Hi everyone,
I'm writing here with the hopes that someone will find some help or relief in my words. I will try to make this as brief as possible. I have suffered from OCD for as long as I can remember, mainly pure O or magical thinking. Even when I was very young at school, I would predict what the teacher was going to say and if I wasn't right, it would mean I was gay and would be made fun of by other pupils...so my mind told me anyway. Such tormenting thoughts followed me into adulthood and when I was in my final year studying psychology at university (how ironic!) my OCD reached a whole new level. It began with intrusive thoughts of harming my boyfriend, usually stabbing which was completely out of character for me: I have always had a phobia of blood (I can't even watch Casualty on TV) and my boyfriend means more to me than anything. The thoughts made me feel like I was a monster, that I would one day act on them and I couldn't be trusted to be around knives and constantly questionned why my boyfriend loved me. These thoughts changed into thoughts of harming my mum to the extent that I could no longer be around her and moved out of my house. Eventually, although these thoughts remained, I was tormented by thoughts that maybe I was a paedophile but wasn't aware of it. To me, child abuse is the worst imaginable thing and so intrusive thoughts of what I consider to be the worst possible crime did not do much for my self-esteem. In fact, I hated myself, felt ashamed and isolated and felt like I was imprisoned by my own thoughts.
I'm sure this is familiar to a lot of people on these boards. As I was going through my finals at the time, and my exams were very important to me (people with OCD tend to be quite conscientious and perfectionistic: I was and still am both), the OCD took advantage of this and kicked me while I was down. But despite feeling like I was the lowest of the low, there was a fragment of myself that new I would never harm anyone, particularly vulnerable people and those I loved most. I was determined to get help for my OCD. I'm sure there are a lot of therapists who have a great understanding of OCD but I struggled to find one. The first therapist I went to asked me to sign an agreement that I wouldn't hurt anyone when I disclosed my thoughts to her. This made my thoughts worse as she had implied that I was capable of acting on the thoughts that caused me so much anxiety, which anyone who understands OCD knows is not remotely true. People with OCD are the kindest and most self-critical people out there. Other therapists have not been much better. I eventually decided to teach myself about OCD using self-help books and the experiences of other people. Some things I have learned and which helped me are as follows:
I started to see OCD not as a part of myself but as a bully. Only a bully would speak to someone the way OCD speaks to us, telling us we are horrible people and that we are capable of great harm when if you asked someone objectively what kind of person you are, most would probably say kind, caring and wouldn't hurt a fly. Seeing OCD as a bully allowed me to ignore it a bit more or use a defusing strategy where you agree with what the OCD monster says. For example, if the OCD monster tells you that you will harm your partner, simply say 'maybe', 'yeah, whatever', 'is that your best shot?' This is very difficult to do. To agree or accept something that is unacceptable is, to the OCD sufferer, the most difficult thing to do. However, you are not agreeing this will happen or condoning such behaviour, you are just giving the bully what he wants so that he'll leave you in peace. I was tormented at school by people shouting 'Jew' or 'ginger' at me. I went through school thinking I was a bad person because of the religion I was born into or because of my red curls. Instead of using the bullies to define how I felt about myself, a more productive strategy might have been to confidently look the bully in the face and say 'yeah, I am. So what?' It's a scary thing to do but it might stop the OCD bully harrassing you.
Another technique I have found to be very helpful is mindfulness. This is one that requires a bit of work and involves meditating: sitting quietly with your eyes closed and focusing your attention on your breath or sensations in the body as opposed to the mind. You will realise that your attention is constantly been drawn to the thoughts, this is the way we are programmed. Whatsmore, by observing your thoughts non-judgementally, you will see that a lot of what is in the mind is gunk, total nonsense. The fact is, EVERYONE has intrusive thoughts. The difference between people with OCD and most other people is that we select thoughts from the stream of consciousness that we think are threatening, have personal meaning or are communicating something bad or evil about ourselves and we do everything possible to counteract that thought as if the appearance or persistance of the thought means it is true. In fact, the thoughts only appear constantly because we are scared of them and resist them, so they keep coming back. Accepting all the thoughts that come to mind, eve the most painful ones, is the way to ensure they won't persist. We don't need to like them but we certainly don't need to fight against them or think that they predict the future or mean anything about us: they don't.
Another strategy I used was to learn as much about OCD as possible. In this case, knowledge is power. When you don't know much about OCD, you might think that having a bad thought means you are a bad person. It doesn't. Feeling guilt about your bad thoughts means you have OCD. Worrying that if you did't feel guilt about bad thoughts you would be more likely to act on them and that guilt is in some way preventative of acting out, is OCD. People with OCD have lots of things in common, the number one thing being that they are kind people who are very creative and conscientious. Murderers and people who commit terrible acts are wired completely differently to people with OCD and this is not something that can be reversed. We can never attain full certainty that the future will be a certain way but people with OCD are among the people least likely ever to commit crimes. Your mind does not dictate who you are or what will happen to you or other people. It's just a series of random thoughts and the ones you pay most attention to are those that are more likely to return again and again.
I have used the above strategies and read a lot about OCD and I am about as cured of OCD as any ex-sufferer can be. I still worry but my worries are usually realistic and not the irrational and completely ego-dystonic thoughts that used to torment me and make me question who I really was. I hope I have at least helped one person and I really, really hope that one day you will be able to say you are completely free of OCD.
Best of luck
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