"my schedule for today lists a six-hour self-accusatory depression."

[rocknload]

So I have obsessive-compulsive disorder. I've finally gotten an unofficial diagnosis, which'll almost certainly be backed up by an official one next week. I don't feel any better. I should feel relieved that soon I'll be getting, like, help, after nearly two decades of dealing with this, but instead I'm convinced that it'll come "too late." Too late for what, your guess is as good as mine. Too late for me to pass this semester? Probably. Is that what I'm internally freaked about? Probably not.

So, why is it that I act like an unstable lunatic every few months? It's biological. I don't really believe that but I know it's true. That sort of paradoxical thinking is just something I'm used to. Observe, my lengthy explanation of the miracle of human mind.

1. OCD is an anxiety disorder. Like most anxiety disorders, like phobias or generalized anxiety disorder, this basically means that the brain misfires the chemicals that are usually released when a person is stressed out or under pressure. Not only does this trick the brain into believing that yes, indeed it is time to panic, but constantly being in a state of high stress is bad for you—your heart, your brain, you get the idea. Sometimes I just feel jittery and nervous. Sometimes I feel the same panicked rush you get when you, say, think you're about to fall to your death. Since I'm clearly not, my brain assumes the "danger" must be something else.

2. Obsessions! No one really seems to know what that means. It doesn't mean, for instance, that you can't stop watching your pirated copy of the new Star Trek, or that you've written eighteen fanfictions for the Twilight series. (These could ... possibly be compulsions, if you were unable to stop and didn't enjoy them at all. But anyway.) Obsessions are uncontrollable upsetting thoughts, like you're surrounded by deadly invisible germs, or you're imagining little children getting molested, or you're thinking about throwing yourself off a roof. Or, hell, maybe you can't get The Final Countdown out of your head, I don't know. They could really be anything. The important thing is that a) you really don't want to be thinking whatever you're thinking, and b) you can't stop. This often leads to thinking it's somehow significant that you are thinking it, e.g. if you can't stop thinking of naked kids you must be a pedophile. The unwanted thoughts trigger the anxiety.

3. Compulsions are behaviors done to "cancel out" the obsessive thoughts. They sometimes make sense. Obsessive cleaning is the cliché OCD symptom because contamination fears are extremely common, and cleaning the same thing over and over again is something the brain came up with to stop the thoughts about those invisible germs. They sometimes don't make sense. Probably counting to ten forwards and backwards eight times is not going in ensure that your daughter isn't going to die in a fiery car crash, but after you've done it you suddenly feel a whole lot better. Compulsions by definition can't be anything you enjoy doing, or initially enjoyed doing, so if you say say, "Well I have a compulsive need to get drunk and get laid," that's not OCD. But it's similar to drinking a beer to calm the nerves in that the more often you do it, the less it works, which just means you have to drink more. Or count more. Check more. Wash more. Whatever. Trying to resist just triggers more anxiety, maybe even that Fight or Flight, Do Or Die reaction.

4. I really doubt most people consciously go through even the sort of logical thought process I just described. I don't. So people with OCD know they have horrible thoughts they can't stop and bizarre behavior that they also can't stop—and the diagnostic requirements for OCD also include the fact that the sufferer knows that what they're doing is completely irrational. (There are some exceptions to that rule, though, like in the case of really young children, or people who have, quote, "very little insight.") Knowing they're being irrational doesn't actually help. In fact, it makes things worse because believing yourself to be batshit crazy is just going to trigger more anxiety and that will trigger more symptoms and you'll find yourself, wow, even nuttier.

5. OCD often comes and goes in cycles, so a stressful situation or maybe even nothing will set you off, you'll be totally overwhelmed with anxiety and symptoms until ... oh, hey, you're better. Only you're not and it'll come back. OCD can also change, symptoms can spread to related fears or totally new ones. I feel afraid of my fears, because I don't know what I'll be afraid of next.

