The O stands for obsession

This blog post is dedicated to Jackie and Janet. Thanks for all you do.

It happened again last week.

I was at work, sitting at my desk in my office. A person came into the main office to speak with the ad person about an ad. She wrote down what she wanted the ad to say, paid for it, and then left.

Less than a minute later she came back into the office and asked to check what she had just written. It must have been fine because she didn’t change anything.

“Sorry about that,” she said on her way out. “I am so OCD.”

Did you hear me scream in frustration? OK, not really. But I was definitely frustrated.

I get frustrated when I hear those words: “I am so OCD.” Frustrated with people who equate being conscientious, double-checking, with OCD. Frustrated when people—who mean no harm, I believe—say they are “so OCD” because they keep all their Virginia Tech clothes in one drawer. Or because they like to keep their desk organized.

Maybe these people have OCD. I’m not a doctor. But I am someone who has OCD. And I’m going to quote the title of a post by my friend Jackie Lea Sommers, who also has OCD: “If it doesn’t hurt, it’s not OCD.”

Recently, the writings of two good blogging friends have touched me. Jackie wrote another great post called “The Dreadful O of OCD” this past Sunday. And Janet, whose son has OCD and who writes the blog ocdtalk, wrote an insightful post last month called “Where are the Obsessions?”

Jackie and Janet write about how everyone sees the compulsions of OCD, but they don’t see the pain caused by the obsessions that drive the compulsions. That can lead to misunderstandings about what OCD really is.

If you look closely, you can see my red hands in this photo from 1990.

For example, I used to wash my hands compulsively. My hands and wrists were bright red and raw looking. My family and friends witnessed me washing my hands, soaping them over and over, rinsing and rinsing.

What they couldn’t see was what was driving me to wash my hands: the obsession that I would hurt someone else. I was so afraid that I would have germs on my hands and pass those germs on to someone else that might get sick and might die. I had to wash my hands. I had to be sure they were clean because if I didn’t, I would be a murderer.

Can you imagine thinking like that? Doesn’t it sound illogical? Like I was putting too much responsibility onto myself? That I was worrying needlessly?

Yes. But I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop obsessing that I was going to hurt someone. The only way I could get any relief from the feelings of guilt of what might happen—relief from the obsession—was to wash. And wash.

OCD is not cute or funny. It’s not a little habit that can be easily changed. It’s not synonymous with being organized. It’s a mental illness that manifests itself in different ways. It hurts.

I don’t want pity because I have OCD. I am so much better now. I live such a free life compared to the way I used to live. I have OCD, but OCD doesn’t lead the way anymore. I thank God for that.

And I don’t want to sound preachy or judgmental.

I just want to join Jackie and Janet and others who are speaking out and helping friends and strangers learn a little bit more about a disorder that may affect someone they love. I just want people who have OCD to be encouraged that they can get better, too.

A garden

I’m going to be getting my hands dirty, and I’m excited about it.

Larry and I are planning to build raised beds in our backyard for a vegetable garden next year. We’ve walked the yard and decided where to put it. We’ve talked about size and design. We’ve discussed dirt. We’ve considered how to keep the wildlife from eating everything in it.

We’re making plans for a garden.

Site for our raised beds. Larry's shop and a tool shed are in the background.

At one time, I never could have written those words and been happy about them. I was so consumed by fears of contamination that I engaged in compulsive hand washing that left my hands and wrists red and raw. I avoided anything that might get my hands dirty, including garden dirt.

My fear of contamination was rampant when I was a teenager and young adult. Over the years, with treatment for OCD, my fears have greatly subsided.

I’ve even had flower gardens and potted plants. I enjoyed working in the dirt and watching plants grow.

So why haven’t I taken the next step and put in a garden before now? I grew up on a farm, after all. My parents put in a garden every year, usually a huge one. They always planted extra in case neighbors or family didn’t have a good year.

My parents' garden on their farm in rural Virginia in 1985.

Another view of my parents' garden, circa 1985.

My parents' garden in 1988.

Larry and I have talked about putting in a garden. One year we even grew tomato plants. Unfortunately, the deer and groundhogs ate all but a few of them.

What has really kept us from moving forward has been my reluctance to commit to it. One way depression affects me is to drain every bit of motivation out of me. I become married to just a few activities that don’t take a lot of energy and don’t ask too much of me.

Even when depression is treated with medication and therapy, old habits of procrastination and complacency die hard.

But this year of contemplating “letting go” has led me to want to do more, to not waste time.

So along with getting good treatment for my depression, I’ve been making more of an effort to do things.

Unbeknownst to me, Larry started researching raised beds. He began thinking how he could build the frame, how he could build a fence around it. A couple of weeks ago, he broached the subject to me and since then, the ideas have been percolating.

We’ll build it this summer or early fall, then nurture the soil to get it ready for next spring. I’ll have to do some research to figure out what to plant and when to plant things.

Having a garden to care for will be a challenge for me. I will have to work in it whether or not I feel like it.

But I know it will also give me a sense of accomplishment. It will give me a much-needed connection to nature. And it will give Larry and me fresh produce to eat and share with others.

Do you have a garden? If so, do you grow flowers, vegetables or both? What do you enjoy the most about having one?

Memoir: The jug of water

She set the jug of water on top of the toilet.

It was a plastic milk carton being re-purposed for a lesson.

She said something like, “This is all the water you can use today. You can’t run the water. You’ll have to use what’s in the jug.”

There was no convincing her to do otherwise.

