When you picture OCD, what do you see? Do you see perfect straight lines? An immaculately organized backpack? A flawless way of dressing? You most likely see the way movies and TV shows depict a person with OCD. That makes sense, a rigid, uptight neat-freak makes good for a weird character. But what if I told you that most people with OCD don’t keep that standard of living. They probably prefer cleanliness and feel anxious around dirty things. They may not be the tidiest person in the world but they have a specific and unique place for their things. Maybe they have an odd attachment to a particular object for a certain reason. They could be writing an article about OCD. That’s right. My apartment is immaculately clean. I don’t have a fit when I’m walking and see a brick on the ground that’s crooked. I certainly don’t say things like, “That’s triggering my OCD”, to announce to everyone when I don’t like the way a book on a shelf is placed. Because that’s not what OCD is. I think it shocks people to find out how I live as a real person with OCD.
When I was in my senior year of high school, I decided I’d had enough of trying to deal with my anxiety on my own. My nervousness and panic attacks were consuming my day to day life and taking away from who I was as a person. I decided to start seeing my school counselor. I talked about my life, how I felt, how I struggled with depressive episodes frequently and was anxious most of the time. She gave me three diagnoses. I fully expected Generalized Anxiety Disorder, which is the most common mental disorder in today’s world. I knew I had some form of anxiety and it almost felt comforting to know that I struggled with the same kind most people struggled with. Then came mild depression, once again, I was prepared for that. But then came the last, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. What? That didn’t seem right. I thought because I was disorganized in certain aspects of life (unkempt backpack, forgetting assignments), the occasional messy room). Sure I preferred being clean and had little quirks, but everyone does right? Apparently not. I guess I never realized until it was explained to me. My attention to sanitation and cleanliness was more than what I perceived as normal. I thought I was just maybe a tad of a germaphobe, but looking back on life and understanding my behavior now I know it’s more than that. I realized that these little “quirks” I thought I had were much worse because I can’t go through day to day life without them creeping into everything I do. The DSM-5 defines OCD as a common, chronic, and long-lasting disorder in which a person has uncontrollable, reoccurring thoughts, these being the obsessions and/or behaviors – compulsions that he or she feels the urge to repeat over and over. Now, please understand, these explanations and examples of my obsessions and compulsions are completely unique to me. Another person with OCD is not going to function and think entirely like me. What this person and I do have in common is our pattern of thinking, the feeling of anxiety, and the way we form attention to detail.
The best way I can describe my OCD is like a boa constrictor. Let’s say it’s something involving touch. I despise touching doorknobs or handrails with my bare hands, but of course, sometimes I can’t avoid it. So the initial grip of the obsession is having to open a door without anything covering my hand. Immediately, I’ll begin to think about how many people could have touched that door handle before me. I’ll go over in my head every possible illness that one could get from touching something like a door handle. Then I’ll perceive my hands as feeling dirty. This is the mild beginning stage. The obsession is how dirty the handle is. The manifestation of it is in the feeling of my hands. After I touch the handle, I feel this overwhelming urge to wash my hands, and I mean scrub them. There’s my compulsion. Now of course, this may seem normal. If someone touches something dirty they’ll probably want to wash their hands when they get the chance. Now, this is where the separation of regular mind and OCD mind happens. This is where that boa constrictor makes it a lot worse. For me, I can’t just wash my hands when I get the chance, it has to be as soon as the thought starts or I lose any and all ability to focus on anything else. The urge wraps around my mind blocking out all other thoughts. If I can’t satisfy this urge I start perceiving things that may not even be there. My hands will start to smell rancid. And logically, I know they don’t smell like anything. But to me, they will. The smell will begin to be so potent to me that I convince myself that other people are smelling it. The constrictor tightens. I begin to become less aware of my surroundings. First, I won’t hear much around me, only the sound of my own thoughts. With dirty hands, I’ll have a harder time holding conversations. As this urge tightens its grip on my mind, I will start slowing down on attention to other things, like doing homework, paying attention in class, literally anything else. If at this point I still can’t wash my hands and take care of this compulsion, I start feeling like I’m being swallowed whole. Real panic manifests. I’ll start to have trouble breathing. I’ll start sweating. And this panic will grow into a full blown attack. Losing all control, I’ve been consumed by the boa constrictor that is my OCD. Remember, this stretch of events leading to a panic attack began with opening a door. Something that everyone does everyday, countless times a day. That’s what separates me from being someone with a preference for sanitation and someone with a disorder. When it affects functioning, it’s more than just a quirk or preference.
I feel like the stigma around OCD is focused on cleanliness. Not every aspect is like that though. A large, lesser known component of it is the concept of magical thinking. It is the belief that one’s ideas, thoughts, actions, words, or use of symbols can influence the course of events in the material world. Most people with OCD experience magical thinking in some form. I have to wear a specific ring everyday. If I don’t I’m consumed with the thought that my mom is going to die. Again, logically, I know that this isn’t how life or death or rings work. But that doesn’t stop the thoughts from pushing to the front of my mind until I put this ring on.
Of course I have many more obsessions and compulsions, but that list would be way too long and extremely difficult to explain. My obsessions mainly surround illness, germs, the safety of family members and how I am perceived by others. My compulsions involve avoidance of physical contact with other people and sanitation. Another compulsion that I don’t even think family and friends understand is my making phone calls. I obsess over the safety of important people in my life constantly. I feel the urge to check in on them constantly. This leads to me making sometimes a barrage of phone calls throughout the day. And this affects other people’s lives. I’m aware of this but that doesn’t mean I can stop it.
The idea that people envision someone with OCD as this rigid, perfectly organized robot I think is something that hurts because when people find out I have it’s always “You can’t have OCD, you’re so disorganized.” It hurts because the issues I struggle with on a constant basis are being denied over misconceptions. I think the best advice I can give to someone interacting with a person with OCD is to just listen to their needs if they express them to you and respect them. Don’t force them into situations that will set off panic. If they tell you they struggle with being touched by others or even express it as a fear, don’t go out of your way to poke or prod them just to set them off. Don’t actively put them in situations that will trigger their obsessions or compulsions. And please, take what you see portrayed on TV and in movies with a grain of salt. I personally don’t have time to stop and adjust everything that’s out of place that I walk past everyday.