Wednesday, September 26, 2012

OCD and the injury

The doctor warned me that I’d have a scar.
That was the least of my worries.
What worried me the most was how I was going to deal with both obsessive-compulsive disorder and the injury.

What happened

It happened on a Friday five years ago. I was working for the health department as a health educator. That morning, I was creating a database to use in organizing some information, and I decided I wanted something hot to drink.
I picked up a coffee mug and a pack of hot chocolate and headed to another office in the building where hot water was kept on a warmer all day.
I was wearing new shoes that were slip on and sandal-like. The floors had also recently been buffed. Whether it was the shoes, the slightly slippery floors, my own clumsiness, or a combination, I fell down on the floor.
My hand holding the mug struck the floor hard, and the mug broke. A sharp edge scooped out part of my middle finger on my right hand.
My first response was shock, then embarrassment. I stood up, looked down at my hand, and saw the blood starting to pour. I used my left hand to try to catch it, to try to keep it from landing on the floor.
Several co-workers, including some of the nurses, soon surrounded me. They wrapped my hand in paper towels and held it over my head.
They decided that I needed to go across our parking lot to the hospital, to the urgent care center beside the emergency room, to get stitches.

The light bulb

It turned out to be impossible to get stitches. There was nothing to stitch together, the doctor told me. All she could do was cauterize the wound to stop most of the bleeding and wrap it securely enough so that it would be protected while it healed.
A technician came in to wrap it. She took white gauze and wrapped and wrapped and wrapped.
I ended up with a bandage that resembled a big, white light bulb.

OCD

I immediately began thinking of all the things I did and the ways I did them and how not having full use of my right hand for a good six weeks was going to affect things.
How would I take a shower and get clean enough? How could I clean the bathroom?
And how would I keep the bandage clean?
I was supposed to keep the same bandage on until the following Monday, when I was scheduled for a recheck of the wound.
But I kept it on for one day only. I thought I could see dirt on it. Whether or not any dirt was there was not the point. I thought it was there and couldn’t stand having a dirty bandage on.
So I took it off and created my own. It still looked like a light bulb, except it had corners.

Six weeks

For the six weeks I wore the bandage, I learned to adapt. I discovered that I could clean the bathroom with one hand. I could do many things with one hand.
I learned to take a shower with a freezer bag over my bandaged hand. I held it in the air out of the stream of water as much as possible during my shower routine. Afterwards, I changed the bandage.
And I learned ways to raised my middle finger out of the way of food and other things that would get it dirty.

OCD again

What I ended up doing was just figuring out new ways to do my OCD compulsions.
If I had known about exposure and response prevention (ERP) then, I could have used the time to deal head-on with some of those compulsions.
The doctor was right. I do have a scar. I’m still not worried about that.

  Have you ever been in a situation where your routine was drastically changed and you had to find ways to adapt? Did it make you anxious? Or was it a welcome change?

22 comments:

  1. Anxious. Always anxious.

    I told my husband, who is ever supportive, that these things have to be dealt with on MY timetable. When I am ready to deal with them. Otherwise chaos (mostly in my head) ensues.

    I suppose, after having some time to let things sink it, I could have used something like this to help me change.

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    1. Melanie, I'm usually thrown into anxiety when there's a big change in routine, too. It's almost like a default reaction.

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  2. It is funny you should write this post because I have been thinking of this. My daughter broke her arm and it is in a cast so I came to help her. They gave her this contraption to wrap it in when she takes a shower so she doesn't get the cast wet. The whole time I have been here I have been wondering what the heck I would do if that happened to me because when I wash my hands I rub them together to get the soap all sudsy and then to rinse them and get all the soap off I rub which I need 2 hands to do..so how would I accomplish that? It gives me anxiety just to think of the complications it would cause me. Sadly, If I had any injury my first thought would not be my health or safety but how it would affect my ocd.

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    1. Krystal Lynn, I'm sorry about your daughter's injury--I hope she heals quickly.

      I'm the same way--my first thought was the OCD, too.

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  3. When I moved back to Holland from Africa I had to leave a big part of my OCD routine behind. It's too complicated to tell it all here, but it affected me so much that I became very depressed and ended up in a psychiatric hospital for 8 months. I've been back now for 14 years but I still have problems with it, even though I haven't been able to perform the ritual for all those years. It's a terrible obsession.