And I thought I was going to die.

I was about 13 at the time, which would make it 1976. We were living in the country, in the house my parents built after they sold most of our farm and the farmhouse.

I understand now where my mother’s anger came from. I ran water long and fast, washing and rewashing my hands, trying to get them clean.

I usually used the bathroom just off her and my father’s bathroom, instead of the larger one in the hallway, because it seemed more private and less contaminated. So they could hear the amount of water I was running.

“You’re going to run the well dry,” she warned me.

My parents had told me to stop running “so much water.” But I had disobeyed, something that wasn’t done lightly in my home.

I didn’t understand why I felt compelled to wet my hands, soap them up, rub them together for a certain time, then rinse, and then do it all over again, again and again. All while running the water.

My hands and wrists were red and raw looking. But I thought I was just doing what everyone should be doing, washing my hands thoroughly.

I hadn’t heard of obsessive-compulsive disorder, and I don’t think my parents had either.

With the jug of water, I had to pour water out, just enough to wet my hands, then lather up with soap, then pour water on my hands again.

I hated getting soap on the jug when I lifted it to pour out the rinse water.

I worried about so many things: was I getting all of the soap residue off? If not, and I touched a plate or something that someone else might touch and then eat from, then that person could get diarrhea, because I had learned from my mother that eating from dishes not properly rinsed could give people diarrhea.

What if my hands didn’t get clean from the cold water? What if I had germs on them and spread them to others and made them sick?

What if I used all the water in the jug and there was none left, and I still had to wash my hands?

Oh, I hated the jug.

  My mother made me use the jug for a few days, but gradually, I started running the water again, warm water, hot water, to get my hands cleaned well and rinsed well.

  And the jug went away. But nothing else did.

  If you were reading more about this 13-year-old girl, what would you like to know about her?

Washing my hands

Sometimes still I examine my hands and wrists and imagine I see a discoloration, almost like a tight glove pulled up over the area that is slightly darker than the rest of my skin.

My husband doesn’t see it, so I think it must be my imagination, a mental image leftover from when my hands were discolored.

I wash my hands a lot, but not with the ferocity that I once did and not for so long a time. My skin is dry, but that’s probably due more to the fact that I don’t dry them properly and put lotion on them afterwards.

When I was a child, the first manifestation of OCD that my parents seemed to notice was my use of water. When I was around eleven, I began washing my hands with a diligence that I had never had before.

The water had to be hot and running fast, and I had to rub and rub my hands under the water with soap until I got the feeling that my hands were clean enough.

I was afraid that if I didn’t get my hands clean, I would pass my germs on to someone else, or to something else, like a bowl or plate, that someone else might touch and be contaminated with.

The running of the water is what caught the attention of my parents. We lived on a farm and depended on well water. It was a good well, and there was probably little danger of it going dry, but my parents were conservative with water.

So they told me to stop running so much water.

That should have been enough. I was an obedient child ordinarily.

But the pull of OCD was stronger than my parents’ voices, and I continued to run water behind the closed door of the bathroom, washing and washing until I felt clean.

My parents fussed at me and ordered me to stop wasting water.

I had no real sense of the amount of water I was using or the time I was spending cleaning. I was focused on getting my hands clean. Time was not a factor.

Finally my mother had had enough. She brought a gallon plastic jug to me one morning and said that the water in the jug was all that I could use that day for washing my hands. I could flush the toilet and take a bath, but the gallon of water was all I could use for washing my hands.

This devastated me. For one thing, the water was cold, and I knew that cold water was not as effective at killing germs as warm or hot water.

And it was very difficult to first wet my hands, put the jug down, soap up, then pour enough water out to get all the soap residue from my hands. I also had to think about leaving enough water for what I would need for the rest of the day.

I cried and raged against the plastic jug, and after a few days, I abandoned it and went back to the faucet. I was more careful, though, and tried to run the faucet at a slower speed, thus more quietly, so that my parents might not notice it as much.

The compulsion to wash my hands waxed and waned as I grew older and after the first episode in my early adolescence, I didn’t have a noticeable problem with it until I went away to graduate school.

I lived alone in a series of apartments, and I could run as much water as I wanted with no one to fuss at me.

I discovered liquid soap, which I loved. I didn’t have to worry about a wet soap bar dripping from the soap holder, and then becoming sticky with thick residue.

After washing my hands, I didn’t dry them very well. I couldn’t be sure of the cleanliness of the towel I was using, so I preferred to kind of shake them and rub the back of my hands on my clothes.

My hands and wrists became red and raw. Sometimes they would bleed.

I don’t remember any of my friends saying much, if anything about my hands. If they did, I didn’t tell them what I was doing. I didn’t tell anyone that.

Here’s a photo of me from around 1986 or 1987. I was a student at the time and was taking a break in a park with a friend of mine. She took the photo.

I found the photo the other day, and I could see how dark the skin on my hands and wrists was.

The only time I remember someone really seeing my hands as a problem during this period of my life was during a visit to the university health center. I think I was having some problems with my ears.

After the nurse led me to the exam room, she quickly turned and walked down the hallway with the doctor. I turned to watch before I entered the room. The nurse was telling the doctor something while pointing to her hands and shaking her head.

Oh, I thought. She noticed my hands. What was I going to say?

I held my breath when the doctor came in. He didn’t say anything at first, but later on he asked me about my hands in an offhand manner. I told him my skin was really dry and got really chapped in the cold. He didn’t say anything else about it.