The bully inside my head

 Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a mental health condition in which one experiences powerful intrusive thoughts that induce feelings of discomfort, anxiety, and urges to do something to get rid of the thoughts and sensations.

Me most days when shit hits the fan 🤔 Not my best look

These urges then become actions that are done repetitively until the person gets rid of the uncomfortable feeling that they have. These actions are called compulsions.

They can come in the form of performing a behavioural action repetitively or in the form of mental acts. These compulsions are what fuels the obsession with the thoughts that one experiences.

The obsessive thoughts then create the need to perform the compulsion that one must do to alleviate the anxiety and discomfort that comes with the thoughts; this, in turn, creates a vicious cycle.

Some OCD sufferers tend to feel a lot of guilt and embarrassment due to their inability to function as normal people would.

Bad days never last 💚

Most people think that OCD is used to describe someone who is a clean freak or someone who is super tidy or even a perfectionist but that is not true about people with OCD. SHUT UP & READ THIS 🍩...

My goal for this article is to spread awareness about OCD, clear up some misconception about this chronic debilitating disorder and also share some of my experiences with it, as well as ways in which you can overcome it or help ease your suffering.

Disclaimer: I’m not a psychiatrist and in no way an expert in the field of OCD and mental health problems; I’m merely sharing my experiences and opinions about THE BULLY INSIDE MY HEAD.

My experience with OCD:

I struggled with OCD ever since I was a child. At that time I didn’t know what it was and I just kept thinking to myself that there must be something wrong with me. Like I didn't have enough issues 🙃🤣

The feelings I get from intrusive thoughts were usually overwhelming and my compulsion for the intrusive thoughts often felt endless as the thoughts kept recurring; keeping me stuck in the OCD cycle.

It would get to a point where I would sometimes take up to an hour to just perform compulsions.

I remembered one time I experienced an intrusive thought while showering and it made me wash my hair, rinse it off only to put on shampoo again; doing the whole thing again multiple times until I felt it was okay. 

I won't list all my intensive thoughts... I'll have to publish a book 😅  

That was the longest I’ve ever showered and I remembered feeling super ashamed, sad and lost as to why I did that.

There was another time I caught myself with the compulsion of erasing what I’ve written on my school worksheet many times until my paper tore apart. My best friend who witnessed that at that time asked me why I did what I did and I would feel so embarrassed that I wouldn’t even know how to respond to her. I ended up giving some excuses as to why I did that…

I was washing my hands up to 60 times, scared that if I didn’t, I’d contaminate myself or someone else and make them sick. It sounds silly, but I worried that if I or someone else became sick because of my own hands they would die.

Other symptoms included taking an hour to get into bed, frantically checking plugs and light switches, worried that there would be an electrical fire in the night. Leaving the house would be a nightmare for the fear of the doors being unlocked and someone breaking in. At its worst, my OCD was a terrible, debilitating condition that reduced me to tears and even made me question my own life. I felt like I wasn’t living, merely existing, consumed by terrible thoughts and tiresome rituals.

Washing the toilet each time I've used it, a minimum of 10 bottles of bleach a day...the list is long.

It was only in recent years where I eventually found out what it was.

It was then and there where I started my research on what I was experiencing throughout these years. And I found out that the thoughts I had were called intrusive thoughts.

Intrusive thoughts are thoughts that enter your consciousness, often without warning or prompting, with content that is alarming, disturbing, or just flat-out weird/freak whatever names I used to be called.

It was through the understanding of what intrusive thoughts were that led to my discovery of what my actual condition is. Although I am now clinically diagnosed with OCD I find the signs and symptoms of it based on the search results I found on the internet. Rather than understanding it fully alone which was virtually impossible.

NOTE: An online quiz is not a diagnosis for one’s mental health condition and shouldn’t be treated as one; however it can be a form of indication to determine whether one has the signs and symptoms of a mental health condition. A proper diagnosis should still be given by a psychiatrist. I had to see a few before my diagnosis. 

Over the years, my OCD got better, I even had one period in time where I experienced so little intrusive thoughts that I felt I was on the verge of recovering from it fully but sadly my OCD did come back and in recent months it did become quite bad at one point; however, I’ve managed to get it under control. Then COVID happened and my life was turned upside down but my only consolation is that I had this elated feeling that people understood OCD a bit more...but guess what I was wrong.

The common misconceptions of OCD

3 MOST common misconceptions about OCD are:

• People who experience OCD are germophobes
• People who experience OCD are super neat and tidy
• People who experience OCD are perfectionists

NO, that is not true at all.