6. Writing out rationalizations of my own behavior is probably one of my compulsions. Researching clinical explanations for my behavior, too, that's why I can just recite most of this. It's annoying me that I'm like, giving in, but I figured in this case I might at least have a useful result.

7. I'm currently having what you could call an episode, which pretty much means my symptoms have spiraled to the point where I can't control them. I usually get better in a few days but this time I'm not. I can't shower with the curtain closed, or after it gets dark outside. I can't eat until someone tells me to and then only particular foods. I can't sleep because I feel like I'm being watched, even though I know no one's there and I don't even think there is. I can barely go outside, much less to class. I'm afraid of running into anyone I know because they'll know I'm somehow letting them down. I'm afraid strangers will think I'm ugly and so I can't talk to anyone unless I'm dressed nicely and wearing makeup. I don't care about most of these things, most of the time, beyond the typical, normal facts that no one wants people to think they're ugly and no one wants to be watched in the shower. The kernel of logic makes it practically impossible to just dismiss the fears, and even if it didn't, they're all backed up by the sort of physiological symptoms that are usually caused by mortal danger. (I've also revealed the obsessions which make me sound a bit narcissistic, I realize, but they're easiest to explain.)

8. When the episode stops, whenever that is, I won't actually be totally normal. I have a lot of symptoms normally, ask anyone I've ever eaten with. But normally they're funny personality quirks and not, like, debilitating.

9. I really want to stop. But I can't.

So there you go. I'm not just nervous about going back to class, I'm actually terrified. It'd be like walking into a snake pit. I wimp out. I just can't do it. They say it's not a matter of willpower, but I don't know, I've forced it down in the past. I don't seem to be capable of that this time. That freaks me out, and I don't think that fear is due to any sort of rogue chemical reaction.

Public entry for the moment. I might rethink that.

Comments

[unicorn]

Does me calling you when you have to go food shopping or whatever help?

[rocknload.livejournal.com]

It does! Well, for now. I mean, in the long term, it's probably enabling and I'm probably on some level manipulating you into doing it so that I don't have to deal with making decisions that stress me out. IF YOU ARE COOL WITH THAT, THEN SURE?

translation: yes. but one i am in therapy they will probably say don't do that.

[unicorn]

I am fine with it for now if it makes it more likely for you to get food. STOPGAP MEASURE.

Also, what Orlando said.

[rocknload.livejournal.com]

I sort of figured you would be but that'd be an uncool thing to assume, so...

[unicorn]

You can't starve to death till I've finished the plan to annihilate you in properly dramatic fashion. Keep it in mind.

So how is this possible therapy going? Do you have a schedule set up?

[rocknload.livejournal.com]

That sounds much more exciting than death by starvation. I'm down with that.

My appointment is next week! For the psychiatrist anyway. I'm supposed to harass the school without mercy until they give me an appointment with the psychologist sometime this week.

[unicorn]

Sounds good.

[elspeth-vimes.livejournal.com]

/hugs

Dear, just because you've forced it down in the past does not make this time your fault. Please, remember that.

[rocknload.livejournal.com]

I figure it was just a matter of time. I AM WORKING ON ACCEPTANCE OF THIS FACT. ALSO, DEEP BREATHING.

[elspeth-vimes.livejournal.com]

THESE ARE GOOD THINGS TO WORK ON.

ALONG WITH EATING.

[rocknload.livejournal.com]

I ORDERED A PIZZA LAST NIGHT WITHOUT ANYONE TELLING ME TO.

THEN I SORT OF GAVE IN AND BITCHED ON PLURK ABOUT BEING HUNGRY SO SOMEONE, WHO MIGHT'VE BEEN YOU ACTUALLY, INEVITABLY SAID "GO EAT BRITTANY," BUT I STILL MANAGED TO ORDER THE FOOD BEFORE THAT HAPPENED SO I COUNT IT AS A WIN.

[elspeth-vimes.livejournal.com]

THIS IS GOOD. KEEP UP THE GETTING FOOD THING.

