Facing fear

I can’t help but be glad that January is over. I spent a good part of it sick with various ailments and took three different antibiotics trying to get over everything.

The good news is that February started out wonderfully: I faced a fear.

You know that I love animals, especially cats. Over the years I have become more passionate about animal welfare, especially with companion animals like cats and dogs. I have read a lot and thought a lot and talked a lot and written a lot. I have taken care of four different cats. But I didn’t believe I was doing enough.

I have talked about volunteering with the local shelter, but I haven’t done anything about it besides inquiring about opportunities by email.

The Campbell County shelter. It's a dreary looking building. The county government is discussing whether to renovate or build a new facility.

In Campbell County, the Animal Control Care Center is separate from the humane society that operates in the county. Animal Control has to accept every animal brought to it—stray or surrendered by owner. And it is not a no-kill shelter.

Some caring people formed a group called Friends of Campbell County Control. The mission of the group “is to provide support for the animals of Campbell County and reduce the euthanasia rate.”

I follow the group on Facebook and have been so impressed at the all-volunteer efforts to care for animals and try to get them fostered or adopted.

Fern, one of the cats in the shelter. 

I never moved forward with my efforts to volunteer because I was afraid.

One of these fears is an OCD fear: fear of responsibility, that I would hurt an animal because I would shirk in my responsibilities and do something wrong. I would obsess over safety and health issues and compulsively do unnecessary things to try to make my anxiety go away.

My thought process was that if I avoided responsibility, I wouldn’t have the obsessions.

Adopting Waddles helped me a lot with this fear. But taking care of more animals, more than we ever had in our house, raised the fears again.

Honey Bee loved being held and cuddled. She wanted me to continue paying attention to her.

And I was afraid because of my anxiety. I tend to take the suffering of others to heart, sometimes to the degree that I get very emotional. I was afraid of what I would see and experience in the shelter. I was afraid of how I would feel when I had to leave the homeless animals behind when I went to my own home.

I used to put much more value on my feelings about something than I should have. That’s an OCD problem, too. If I feel like something is wrong, then something must be wrong and I better check it, fix it, repeat it, or avoid it.

Turbo has a loud purr when he's held.

But the more I spend in the quiet, thinking and writing about my values and beliefs, the better I understand that fear is a natural response to doing something different. I have to push through such fears and the accompanying feelings and at least give things a chance.

Kittens surrendered to the shelter by the owner. The yellow ones are boys and the black ones are girls. It's hard to get a still photo of a moving kitten!

This boy is new to the shelter and doesn't have a name yet. He seemed frightened. But when I opened the cage and talked to him and rubbed him, he started purring and rolling around.

This past Friday night, I sent the Friends a message on Facebook asking about the next orientation date. They wrote back that it was on Sunday. I told them I planned to attend.

I was excited and afraid. Believe me, I thought of excuses not to go. I didn’t feel 100 percent physically. I felt guilty leaving Chase Bird to go help care for other animals.

But I got in the car and drove to the shelter. I exposed myself to my fear.

When I left 90 minutes later, I felt joy and contentment.

I will be spending most of my time with the cats, which I was told was good because most volunteers want to walk the dogs.

I loved on the animals and talked to them and helped with some simple assessments on whether certain cats were OK with dogs and/or other cats.

Barbe, the leader of the volunteers, knew I was thinking of getting another cat, and she insisted on taking a photo of me and Bastet, a lovely tortoise kitty. Then she texted the photo to Larry.

Me and Bastet. She is in a purple cage in the waiting area, acting as "greeter" to visitors.

No, we’ve not made a decision to adopt yet. But I plan to go back soon and whenever I can to volunteer and love on those cats and let them know that humans can be kind to them.

What a great day it was!

I am still waiting on word about the job. The person in charge of hiring was out of town three days last week but told me he would be in touch with me this week. So I wait. Thank you for your good wishes!

What has been your favorite volunteer activity?

Happy 2015!

Chase Bird allowed me to make one more silly “dress-up” photo of him to wish you all a Happy New Year.

This is a time when many of us resolve to do more, be more, be different, do differently during the next year. I tend to do that, too.

But as I wrote in my journal this morning, I am going to try to remember that we have the opportunity to set new goals, to start over, every single day, every single moment. We don’t have to pressure ourselves to perfectly live up to resolutions we make on any one day.

That said, I am making some plans and setting some goals. What I’d like to share with you today is my word for 2015.