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    1. Klaaske, I'm sorry you went through that. It's amazing how strong obsessions can be and how strong the pull of the compulsions can be.

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  4. Ouch! That must've hurt. Glad it all healed well.

    I've been on crutches a couple of times in my life, and that definitely alters life a bit.

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    1. Lisa, I was put on crutches once--the doctor's office didn't have the right height for me, so it was very uncomfortable.

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  5. Ah, there's the great rollerblading adventure of 1992! I was out on skates, enjoying a gorgeous May day in Houston, when I fell backwards onto the sidewalk. Since I'd cracked my tailbone as a teen, I instantly used my hands to protect it. I wasn't wearing wrist guards, and I fractured both of them. Fortunately, both fractures were minor, and I was able to get by with one cast and one splint so I could shower and wash hair more easily.

    Unfortunately, after that accident I started developing Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (often CFIDS sets in after a traumatic event) -- which required major lifestyle changes and adaptations. It was horrible at the time, but I learned to take great care of myself, and that is paying off now when, at 53, I am strong and healthy. It was one of those blessings in disguise!

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    1. Nadine, I have never tried rollerblading--it would not be pretty!

      I'm sorry you developed Chronic Fatigue afterwards. But it sounds like you truly did find a blessing in it.

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  6. Since you adapted to that, it seems you have the skills to adapt to the exposure and response prevention. It is just a different kind of adaption, but the same skills!

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    1. Jodi, you're right. If I can adapt to one thing, I can probably adapt to another. Thank you!

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  7. I broke my hand in 2008. It did freak me out to have that "dirty" cast on for weeks. When they applied the cast, they dropped the end of the bandage on the floor (!) of the hospital and then applied it to my arm. I thought I was going to DIE. But of course I did not.

    For me, it was a mixed time: my anxiety was higher (and I think I managed to have a cast on my arm for 4 weeks without ever touching the thing or letting much of anyone else touch it!) , but I also had to do some exposures out of necessity, and nothing terrible happened.

    But, ooh bleeding wounds freak me out. Yours sounds scary!

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    1. Ann, it sounds like you handled your broken hand very well. I would be worried about a cast, too, like I was about the bandage.

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  8. Ugh - that sounds horrible - and what I mean by that is all the OCD trouble with it - not so much the injury - which is what I also think you were trying to say about it!! TOTALLY get it. Whenever I, or a loved one needs some kind of surgery or something it always freaks me out because I know there will be all kinds of OCD contamination issues.

    Actually, you just made me think about this, and I will definitely have to post on it. Thanks for the inspiration! Yes, I had knee surgery while my husband was in his IBD flare in 2010. That. Was. Ugly.

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    1. Sunny, yes, you get it. Anything like that brings out the OCD contamination issues for me, too.

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  9. That sounds so stressful. Sometimes I wonder how I would cope with life if I broke a hand or arm or leg or anything. The thought of it really stresses me out.

    You really coped very well!

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    1. Elizabeth, you would cope very well, too, but I hope you don't have anything like that happen to find out!

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  10. What a nasty fall and all the issues with only being able to use one hand. My illness means I have to adapt to cope a lot and have done so over the years. I go from plan A to plan D many days and I have to accept that is the way it is. I have blunt knifes because I cut myself too often with sharp knifes due to my concentration being poor, I write everything down as I forget what I have just read or heard. I have light weight cups as I find heavier cups too sore to hold, and I could go on but I would bore you :-). I guess my biggest lesson has been in learning to adapt daily to match where my illness is that day and not just physically adapt but mentally as well. Some days are better than others.

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    1. Behind the Smile, it sounds like you are very good at adapting. I'm sorry that you have to do so much of it. But you have such a wonderful attitude, and I admire that.

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  11. Oh my!! Ouch!! Sorry about that slip and fall and your finger.

    Thought I would just respond to the very last question you posed. -YES! and I am still working daily to adapt. When it became apparent what had been wrong with me (seems all my life that something was wrong with me) that I could no longer cope on my own before the final break down -and it was Depression that I had been dealing with all along, but finally all the 'fighting mechanisms' that were there in my brain met there depletion and thus medication and treatments since then I have been having to adapt. What a labor and exhaustive journey it has become, some days I just can't, but praise our Lord, -I'm finding that most days at the present I can.

    Thanks for sharing your story.
    God Bless

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    1. Deanna, I'm glad that most days you are able to adapt. It isn't always easy, is it?

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