...AND IF IT WAS NOT ME, I WAS WITH THEM IN SPIRIT.

[pretzelcoatl.livejournal.com]

I went through the same "...Oh, that's good. I think. It's not too late, is it?" reaction when I got my official dx for social anxiety disorder. While it helped to pin it down, I kind of wish I knew about it sooner and in fact, part of the resentment I expressed towards, well, EVERYONE was because I was always told that it was an innate part of my personality (i.e. something I can't help, which meant I was boned).

But I don't have anything else that's helpful, so <3.

[rocknload.livejournal.com]

I feel sort of the same thing, too, because I had a fuckton of therapists as a kid, because no one could figure out why I would always end up in hysterics whenever I thought I'd made some sort of terrible, unfixable error, like coloring outside the lines or stepping on a crack in the sidewalk or thinking a swear word. My parents were told all sorts of stuff, like I was clinically depressed, I was emotionally underdeveloped, I was too ~smart and special~ to be expected to behave normally. I want to go back and punch every single one of them in the face.

Though I know I should be grateful that this was caught in my mid-twenties. I mean, that's pretty young, considering...

[pretzelcoatl.livejournal.com]

Not to mention that, well, it's actually diagnosed. That's always a good thing.

[rocknload.livejournal.com]

It has, but not by the psychiatrist that's actually going to be treating me. For all I know this dude/chick is going to tell me "WELL YOU ARE JUST ECCENTRIC we have a pill for that." If she does I'll find someone else, but man, my faith in the mental health industry cannot actually be any lower than it already is.

[technobubblegum.livejournal.com]

I've been worried lately that we should have done more when I was diagnosed at 12 instead of just sticking me on Prozac for the past seven years, especially since it seems less effective lately.

Problem is, when I was 12, I didn't want therapy. I was just like "no! They ask too many questions and it means I'm crazy, I don't want to be crazy! /is an irrational preteen who just lost her mother" and so Dad didn't make me get more help. Could he have made me? Not sure if there'd be a consent issue when the not-wanting-help party is a kid.

tl;dr version: yeah, I can relate to the "is it too late?" feeling.

[rocknload.livejournal.com]

♥

[technobubblegum.livejournal.com]

I've only got a mild case and it still sucks balls. D: but to look on the bright side, the official diagnosis should be the start of a path towards making you better, right?

[utterfolly.livejournal.com]

*hug*

an addendum

[technobubblegum.livejournal.com]

I have to admit, sometimes I wonder if the psych was wrong, because whenever anyone else talks about having OCD it's so much more, well, severe sounding. Maybe it's just that I'm used to it/I've been medicated for over half a decade.

Certainly not denying there's some kind of wires crossed in my brain though. :|

uhh /hugs?

[x0hellohello0x.livejournal.com]

This sounds like me. I wasn't given an actual diagnosis, but I'm seeing the psychologist at my school and he's doing cognative behavior stuff with me to help me deal with my people issues (like the fact that whenever someone sitting near me in class pulls out their cell phone and starts texting I assume they are sending awful messages about me to their friends).

I always say I have social anxiety, but after reading this I wonder if I have some form of OCD. A lot of the behaviors I used to have are gone or I repress them, but I always used to have to run up to a certain tree in my driveway before a car passed, otherwise they were going to kill me. I had to hid a certain way under my covers because otherwise people would watch me sleep. Even now I have to run from my car to my house when it's dark out. Hmm. This gives me something to bring up in my next session

So you writing all this out helped someone at least.

I can sympathize on the going to class thing, too. I'm currently trying to fight it out to get through my three classes I didn't drop this semester. I don't want to get kicked out of school :(

[nimnod.livejournal.com]

I had OCD a while ago. I mention this to tell you that is it possible to find a way to deal with it, even without therapy. By this stage in my life I now have anxiety issues sometimes, but the O and the C are pretty much gone. So no, not too late for you.