I usually focus on choosing a guiding word for myself in the new year. The word that has come to me over and over is “Quiet.”

I need and crave quiet. I need time to stop the activity, to instead meditate and think and read and learn.

I also need to take quiet to allow the clamor of my thoughts to calm down. That’s not an easy task for me. In many ways, OCD and anxious thoughts—obsessive, relentless, continuous—are more familiar to me than a quiet mindfulness of the moment.

I need quiet to stop obsessing over the past, to stop worrying about the future, and t stop generally staying stuck. I need quiet to figure out how to move forward.

Do you ever find that once you start mulling over something, you begin to find others talking and writing about the same things?

I was fortunate to recently find a wonderful On Being program called “The Last Quiet Places: Silence and the Presence of Everything.” In the program, Gordon Hempton, an acoustic ecologist, is interviewed. The introduction to the program states that Hempton “defines real quiet as presence — not an absence of sound, but an absence of noise.”

Yes! That is what I want to experience. An absence of noise.

I hope 2015 will find me learning ways to experience quiet.

May 2015 be a joyful year for each of you!

The dentist and OCD

Do you dread dentist appointments? Do you hate the thought of sitting in that chair with the fear of needles, drills, and other scary looking tools?

Yes, me, too.

Though I don’t dread it like I used to do. And I consider that lessening of anxiety a triumph over a bit of OCD in my life.

I went to the dentist this week for my six-month check-up. I’ve been seeing the same dentist for 29 years, and I wouldn’t trade him for another. He understands my teeth: their thin enamel, their hyper-sensitivity. He’s good at what he does.

And he’s very kind. The other day, the dental hygienist did the cleaning, as usual, then the dentist came in to look things over. As is usually the case now, he pronounced everything fine and told me he’d see me in six months.

“But if you need anything before then, you know we’re here for you,” he said.

I have spent a lifetime being vigilant about brushing my teeth and, as an adult, flossing. But I’ve had cavities and have had to have several root canals. We’re not sure why I have such problems. Perhaps the lack of fluoride as a child. Perhaps the thin enamel. Perhaps just bad genes.

When I started having OCD symptoms, the trips to the dentist became part of my obsessions.

As a dentist appointment drew closer, I felt very anxious. More importantly, I felt like I couldn’t relax, couldn’t NOT worry, until the visit was over.

If I had to return to the dentist for a cavity filling or a root canal, I tried to get an appointment as soon as possible. The sooner it was, the sooner I could get it over with and be OK.

If the appointment wasn’t soon enough (in my opinion), then I would call the dentist office multiple times, asking about cancellations.

When I grew in understanding that fear of uncertainty is a big part of OCD, I began to see that I would have to live with the idea that painful, uncomfortable, scary things were in my future, were in everyone’s future. That’s life.

But in the meantime, I was wasting the present by not allowing myself to enjoy life until the “big event” was over. I’ve learned that the present, right now, is so important.

Life is to be enjoyed and appreciated now.

Also, as my OCD improved overall, the improvement included a lessening of that belief that I couldn’t be OK until all worries were taken care of.

So I go see the dentist every six months. I still feel a little trepidation at the thought of something being wrong with my teeth. But I get through it. And if I need to go back for some work, I no longer obsess over getting the work done immediately.

It’s nice to be able to enjoy the present as best as I can.

So, what’s your relationship with the dental office?

What I would tell my younger self: Things will get better

This week, Oct. 13-19, is International OCD Awareness Week.

One of the reasons I started this blog was to raise awareness about what OCD is and how it can be treated.

Another reason I started this blog was to connect with others and remind them that they aren’t alone. And things will get better.

That things will get better—that OCD does not have to control you—is difficult to believe when you are in the midst of the seemingly endless cycle of obsession, compulsion, obsession, compulsion.

But it would have helped me, when I was a young woman struggling with a disorder I didn’t fully understand, if someone had told me that things would not always be so bad, that help was available, and that knowledge about and treatment of OCD would get better as time went by.

My younger self.

So I decided to write a letter to younger self and tell myself those things. Writing a letter to your younger, or older, self is not a new thing. But I’ve never done it, and I wanted to use this as a way to help my own healing and, more importantly, tell all of you out there who are struggling that it won’t always be so bad.

Dear me at age 25,

I see you slamming your hands against the wall in your kitchen. I hear you begging God to help you. I feel your tears. I know you want to scream. And I can read your thoughts—you think it’s always going to be this bad.

