A Small Miracle

Recently we were visiting my far away parents. We had a wonderful time, but alas, we had some challenges too. So, my parents have 2 cats. The older one we’ve had for 11 years and her name is Dara. She’s mean, though I love her anyway, and so mostly I just spend my time playing with the littler one, Oreo, or as I prefer to call him, Kitty. Now, Kitty breaks my OCD rules. He has full run of my parents’ farm house, he goes places I am NOT ok with, and yet I still hold him, snuggle with him, even kiss him sometimes. I love this Kitty. It’s pretty pitiful.

We had only been here a day or so when one night I was just worried that there was a mouse in the kitchen. I didn’t have any concrete info to tell me this, there was just something about the way Dara looked at the kitchen stove that made me worried. But mom assured me that if it were true, Dara would be going nuts and so there was no mouse. So later, when Kitty was batting something around under and near the stove, I promised myself that it was not a mouse.

About an hour later, Dara walks into the living room, dead mouse in her mouth. I do not take this well.

At the time that Dara waltzes in with her prize, I am holding Kitty, his paw across my face and I start freaking out. What if that’s what Kitty was playing with under the stove? What if I get that terrible virus that mice very rarely carry but that I’ve heard about? What about the fact that it’s just plain gross?

My dad takes care of the mouse. I go into a panic attack. I cried. I went away from the cats. I tried to not just run and jump in the shower. But then here’s the small miracle. This is a farmhouse which has gotten mice for years. My parents don’t do a thing about it other than get rid of the mouse. There’s no cleaning, no sanitizing, nothing. And somehow, I made it and was ok with that. I didn’t have a good evening. I worried about more mice for the rest of the trip. I took an anxiety pill that night, cleaned off my face and didn’t let Kitty in to sleep with us that night (see how he breaks all the rules?). My husband had to talk me through a lot. But I didn’t make my mom scour things. I didn’t shower that night even though I felt gross. I didn’t banish Kitty away from me. I didn’t stop enjoying my parents’ home. And by the next morning, I held Kitty again. I steered clear of Dara for a couple of days, but I didn’t let the OCD run everything about the situation.

I’m still totally freaked out by mice. But I made it through one more victory.

A Day Out

Today was a rough OCD day because I was actually out in the world. I didn’t have my safety net, my husband, and I was with a bunch of people who didn’t know about the OCD and I was faced with the normal world. It was hard. I did a semester study program back in 2001 and the current students were here for their semester’s trip. So, it was an opportunity for me to see my old professors and tag along to a couple of their meetings.

Well, I didn’t know tagging along meant having 3 people in my car with me. I didn’t know it would mean opening doors and not feeling like I could hand sanitize. I didn’t know that one girl would leave her phone in my car and of course ask for my keys so she could go get it. I never hand my keys over. And then I had to just put them in my purse!

I ended up having a pretty good day. I did a really good job of just pushing the OCD aside and saying I’d deal with it later. But dealing with it later sucks. It meant a shower. It meant my husband spraying down the car and cleaning stuff for me. It will mean cleaning all the stuff in my purse off, and of course spraying my purse with Febreeze Anti-Microbial, but that’s pretty standard when I take my purse out in public. The shower is fairly normal too after an intense time out. But the car and the inside of the purse and the keys and everything…well, it was just a big day for OCDumb.

An Overview...Kind Of

I have been living with OCD for a little more than 2 years. I’m 28 and it’s somewhat unusual for it to hit so late, but it’s hit me and hard. I had a completely different life before this. I went on mission trips to third world countries and didn’t think twice about it. I traveled all over Europe, trains and planes and gross hostels and sometimes by myself. And I didn’t give the germs a second thought. And then it all changed. The severity has gradually gotten worse over the past 2 years, but the onset has been pretty rapid in the span of my life.

I’m not sure how to describe my OCD. No wait, that’s not true. There’s one word that does it nicely: fear. My obsessions revolve around germs. I see germs where most people wouldn’t even dream of looking. I notice things that I guarantee your eyes miss. I follow actions, I follow the path of the germs after someone touches something “dirty.” And I’m terrified. I’m afraid that these little invisible germs are going to harm me or ruin my life in some way. Usually, it’s unnameable, though sometimes I fear a particular disease. I avoid places that seem germy. I hand sanitize more than you can imagine. No. Really. A huge bottle of hand sanitzer, and by huge I mean 32 ounces, lasts me about a week. I make my husband do things certain ways, using hand sanitizer after every public door is just an example. Eating out fills me with terror because I have to sit in seats someone else has been in, touch a table someone else has touched. And don’t get me started on how scared I am of the servers. Even church is a place of fear. The throng of people, the “unclean” chairs…most of the time I can’t bring myself to go anymore.

And then, on the occasions when I can convince myself that I’m not actually that afraid of the germs (and these are few and far between) I am afraid of the anxiety. The anxiety attacks or panic attacks or hours of focusing on that one little touch of something dirty are the worst part of this disorder. They leave me a wreck, they leave me unable to even focus on a tv show, and we all know that’s not too hard.

Spread on a thick layer of depression and you get a small glimpse of my OCD life. It is very hard to put into words and I’m sure I didn’t do a great job of explaining it, but I hope to cover more of that through the stories of what my day to day life looks like.

I am fighting to get better. I am seeing two therapists, I'm on medication, reading books, praying, being prayed for and seeking help in as many ways as I can think of. I am not currently doing Exposure and Response Prevention because I am too scared (more on that later) and don’t think I can take it. But I do force myself to do exposures occasionally and life is kind of an exposure too, isn’t it? At least it is when you’re afraid of just about everything in it.

I want you to know that I’m not writing this so you will feel sorry for me, I’m writing this so you will understand. It is hard, but it is my life. And I still have hope of getting out of this dark time. But to ignore it because it is hard will not help the person struggling in your life or you if you are fighting too.

This blog is going to be very personal. If you choose to be a reader, please be gentle. I do not fight this OCD in the “right” ways. I have my husband help me all the time, which to the professionals is called enabling, a word that makes me cry easily. But I am fighting. I have not given in. And this blog is for me to share my story with you. I hope you will be gentle with yourself too.

What This Is All About

A blog. I have waited a long time to jump on this train even though I love to write, was an English major and occasionally think that I could have something to share. However, I tend to think my life is pretty boring. I’m happily married to an amazing guy but we’re pretty content being homebodies. I don’t work, at least not enough to call it working and most of the time I just think that I would have nothing to share with the world…or at least the internet.

And then a dear friend reminded me of what I do have to share. OCD, or Obssessive-Compulsive Disorder. I don’t want to actually share this disorder with you as it’s debilatating and quite terrible. But maybe you have it yourself and feel alone in the struggle. Maybe you know someone with OCD and you don’t understand it, because really, how could you? Maybe you are neither but something about it makes you curious.

I don’t really know what this blog will look like, but I want to share this struggle because I believe that it’s through sharing that our loads grow lighter and that we make it through.