. Will people think I am insane

10. Will people say everybody thinks this way and I'm just complaining and is me thinking that a defense mechanism against people saying that

How OCD has impacted my life

For the first example, I don't have to venture far. In the past five to seven years I would say I've had 25+ accounts on this website. (I only have one account currently though.)

I have experiences that have had a greater impact on my life than this website has or will ever have. But this seems like a good place to start.

That picture I chose has nothing to do with the topic of this post. I chose it because I remember it. I believe it was my background or profile picture for an account I had once. As was this bird

Living with OCD: the Harsh Realities, the Curses and Gifts

I don't know if it was this exact picture, but I do know I chose a menacing eye and cropped it. I believe the eye was more yellow and the head was tilted a bit more upright.

I've had other accounts as well, but I cannot remember the pictures for all of them or if I put up a picture for all of them.

I do remember reading an article about "skinny fat" syndrome online and becoming paranoid that I was skinny fat (in the sense of having too much fat- really I didn't have much muscle). I asked for opinions about my appearance at times and whether I was skinny fat. Those questions still remain to this day, tied with long inactive inaccessible accounts.

I also remember part of the appeal of this website being the anonymity. Here I could pretend to be somebody I wasn't. Stoic and smart, experienced. Brave. The opposite of what I was in real life.

But, inevitably, just like in real life I would mess up. And whenever that happened, I would start fresh. I didn't have any friends. I saw no point in getting straight A's if I would still be depressed, isolated, and underdeveloped.

Here are ten more thoughts pertaining to the above section

1. What if people think this post is weird and creepy

2. Did I think one only so I could avoid other people saying the post was weird and creepy and that's just a defensive tactic. If it isn't, why am I avoiding it.

3. In the previous set of ten didn't I count the thought and the fear behind the thought as one, but in this one I counted it as two

4. Did the thought "Maybe this will spread and people will think it's a great piece of writing" come after the thought "what if I am a narcissist" or before, in which case I might actually be a narcissist.

5. OCD, narcissism and Sociopathy aren't mutually exclusive. What if I am a narcissist or a Sociopath. I wonder what google has to say

6. If I google that am I learning how to expose myself to information I fear or am I giving into my OCD

7. What if those accounts still exist and I immediately get banned after posting this and never know what people think but people somehow suss out who I am and confront me about it in real life

8. Does thinking I'm so important that people will "suss out who I am" make me a narcissist

9. What if I'm missing something major and this is my one opportunity to convey it

10. What if I did something really bad that I blocked out, connected to a previous profile and people find that and find out what I did

OCD hasn't just affected my experience on this website- it has affected my entire life.

Most people my age communicate by text, which looks something like this

Not this strange usually
Not this strange usually

For me, it would look something like this

-Them: Just had a cup of coffee that must have been crafted by the hand of Zeus... hope your day is going divine as well...

-Me: Sounds good. I couldn't drink it because I'm hypersensitive to caffeine

-Me: Sorry, that sounded stupid. I swear no matter how many times I text I say the dumbest things

-Me: Hey just wanted to apologize for the texts last night. Working on not apologizing so much

-Me: Hey I know I said I was working on not apologizing so much, but I wanted to apologize in case I overwhelmed you with texts

-Me: Hey, just wanted to be perfectly honest- I was worried you had blocked me and I called you a couple of times because I read something on google that said that was a good way to find out

-Me: Hey sorry about all the texts recently

I should stop texting. Or learn how to text in a way that is conducive to socializing, not destructive. I should take the other person not responding as a boundary and respect it.

I've been wondering why I don't for a long time. Why I find myself in unfortunate situations because of my compulsions.

Honestly, I don't have a good answer. Using the star example again, if the star only appeared occasionally, the fact that it appeared wouldn't be so stressful. if every five hours I thought about texting, I could probably fight off the impulse to text. But if every five minutes I think about texting eventually the impulse builds into something unmanageable, I feel out of control, and I cave.