The stove there seems like an enemy, doesn’t it? Even when you don’t use it, you’re afraid that you left it turned on, or that you accidently turned it on when you were cleaning it.

And if you leave it on, then a fire could start, and it could spread to other apartments, and people could get killed, and it would be all your fault.

Two hours ago, you thought it was OK. But then you started thinking that it wasn’t. You couldn’t relax. So you decided to check it just once, and then you’d feel OK. You promised God it would be just once.

It’s never just once. You really do believe that it’s going to be just one more time, one more check. But it never is. That’s the nature of OCD.

Rest for a while. I know you don’t believe you have the right to relax until all your responsibilities are taken care of. But just take a few minutes. Just lie down and rest for a while.

You already know you have obsessive-compulsive disorder. You wouldn’t dare tell a doctor about it, but you read a lot, and you know.

But you don’t truly believe that anyone else feels the same way you do. How can anyone possibly think the same things as you? It’s so bizarre, isn’t it?

Like you used to be able to walk to campus without a problem. Now you notice sticks on the ground. You wonder if they’re actually nails. You have to check and make sure they’re not nails. Because someone might step on one and get hurt, and it would be your fault.

How can anyone else think something so weird?

I want you to know that you are not alone. There are many people around the world who have the same sorts of thoughts you do. They try to do things like clean and check so they won’t feel so bad. They feel desperate like you.

You are part of a large group of people around the world who are struggling with OCD. Someday you’re going to meet some in person. Someday you’re going to connect with a lot of them on the computer.

And your friends who don’t have OCD are going to understand and be supportive when you tell them about your struggles.

For now, just remind yourself that you are not alone.

I also want you to know that there are treatments for OCD. You are going to see a doctor soon who will diagnose you with OCD and begin to treat you. You are going to get better.

And the treatments are going to get better as you get older. You’re going to read some helpful books. You’re going to learn about cognitive behavior therapy. You’re going to learn more about how your thoughts work.

But don’t wait until then to feel good about yourself. Remind yourself of what you’ve been able to do: work, go to school, and be with friends. You may have a hard time doing all this, but you are already accomplishing things. Don’t think you have to be 100 percent cured to start living.

And please, give yourself a break. Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re doing the best you can.

Remember: you are not alone, and things are going to get better.

Just rest for a while.

With love,

Your older self

***

I was asked to share the following information, and I am glad to.

OCD Connecticut is holding a free conference called “Living with OCD” on Saturday, October 18th, 2014.

It will be held at the Yale Child Study Center in New Haven, CT from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Topics will include the diagnosis and best practice treatments for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and there will be breakout support groups sessions for adults, teens, and family members.

For more information and to register for the program, please visit www.ocdct.org.

***

If you wrote a letter to your younger self, what would you say?

CNN interview: OCD and religion

Nearly two weeks ago, Elizabeth Landau, a writer and producer for CNN's website, contacted me about an article she was writing about scrupulosity. She had found me via this blog.

She interviewed me by phone about my experiences with religious scrupulosity. I talked to her about the ways my fears of sin affected me, especially as a teenager and young adult.

Landau’s article was published today. You can read it HERE. It’s informative and paints a good picture about how this form of OCD can affect people of any religion or no religion. And it gives hope for those who suffer with this form of OCD, including a section on the use of exposure therapy.

If you do read the article, I ask that you share it on other social media such as Facebook or Twitter, or send links to friends who might benefit. Or you can share this blog post in the same way.

It is my hope that this article will help spread the word and help people feel less alone.

Some background

I went to an evangelical Christian school for high school, and the calls to be “saved” were traumatic for me because I could never be sure if I had said the prayer “right,” or if my heart was “right” with God.

I believed that I had to say all my prayers perfectly or harm would come to my family and it would be my fault. I prayed silently, incessantly, repeating myself over and over. If I made a mistake in my ritual, I had to start over.

I turned away from any hint of God or religion for years because of my experiences with scrupulosity.

I’m in a much better place now, living better with the uncertainty of faith, believing that there are many paths to God for people to choose from, or not.

You can read more about my religious OCD on this blog HERE, HERE, and HERE.

OCD victory: My hands in dirt

 

 

This spring I’ve written about the joy that I’ve gotten from my foray into vegetable gardening.

