OCD Action

Hi Everyone

It's my first time posting on this forum. I have come here to make OCD friends and to share experiences. Btw, I read that OCD is not split up into categories by the medical profession but knowing the POCD and ROCD exist in the OCD community has helped me a huge amount so I am grateful for that and I tend to use the terms for that reason. I hope that's OK.

Well I first had OCD when I was 13 and changed to secondary school. It got bad again at 15 with GCSEs and it became a bit of a lifestyle - dictating everything I did for a long time. I got suicidal over it a number of times and devoted long periods to constantly checking whether I am a paedophile. I mean mental checking and ruminating. I also got into relationships only to find I couldn't 'feel' anything and this I now know was ROCD because the people I supposedly felt nothing for, were in fact people I cared deeply about and for that reason I felt terrible about not feeling anything!

Following years of running around not being able to settle, getting into intense relationships (well thy were on my side of things I don't think the other people felt that way :-p ) and going into and out of studies, jobs etc., I went bankrupt at 25. Then I got into a relationship that was abusive and controlling for 3 years and I bought a flat to regain control of my life. I let it out and lost £10k in the sale because some squatters moved in opposite, turned the street into a national news story and brought the value down. I have had reactive bipolar, acute anxiety, depression, OCD, personality disorder.. every label has stuck for a while. And now I am doing fine actually. I have said goodbye to 15 years of stress and I am now training as a therapist and have been for about four years. It has taken me that time to integrate the light and the shade, to gain a balanced perspective on my life and to work out who I am, to regain my dignity, to stop obsessing about mental illness, being mentally ill and whether I might become mentally ill.

Seeing as 15 years is a bit of a milestone, I thought I'd share some things I've learnt the hard way just in case they can help even just one person.

- Enjoying mental health is, for me, all about being aware of what your emotional needs are, having your emotional needs met and feeling loved, respected, listened to and supported and safe in all kinds of ways - financial, emotional, sexual, at work, at home, in the family, in your friendship circle. It's not about labels, it's about what you need in life in order to unfold and be your own person.
- The biggest factors in my own issues have been chronic financial insecurity, not wanting to take responsibility for myself and my life and existential worries. At the root of it I spent many, many years not knowing why on earth I was alive. Discovering spirituality was, for a cynical thing like me, a gift but this might not be the path for everyone
- Learning to communicate and to give and take things from others, as in normal conversation, is a huge skill that means you don't have to be isolated. Compassion, learnt through buddhism, changed my life almost overnight - the effects were extraordinary
- Buddhism teaches that there is reality and illusion. For me OCD is believing in illusion and now I see it as a big smoke and mirrors game
- Mental illness is not weakness. However much I thought this in the past I didn't believe it. I tried to outwit it and analyse it and I ruminated until I went giddy. Mental illness is an achilles heel. If you suffer, you will get it during or after periods of stress. I know that if I am changing routine as in going on holiday, leaving a job, having a relationship end... that I will have random hurtful thoughts and that they might well appear while I'm at a party or at work or enjoying lunch with my partner. No one said horrid OCD thoughts would strike when doing something difficult. Annoyingly they often appear in 'nice' times and yes, it makes you feel worse that way
- Dawn Huebner Phd and Dr. Elizabeth Weekes books are fantastic ground-breaking and down to earth books that I would recommend to anyone. What to do when your brain gets stuck is a book written for children with OCD and I love it

And you know what? I have all these hints and tips and yet it won't ever go away completely because it's my thing, like others have other conditions... but we have each other and with experience, we can widen that patch of light where we know in our heart of hearts that those thoughts are 'just' OCD and with awareness and knowledge the patch of light can grow and grow until there is much less darkness, or we can just sit out the darkness, knowing the light isn't far away

(And yes, how I know there are times when that seems like all that is an impossible, cynical dream and that life is actually really cruel. I really know how bad OCD feels, oh I really do!!, but I am writing this having been through many, many OCD cycles and having learnt from all of them and I wanted to share that feeling of reassurance).
With love to all fellow people living with OCD