Well some people with OCD do experience germophobia; there’s still a majority of people with OCD who are not germophobic and experience a whole different level of stresses and anxieties that comes from their form of intrusive thoughts.

Yes to a certain extent, some people who are OCD do obsess over being neat and tidy but those acts and behaviours are usually in the form of compulsions. And I strongly believe that they do not find pleasure in doing so.

People who are perfectionists are not OCD. Perfectionists are people who are high-achievers and can never see themselves falling short of their expectations. They do not stress over intrusive thoughts and it doesn’t bother them either.

However, one who experiences perfectionism may also have OCD. Therefore it is always important to go to a psychiatrist if you do suspect you may have OCD and clarify any doubts about that.

How OCD can be treated?

There are several ways in which OCD can be treated. However, the most popular and effective form of treatment is mindfulness for me it has worked,

 in my opinion,  Exposure and Response to Prevention therapy CBT has worked for others but not for me.

Medications are also sometimes used in conjunction with CBT to aid the treatment of OCD. They are usually in the form of antidepressants but l will always advise you to seek medical help before deciding to take any medication via your GP or local mental health services. 

Medications help us cope with OCD by making the effects of the anxieties felt during OCD less intense, However just like any other form of medication; it is important to find out its side effects and seek recommendations from a doctor before taking it.

Others like myself who have severe OCD would tend to undergo medication alongside CBT whereas others with mild OCD tend to just undergo CBT therapy without medication and I've experienced both. 

I am not going to lie to you it's a debilitating condition with or without medication or CBT. 

Tips on how to deal with OCD

• Delay the need to do a compulsion or I should say try

When you delay the need to do a compulsion, sometimes what happens is your brain either forget about the compulsion you needed to do or it reduces the urge for you to do it and you may even find yourself not wanting to do the compulsion at all.

• Limit the compulsions you do

Limiting the compulsions you do allows your mind to slowly get used to the existence of the intrusive thoughts in your mind while learning to embrace those uncomfortable feelings that come with those thoughts.

• Try to keep calm when your intrusive thoughts pop into your head

Keeping calm is the best way to keep anxiety at its bay and prevent it from escalating. Although you may still feel the discomfort from the intrusive thoughts but keeping calm allows you to reduce the fight or flight response by sending signals to your brain telling you that you are safe.

One of the ways I keep calm is by taking deep breaths and focusing on my breathing. That helps to shift my focus to my breaths which serves as a distraction to my OCD thoughts.

When we are calm, we see things with more clarity and we allow ourselves to rationalize better. Thus, sometimes decreasing the need to do a compulsion.

Conclusion

What I’ve realized over the years is that OCD will always be a part of you/me, it will not go away. There will be periods whereby you don’t experience OCD at all and there may be times where it will come back again.

Whatever it is don’t let that define the kind of person you are.

We shouldn’t fight to get rid of OCD but instead, welcome it and allow it to be part of your life.

I remembered coming across an analogy describing how intrusive thoughts are like ugly buildings. When you see one in a city and describe it, you don’t just go destroying that building, tearing it down to pieces. Likewise with intrusive thoughts, when you happen to come across one, you don’t go destroying it and forcefully push that thought out of your mind. We can just simply acknowledge that they sadly exist but we can choose not to interact with them and give them attention by seeking reassurance ( we each have our own coping methods)

Last but not least, I hope that clearing up some of the confusion and misconception that you may have about OCD. And I do wish that this article resonates with some of you who have OCD or even any other mental health problems. Your mental well-being is just as important as your physical well-being.

Know that you are not alone and you are stronger than you can ever imagine.

With all of this in mind, we need to start recognising OCD for the life-destroying illness it is. We need to educate ourselves, and others, too.

Not just to battle the old-fashioned misconceptions surrounding a very misunderstood condition, but to allow those suffering to feel like just that – sufferers – and not as though their illness is some form of an ongoing joke between people who just don’t get it.

We need to do better. We can do better. And understanding OCD for what it is – and what it’s most definitely not – can only take us a step forward in reducing the stigma surrounding mental illness that we sadly still face today.

Seek help from a professional if you suspect you may have the signs or symptoms of OCD  remember getting a better start is by taking the very first step and that's as simple as speaking to someone about it. 

It might seem impossible but it's better than suffering alone in silence. 

We are not the freaks they think we are 💚 

Lots of love AK

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