My joy goes beyond my pleasure in watching things grow and the solace it brings my soul to dig in the dirt and interact with nature.

My gardening is also a sign of a victory over OCD.

 One of the ways my OCD has manifested itself is through contamination fears. Basically, I feared germs because of the possibility of spreading them to others and making them ill.

One of the ways I dealt with my obsessions over germs was to wash my hands compulsively. I’ve written about how red and raw my hands and wrists became because I washed them over and over in hot water and soap.

Another way I dealt with my fears over germs was to avoid situations and activities where I was sure to get my hands dirty. Like putting my hands in dirt, on purpose.

 
  Over the years, I have experienced many victories over contamination fears. When I first started treatment for OCD and depression, I was able to start having houseplants. And I’ve had flower gardens sporadically through the years.

 But this is my first full gardening experience.

It feels good to know that OCD is not stopping me from doing something that I enjoy.

The journey to overcome my contamination obsessions and compulsions has not been short or easy. I’ve taken medication that has side effects and costs money that I would love spend elsewhere. I’ve taken therapy. I’ve read books and put new ways of thinking and reacting into practice.

 I’m not saying that I am no longer affected by my OCD. Each day brings its challenges, some big, some small. But I can more easily deal with the challenges, more easily turn back to what I was doing before the OCD interfered.

 If you have OCD, I encourage you to get treatment, to do the things—and it will probably be a variety of things—that will enable you to overcome the stifling effects of OCD.

 And for all of us who struggle with issues—maybe issues that no one knows about—let’s hold hope and do the work that we need to do to remember the joy that can be a part of any life.

 It’s been worth every penny and every struggle to stand in front of my garden and look at those lovely little plants beginning their own journey.

 What are you now enjoying in life that once seemed out of reach?

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.

And I cooked again

Yes, I cooked. Not just in the microwave, which I do quite often. I cooked on a regular stove.

Over the past weekend, I fixed a simple vegetarian pasta dish. It tasted good. Even Larry, who says he’s a carnivore, not an omnivore, liked it and asked for seconds.

It probably sounds ridiculous that a 50 year old person is happy about cooking a simple dish on the stove.

I’ve written about why I don’t cook very often before. If you’ve read about my OCD obsession with stoves, you know that I have had a really hard time in the past cooking on a conventional stove.

Most of my problems with the stove are in the past. This is the way it was:

It was all wrapped up in the obsessions I had about safety. I worried that I was going to leave the stove on and cause a fire, which would hurt or kill my family.

So when the cooking was done, I compulsively turned the stove off and then on again, off, then on again, over and over. I stared at the stove, trying to convince myself that it was really off.

And then there were the contamination fears. I worried that I wouldn’t clean up after the food preparation, and errant crumbs and spills would draw ants and bugs and mice. And then there would be more contamination.

So I compulsively cleaned, wiping the counter over and over, eyeing it from every angle to make sure it was clean.

It was easier to just not cook.

I eventually learned that my compulsive acts did nothing to help me. OCD is tricky like that. Nothing calms the uncertainty for long before more compulsions have to be done.

The real way to break the OCD is to NOT give in to the compulsions, but rather, deal with the anxiety in other ways.

What worked for me was to leave the scene and get busy doing something else. Or I sometimes focused on the anxiety itself.

Whatever I did, I could not indulge in compulsions. In other words, once I turned off the stove, I had to walk away. I couldn’t check it. I couldn’t turn the knob to “make sure” it was off. Likewise, once I cleaned the counter—one pass over with disinfectant and water—I had to leave it.

My OCD has been better over the past several months. And I started thinking about cooking again. Larry and I eat out a lot. Both of us need to eat healthier. I decided that the best way for us to do that was to eat at home more and eat homemade food.

So I cooked Saturday night. I decided I could do it with a minimum of anxiety. And if I did get anxious, I had the tools to push through it.

I turned on the stove, cooked, and then I turned off the stove. I had a little bit of doubt. Then I turned away from the stove. I did OK.

I don’t think I’ll ever love to cook. It’s just not something I want to do a lot of. But if I can cook a healthy meal and feed my husband and myself at home, then I have accomplished something.

Have you cooked anything good lately?

My OCD is better

Step by step

Today I told someone that my OCD seems better.

Until then, I had kept the hope to myself.

But I’ll say it a bit stronger here: my OCD is better.

OCD is tricky. It can wax and wane.

During especially stressful times, it can grow stronger, leading to more obsessive thoughts, less ability to control the compulsions.