I have lost friends because of this. Friends who knew my situation, knew how much I struggled with this. I don't blame them. You can't separate the person from the OCD. You can try to help them. Try to comfort them. But you're playing with fire. You have to look out for yourself first. If you date or befriend somebody with OCD, you have to be ready, willing, and able to embrace those qualities. Because no matter how many times a person suffering from OCD promises or apologizes, you can't be sure it won't happen again. And neither can the person suffering from OCD.

Living with OCD: the Harsh Realities, the Curses and Gifts

Night, after night, after night I used to have a nightmare. In the nightmare my OCD had taken over and I had done something and people wanted nothing to do with me. A few months back,That nightmare came true and I almost ended my life over it. I've never gotten over what happened and I don't know if I ever will. When you have OCD, you never forget.

Here's some more thoughts I had while writing this

-Imaging the comment "woe is me, other people deal with difficult stuff in life too. Everybody wishes they could reverse it"

-Wondering if I thought that because I knew if I thought it I would type it and by saying that before anybody else could, I increase my chances of not seeing a comment that I know would upset me. And me saying it would upset me is just furthering that. And if this is genuine or all manipulation.

-Should I scrap this now, or should I finish writing this? I feel like it needs to be 20,000 words, but maybe not. Maybe I should just say my piece.

To be honest, I'm getting sleepy and as I get tired my thoughts slow down a bit.

Living with OCD: the Harsh Realities, the Curses and Gifts

I never used to understand why I slept so much. Why I would sleep ten to twelve hours during the day, sometimes skipping entire meals. Sometimes not showering or brushing my teeth.

I used to think I had a sleeping disorder. Recently, I've come to the realization that the bed is my sanctuary. Occasionally I'll have good dreams about the situation that happened. When I wake up I want to go back. But if I have a bad dream or no dreams at all, my mind is at ease when I wake.

Light feeds, darkness consumes

Living with OCD: the Harsh Realities, the Curses and Gifts

I think of a person's mind as a person's soul. People with OCD are not bad or evil- to be a bad or evil person you must make a choice. People with OCD can empathize with others. But, people with OCD have persistent, intrusive thoughts. Truly nasty stuff. Everybody does, but not to that degree. It's what I would imagine being inside of the mind of a truly terrible person would be like, except that a person with OCD has less control and experiences guilt and shame over the thoughts.

This horrible, nasty stuff and the general feeling of not being in control may be one of the reasons OCD sufferers are far more likely to commit suicide than members of the average population. That sheds some light on my "hopefully" comment earlier. I've attempted to end my life, and an event in the future may lead me to try again. I say now, when I have some hope about the future, I hope I will never make the attempt and, if I do, that the attempt isn't successful.

People with OCD have a very active mind and oftentimes, as a result, a very active imagination. A different way of seeing the world. Entering into this world can be both frightening and fascinating, both for the person with OCD and for an outsider. And when a person with OCD gets their mind stuck on something, they can think it through with a level of depth that many other people cannot. The good and the bad. Not saying people with OCD are more intelligent. An OCD mind works differently- not better or worse, just different.

Living with OCD: the Harsh Realities, the Curses and Gifts

A person with OCD thinks more. This can be beneficial or detrimental

As I'm typing this, I'm considering all the different ways people could respond and how I would respond back. When debating, if I concentrate on the topic at hand, I can often predict how a person is going to respond ahead of time. Not always, but often. As if I'm a PKD character, I can see situations in my mind and consider the outcomes of each. But this can backfire as well.

Include a caption for your imag
Include a caption for your imag

If you consider every negative outcome before you do something, if you try to foresee the future, there are many things you will not do. If your mind can logic out how expressing a political viewpoint could end up with you being on the internet could end up with you attempting to end your life, could end up with you in a mental institution for years and years unable to leave, could end up breaking you down, could end up in an even worse part, could end up with a tube down your throat from not eating, could end up with you being in a state of perpetual isolation for X years... you aren't likely to say anything, or at least make a video showing your face giving a political opinion.

