OCD Action

A blog on my OCD… hmm where do I start…? I will try and refrain from repeating myself, checking what I have written many times or worrying too much.

I first got OCD when I was 11 or 12 (I say “got”: that’s when I got taken to the Psychologist)… I’m sure you can imagine that conversation between me and my mum… the short version went something like this, in a worried tone… “If you don’t stop this behaviour, we will have to go and see a psychologist”… obviously I couldn’t stop and I was told that I was going… to which I replied, “I AM NOT GOING TO A PSYCHOLOGIST, I AM NOT MAD, I AM NOT GOING, YOU CAN’T MAKE ME.” You can imagine the stamping of the feet, the screaming, and the tears all because I didn’t understand.

I used to count. I had numbers I liked and numbers I didn’t like. I had my reasons. I had bad thoughts, horrible thoughts. I had rituals, annoying random and stupid they were, but I had to do them, because they made the bad thought ok again. I had regular sessions with my psychologist; I would be bouncing off the walls after the sessions. It got worse before it got better. My mum and my psychologist decided to take me out of my private school at the end of Year 8 and put me into a normal high school. (I am so happy they did but was I then??? Nooo!!) I was told that if I didn’t start trying to work better with the CBT at home, the next step was drugs. Was I having drugs…?  I would have rather had my mobile phone taken away and no TV or internet for a year!

My worst rituals were:

*Stepping back and forth over thresholds and lines in the pavement

* Turning the lights and appliances on and off…

* Locking and unlocking doors

* Checking things

* Having to go up and down my bunk bed stairs

* Pointing my futuristic watch at a certain angle so that when it was on my bedside table, if a laser was to come out of it, it wouldn’t touch any of my family.  This is by far one of the funniest rituals I had.

*Filling my cup up….. Over and over again

*Making sure the TV was on a certain volume number.

*Leaving the mirror… I had to smile or have a good thought before I moved away from my reflection… Imagine trying to get out of the house quickly with this one.

So my good numbers were mainly even…4, 12,22,24,44,52,54,104,112 and a few in between, so I would do some of these rituals a lot of times …

 My worst rituals now are:

*Asking my housemates to check if there is anything on my back or my face etc… even though I have already checked.

*Swapping items for another item that is exactly the same… I am a nightmare to go shopping with.

* Thresholds are on a comeback… not for long though, if I have my way.

*Locking the door

There are others but these are the prominent ones.

I still count occasionally, I still have some numbers I don’t like, I still have my reasons, I still have bad thoughts, absolutely horrible  thoughts as bad if not worse.  I still do rituals but not as many. They still make the bad thoughts better but so does CBT. I don’t see a Psychologist anymore. I absolutely loved my second school compared to my first and the friends I made are amazing. I never have had medication for my number thing and it did get better, but does get worse.

I think OCD is always going to be an ongoing battle for anyone who suffers with it… the most important thing to me is that people can understand it. My family and friends are patient, and have helped me so much. My mum and my sister especially. My sister was 9 when I was first told I had OCD. She, I suppose, saw it how I saw it. She understood as much as a 9 year old could without having it, and used to do so much for me… something she thinks I have forgotten… I remember her turning the lights off for me and getting me drinks, dragging me across thresh holds, pushing me out of the mirror and checking things for me for months if not years, until the whole cruel to be kind mentality came into it… that was a shock to the system, I tell you… We all knew full well that in order for me to get better I had to struggle through it. So instead of helping, the all familiar sayings such as “Just do it”, “pack it in”, “stop being annoying” and “you can do it” were said, sometimes shouted at me from my little big sister. She still does help me and still does say these sayings.  My mum saw it from a parent’s point of view, I know she was worried. But we were soon taking it in our stride. I’d do my number thing and ask her to help and she would, and then that stopped and it was “no, you can do it…”, if I had a pound for every time I’ve heard that…seriously.  She still does help and still does encourage me. (Although sometimes I would just rather have it done for me.) She also listens to me, laughs and cries with me. In our downstairs toilet we use to have a pull light and I use to turn it on and off, on and off etc… and all of a sudden I would hear “GEORGIE STOP IT NOW!”… A year or so later, before my mum had chance to shout, I would shout to myself “GEORGIE STOP IT!” I heard that talking to yourself is the first sign of madness, I disagree… it’s the cure. What I am trying to say is that regardless of how tough it is for you right now, talk to your friends and family and laugh and cry about it together. I can only hope that you have friends and family like mine, and if you don’t, have a chat with someone at OCD Action…

I am going to be writing a few blogs about how my OCD affects me, over the next month for OCD Action. Hopefully it will be a good read.

Georgie, 21

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