Other times, it grows stronger for no clear reason.

Then the symptoms ebb away, interfering less with the rest of my life.

There is nothing that I can point to as the reason for the current improvement. I think it’s probably a combination of things:

*Good medication

*A focus on preventing myself from following through on the desire to do a compulsion as I work on Exposure and Response Prevention on my own

*Good therapy earlier this year and last year

*A dedication to being mindful

*A growing realization that worrying doesn’t do me or anyone else any good

This time the improvement feels like a step up. I’ve improved in the past, but I wasn’t so aware of working on my OCD and keeping it at bay as much as possible. 

I’m more deliberate about it now.

It's not that I don't still have obsessions and do compulsions. But the symptoms are bothering me less and less. I'm better than I've been in a long time.

I’m very grateful. No need to analyze that too much, is there?

I’m not an expert on OCD. I’m just someone who has had the disorder since I was a child. I realize that OCD can seem very weird, and there are some misconceptions about it. Is there anything about OCD that you’d like to ask me?

Anxiety and keeping up with the news

I have a love/hate relationship with the news. I like knowing what’s going on in the world. I like to feel knowledgeable about what my government and governments around the world are doing. I like to be able to converse about current events.

But keeping up with it all drives my anxiety right up the charts.

War and other violence. Crime. Tragedy. Stories of the bad that has happened or might happen.

I get angry. I talk back to the talking heads on TV. I worry. I mull over the sad stories I hear. I feel helpless.

My reactions to the news go beyond the compassion that I try to have in response to others’ suffering. I make it too personal, and I feel the resulting anxiety and worry.

But lately, I’ve made a change in the way I take in the news.

I used to feel driven to keep up with the news. Part of it was OCD. I was obsessed with gathering knowledge. I would get fixated on a particular topic and think I had to know everything about it.

So I compulsively gathered information, searching the Internet and reading news websites; watching news broadcasts on television, trying to understand what was on the tickertape running at the bottom of the screen while taking in what was being said; reading the newspaper exhaustively, going back and rereading what I thought I hadn’t adequately understood; forgoing listening to music in the car so I could keep up with NPR broadcasts.

I had a sense that something terrible would happen if I didn’t know.

As a newspaper reporter, I of course need to keep up with what’s going on locally. But my search for information went beyond anything I needed to know for my job.

Finally, I got tired and fed up. I realized that keeping up with the news—or at least the way I was doing it—was affecting my mood and my outlook.

And the main thing I realized was that I didn’t have to know everything about everything. I could never know everything anyway. And nothing bad happened if I didn’t know everything possible.

I started experimenting with not being plugged in and tuned in to the news all the time. I worked out a system:

*I check news apps on my phone a few times a day. Two are for local news and two are for national and international news.

*I scan the headlines to get a general idea of what’s going on.

*I read some of the articles that I’m most interested in. I allow myself to skim.

*I rarely visit news websites on the computer. I stick with the apps because it’s quicker and easier to avoid getting distracted by the photos and flashing lights of the Internet.

*I scan the headlines in the local daily newspaper and read the articles that appeal to me. Again, skimming is allowed.

*I seldom sit down to watch a TV news broadcast. If I do, I listen to the first few minutes to catch the top stories, and then do something else.

*I still love NPR, but if a news story doesn’t appeal to me or upsets me, I don’t hesitate to switch to music.

I believe that I have a responsibility to learn about what’s happening in the world. To be a good citizen of the world, I need to understand it and take action when needed.

But my mental and emotional health doesn’t have to suffer because of that.

What about you? How do you keep up with the news?

Reassurance: when it’s not a good thing

I think of my father almost every day, if not every day. But this time of year, the months that coincide with his last illness and his death 16 years ago, I think of him very often.

So if I write some posts that include stories about my father, you’ll understand why.

My father, circa 1994.

It was late June or early July 1997. I was hunched down over the phone in my cubicle at work, talking with my sister-in-law.

“Do you think Daddy’s going to get better?” I asked her.

“No,” she said.

Her answer shocked me. All I could say in response was something like, “Oh.”

But I knew she had told me the truth.

I had sought reassurance from my sister-in-law, but in truth, I’d been seeking reassurance from everyone around me for weeks. I wanted someone—my mother, one of my brothers, the doctors—to tell me that my father was going to be all right.