But this doesn't only affect the person with OCD... this affects other people as well. In my case, my fears are projected onto others. I assume they have bad intentions, I assume the worst. A third irony- this fear keeps me from befriending others, which in turn keeps me isolated- which is the worst outcome I fear

Living with OCD: the Harsh Realities, the Curses and Gifts

Of course, treatment for OCD is a thing. Sadly some people cannot be helped by drugs or therapy. That means that, truly, they must deal with the thoughts on their own. I'd imagine this group has an even higher lifetime suicide risk. Fortunately, I am not of this group. I have seen some improvement from medication and some improvement from therapy.

Most people deal with negative thoughts by "reframing" or reassuring themselves. That can temporarily work for OCD- using a study or data to counter the fear- but in the long run, that can make the whole situation much worse. You can't help but see information that counters the counter. It's like debating- if you challenge somebody over and over again they can, over time, become a better debater. They can make better arguments. If you challenge your OCD over and over again, it too can become a better debater and make better arguments. Doesn't matter how deep you go, your OCD can always go a bit deeper. Now, instead of one study to disprove a fear or assumption, There are six supporting it.

What you're actually supposed to do when you have OCD is acknowledge the thought. Not tell yourself the thought won't hurt you. Not tell yourself whatever you fear won't happen- because you don't know. Sometimes thoughts manifest themselves in actions. Sometimes the worst does come. No, you tell yourself that you are having this thought. Over time you gain distance from the thought.

My responsibility

I said earlier that I will never take a drug for OCD because I will worry about the potential side effects. That's true- I will never do it willingly. But as long as I am physically able to put something in my mouth, I don't have to. Once I've swallowed it, I've swallowed it. Once I've swallowed it the fear of not taking it and what that can do can outweigh the fear of taking it. Potentially leading to me continuing to take it. Luvox is a drug for OCD. People take Luvox. Generally, people with OCD are not comfortable with medications (depending on what kind of OCD they have- I'll get to that in a minute.) But in individual moments, a person suffering from OCD can overpower it. In those individual moments it's important to make long-term decisions. Signing up for treatment for OCD for instance.

Regardless of other circumstances, suicide is a personal decision. And the reality is 89% of people with OCD never attempt suicide. That's a lower percentage than the average population, but it does indicate that most people have the strength necessary to fight through it. And I can, and will, as well.

Different kinds of OCD

Not reaching 20,000 words bugs me- Have I said everything I want to say? But if I save this and go back and edit it, I won't end up posting. So, in the interest of completing this and also getting enough sleep, this will be the last section and I'll post a few last minute thoughts. Maybe I'll come back to this topic in the future. For now, this is plenty.

Quickly, I would like to point out that there are many kinds of OCD and degrees of OCD. But OCD around social situations and experiencing intrusive thoughts isn't uncommon. I did used to obsessively lock and check things, but over time that morphed into what it is today.

Last minute-thoughts

Was this too dramatic?

Do I just want sympathy or do I actually want to help people?

What if this is the best post ever posted on this website?

Did I have that thought in response to the thought/worry that I'm a narcissist or did the I'm a narcissist thought come after?

Was this whole thing manipulation?

Am I listing the thoughts that go through my head or comments I'm worried other people might post?

Did I go too far?

What if I'm responsible for a mass suicide epidemic?

Is that covert narcissism?

Is this the end of my time on G@G? Will I make another account and start fresh?

Is this appeasing my OCD or challenging it?

Maybe the positive qualities are qualities everybody possesses and I didn't go into detail because I fear they are qualities everybody possesses?

If someday I don't have OCD, what will life be like. What if I do these things because I'm a bad person, not because of OCD?

"I need some sleep"

Living with OCD: the Harsh Realities, the Curses and Gifts
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