I wasn’t interested in the truth as much as I was in being soothed and comforted so I wouldn’t have to feel the worry and anxiety that beat at me all day long into the night.

I recognize now that it was OCD making me search frantically for reassurance, making me ask question after question of the doctors or family members who had spoken with the doctors.

One of my chief forms of OCD is harm OCD, where I obsess over harm that might come to my loved ones.

I used to perform compulsions like hand washing; prayers that turned into continuous, silent chants in my thoughts; and checking to try to get rid of the anxiety about someone getting sick or dying.

I also sought reassurance from others. If others could tell me that everything was going to be all right, then I could relax. I could let go of the anxiety, even if for a while.

Besides questioning others about their health, I also sometimes depended on others to tell me that the light switch was off; the stove was turned off; there was a stick in the path, not a nail.

Seeking reassurance was a compulsion for me.

Those of us with OCD have to learn that we can’t depend on the reassurance of others to make it through anxiety.

We have to learn to be honest with ourselves: We can never be certain of everything.

Whatever drives our OCD—concerns about harm, contamination, completeness, perfection—cannot be permanently sent packing because someone else tells us it’s going to be OK.

We have to stop doing the rituals that are supposed to get rid of the anxiety.

We have to learn to deal with the anxiety. We have to learn to accept uncertainty.

It’s hard. It’s an ongoing process for me. I still prefer someone telling me that everything’s going to be all right. But I know that’s not the way to get past the grip of OCD.

On that summer day in 1997, my demand for reassurance didn’t work. My sister-in-law was a nurse aide and worked in the nursing home where my father was a patient. She had seen others in the nursing home who had grown sicker, who had died. She knew things that I didn’t, recognized things that I didn’t. I knew she was right.

My father was not going to get better.

And I had to accept that. No one could reassure me out of that.

OCD and scary thoughts and dreams

Shadows

Thoughts are powerful. I’m sure you already know that. What we mull over and dwell on in our thoughts can affect our mood and our outlook, our actions. Thoughts are that powerful.

If you have obsessive-compulsive disorder, you know that thoughts can seem especially powerful, and you attach more importance to them than they deserve.

The obsessions of OCD are uncontrolled thoughts about specific things that cause intense anxiety. They revolve around concerns about things such as harm, contamination and morality.

For example, I used to be consumed with thoughts about the safety of others, especially the safety of my loved ones. I worried and agonized over the possibility that harm would come to them, and that I would be the cause of that harm.

I acted out different compulsions to try to assuage the anxiety caused by the obsessions. I washed my hands incessantly to try to avoid passing germs to others and making them sick. I prayed the same words over and over, trying to create a magical safety net around my family. I checked light switches and stovetops repeatedly to make sure I had turned off electrical devices, because I believed if I left them on, a fire might start and hurt or kill others.

Another way thoughts can be troublesome for those of us with OCD is the way they seem to be so true. If I think that I left a lamp on at the office, then it must be true. If that thought comes along with a feeling of anxiety, then it must mean that I left the light on.

I’ve come a long way since the days when thoughts and compulsions like that consumed me. But this week, I’ve been revisited by scary thoughts.

My husband told me about a snippet of a dream he recently had. In the dream, he realized that he had died at a certain age. In real life, he turns that age next year.

After he told me, I was immediately caught up in anxiety, fear and depression.

What if it was a premonition? What if it were true? Why would he dream that? What did it mean that he dreamed it?

I couldn’t let it go. I kept thinking and thinking about it.

I thought about dreams that I had had that I felt were premonitions. I thought about the times that I had awakened from a dream and believed I had learned something.

What if that was the age that he would die? What could I do to stop it, to change it?

If I spoke about it to him, to anyone, would that mean that it would come true?

Some people believe all dreams mean something. Was that true? What did this dream mean?

I finally realized that my thoughts were a manifestation of my OCD. I realized that my fears about the importance of Larry’s dream were very similar to my fears about the importance of my thoughts.

My therapist taught me a lot about my thoughts. He taught me that the brain produces thoughts constantly, many without my intention or permission. Just because I have a thought doesn’t mean it’s true or will come true. It doesn’t mean that I wanted to think it.

And just because I feel anxiety doesn’t mean that there’s a logical reason for it or that I really have something to fear.

Perhaps that is the way I should view Larry’s dream. It’s a dream, produced by some combination of thoughts, emotions, memories and who knows what. I’ll never arrive at an answer for what it means.

And as Larry told me, in trying to comfort me when I expressed concern, no one knows when he or she will die except God.

My thoughts about it, my fear, will not change anything. I will have to do what I have to do with every OCD episode: live with the anxiety until it goes away, focus on other things, and recognize for yet another time that I have to live with uncertainty.

Have you ever been haunted by a dream that you or someone else had? How do you deal with fears about the future?

OCD and getting help when help is needed

Yes, the nurse had noticed my hands. And she had told the doctor about them.

That scared me. I didn’t want the doctor to mention my hands. I didn’t want to tell him about my hand washing.

Janet at ocdtalk wrote a wonderful post this week about “OCD and Early Treatment Experiences.” In her post, Janet writes about the troubles many people with OCD have when seeking help for the first time.

Her post resonated with me and brought back some memories of my own early attempts to get help for my OCD.

I suffered from obsessions and compulsions for years before I ever got treatment. My first symptoms appeared when I was a girl. When I was a teenager, I read a magazine article about OCD and recognized myself in it. But I remained silent. I told no one about my strange thoughts and compulsive habits.

Of course, my parents noticed some of my compulsive habits, especially the copious amounts of water I ran whenever I washed my hands. But they didn’t seem to connect the actions with anything other than me being wasteful and a problem.

Apparently the only thing my mother told my pediatrician was that I was crying a lot and tired, as I wrote about in a post about being a child with OCD and depression.

That’s behind me now. Perhaps my mother had no vocabulary to use to explain her daughter’s strange actions. Perhaps she was just afraid of what was going on with me.

Once I became an adult, I was no better an advocate for myself. And that brings me to a memory that came to me when I read the ocdtalk post.

When I was in my early twenties, in graduate school, I visited Student Health. I didn’t have health insurance, and I could be seen at Student Health with my student ID for a low fee.

If I am remembering correctly, I was there because of my ears. They seemed to get blocked with wax a lot. Or so it seemed. I wanted the doctor to check them.

It wasn’t the first time I went to the doctor for my ears. I see now that picking at my ears was a compulsion of mine. I was obsessed over the possibility of them getting blocked and muffling my hearing. So I picked at them and then had them checked at the doctor’s office to make sure they weren’t blocked. It was OCD at work.

On this particular visit, the nurse had taken me into the exam room. I don’t remember, but she probably asked me the reason for my visit and went through the usual pre-exam routine.

I don’t remember how I happened to see her walk down the hall after she left the exam room. But I remember looking down the hallway and seeing her walking with the doctor. She was pointing to her hands and talking.

I immediately grasped (perhaps incorrectly, but I don’t think so) that she was telling the doctor about my hands.

My hands.

From about three inches above my wrists to my fingertips, my hands were red. They were chapped and dry and raw looking. Here and there were little spots of dried blood.

I knew what was wrong with my hands. I washed them compulsively, soaping them up repeatedly with each hand washing, running hot water over them.

I didn’t use hand lotion because that might contaminate them, I thought.

Yes, the nurse had noticed my hands. And she had told the doctor about them.

That scared me. I didn’t want the doctor to mention my hands. I didn’t want to tell him about my hand washing.

When the doctor came in, he didn’t say anything about my hands at first. He was kind and looked in my ears.

My memories were fuzzy about this for a while. I had to go back in time in my mind and picture what happened. I remembered that he did say something about my hands. He asked me about them.

I lied to him. I told him I forgot to use lotion and the cold and windy weather wreaked havoc on them.

I missed the opportunity to tell him about the extreme anxiety that drove me to wash my hands over and over.

And what would have happened if he had asked again after hearing my lie? What if he had suspected that hands that raw looking weren’t just chapped from the cold and wind?

I’ll never know, and that’s OK. I eventually did get help.

But what concerns me is the possibility that there are others with OCD who are too afraid to talk with their doctors, but who may have signs like my red hands that the doctors don’t address. It concerns me that parents may not know what to do about their children’s symptoms. It concerns me that people may tell their doctors about their OCD symptoms, but the doctors don’t know what to do with that information.

Because of my concerns, I will continue to do as Janet advocates in her post: educate others about OCD and encourage those with OCD and their families.

Do you have OCD or think you do? Are you a family member or friend of someone with OCD? One information source is the website of the International OCD Foundation. Their Find Help page offers multiple resources.

Why do you think it’s so hard to discuss certain things with our doctors?