Anxiety, depression and a way to live with the river of thoughts



The Staunton River, running along the edge of Altavista, Virginia.



How sly they can be. How quietly they slip amongst the other thoughts, seeming to fit in at first. It’s only after they’ve taken a foothold that you realize what they are: the negative thoughts. The old, familiar negative thoughts.

I’m stupid. I’m useless. I’m a waste of time. I can’t do anything right.

They are the kind of thoughts that used to run through my mind with abandon. I thought they were normal. I thought they were true.

Everybody hates me. God hates me. I hate myself.

Even after therapy, medication for the OCD and depression, self-help books, getting older, meditation, prayer, faith—all the things that have helped me through the years—it’s still possible for me to get caught up in negative thinking. The kind of thinking that makes me feel hopeless and helpless and depressed.

I’m a failure. Things will never get better.

What all the treatment has done for me, though, is to help me recognize what I’m doing and stop it.

What I’ve learned helps me to talk back to the thoughts, to engage new, more positive thoughts. It helps me to realize that a thought is just a thought.

Just because I think it doesn’t mean it’s true. Just because I think it doesn’t mean that I wanted to think it. Just because I think it doesn’t mean it’s any more important than any other thought floating down that river.

I learned that water imagery from my therapist.

He showed me a photograph of a river with a bridge arching over it. He told me to imagine that the river was the flow of my thoughts. I was to imagine that I was on the bridge, looking down on the river, on the thoughts.

In the same way, I could distance myself from my thoughts and observe them: the words, the feelings, the images.

I didn’t have to engage with them.

I didn’t have to believe them.

I could just observe them, from afar, from high up on the bridge.

Just because I think it doesn’t mean it’s true.

What do you do when negative thoughts creep in?

OCD and the loss of dreams



The building at Bowling Green State University where I took many classes and taught many classes.



Obsessive-compulsive disorder, a debilitating anxiety disorder, can take a lot away from us. It can take time, money, peace of mind, self-esteem. And dreams.

The dream

When I was a senior in college, I began to worry about what I would do once I graduated.

I wanted to be a writer or a social worker. Those were my two interests. The desire to write had been with me since I was a child. The desire to be a social worker was ignited during one of several sociology classes I took in college.

Basically, I wanted to write, and I wanted to save the world. With a degree in English.

During my last semester, one of my professors talked with me about my future and suggested that I go to graduate school. I could teach and become a professor and write important literary papers and books.

I liked the idea, and I liked the thought of having a definite place to go after graduation from college.

So I applied and got accepted into Bowling Green State University in Ohio. They gave me a graduate assistantship, which meant they paid my tuition and gave me a stipend in exchange for teaching while I worked on my master’s degree in English.

I took classes and taught classes for two years, writing a thesis during my last semester (which is a story in itself that I will have to tell you one day). And I finished. I got my M.A. in English.

The next step, if I hoped to become a college professor, was to get a Ph.D. I chose to stay at BGSU for my doctoral work.

For the next two or so years, I took classes, put together a doctoral committee, chose a genre and time period to focus on, created a reading list for my doctoral exams, studied for my exams, took my written and oral exams, chose a dissertation topic, did preliminary research, put together a proposal for my dissertation, and gave a public presentation of that proposal.

I passed everything and ended up being in ABD status: All But Dissertation.

In other words, all I had left to do before receiving my doctorate was to write my dissertation. As my dissertation chair told me, “All you have left to do is to write a very long paper.”

One more step. One more task.

The OCD

What I haven’t told you yet is how OCD was a part of those years that I worked so hard.

I had reading OCD, which grew worse as I moved into the doctoral program. There were many books on my reading list that I was never able to finish because of OCD.

I had OCD about my writing, which made me obsessed with the possibility of plagiarizing, making it difficult for me to research and to then write a coherent paper.

I had contamination OCD, which made me clean my bathroom for hours, vacuum my apartment repeatedly, wipe down my kitchen counters. I spent literally hours doing these compulsions.

I had checking OCD. For example, I could spend huge chunks of time checking the stove in my apartment, making sure it was off, even if I hadn’t used it.

I had hit-and-run OCD. I drove the streets of Bowling Green looking for bodies that I imagined could be there.

The loss

The OCD affected my performance in graduate school from the beginning, but it got worse as time went by. It became especially difficult to cope as I faced what seemed to be the monumental task of writing a dissertation in spite of not being able to properly read, research and write.

Even though I started medication treatment during my third year in my doctoral program, it didn’t help enough, or help in time, for me to finish the dissertation by the time my fellowship ran out.

I moved back to Virginia, with vague hopes of finishing my dissertation there. But the OCD, though drastically improved, still fed into my academic work.

I never finished my dissertation. I never finished my Ph.D.

The vow

It may sound strange, but I don’t wish I was a college professor. The writing I wanted to do had nothing to do with the study of contemporary fiction. I don’t miss teaching.

I don’t believe I wasted the time leading up to the dissertation because education is never wasted.

I don’t dwell on it like I used to. I don’t know that my life would have been better or more productive with a Ph.D.

What I do regret, though, is not finishing a goal after coming so close.

I regret the fact that OCD was so strong then that it affected me reaching my goal, my dream.

But with all my tools to fight OCD that I’ve gained through treatment, with all my intent to live a full life, I won’t let OCD take away any more dreams.

What ways have you protected your dreams and reached your goals?

Random 5 Friday

Today I’m linking up with Nancy’s A Rural Journal for Random 5 Friday, “where you share 5 random facts about you, your day, your pets, your kids, whatever!”

Here are my Random 5 facts:

1. My cats call my orthopedic boot “The Monster Boot” because it’s so big and, when I’m not using my crutches, it makes me sound like a monster as I walk through the house: thump, thump, thump. It’s quite loud to their tender kitty ears!

2. My town’s high school boys basketball team won the Group A, Division 1 state title in Virginia. The girls team was the state runner-up in its division. Go, Colonels and Lady Colonels!

3. I’ve been seeing daffodils around town, including in our yard (see photo). I see an especially pretty set of the yellow flowers every morning on the way to work: a lone bunch sticking out of an otherwise still dormant bank of grass. No photo of those to show you.

4. I’m reading Bones Are Forever, by Kathy Reichs. It’s another one of her great mysteries. I enjoy her main character, forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. And Brennan has a pet cat, Birdie. Our Chase Bird got his middle name from him.

5. My husband has driven me to and from work every day since I had to start wearing The Monster Boot. He has also driven me to things I had to cover for work, including a government meeting and a court hearing. He’s my partner in every sense of the word. And he’s a big reason that, despite my having OCD and depression, my life is good.

Link up at Nancy’s blog and share your own Random 5 if you’d like!

And in the comment section, please share one random fact about yourself.

Not hiding what OCD looks like

I remember turning my car’s fuel cap a few times. I remember my husband looking at me and shaking his head and saying, “Don’t do that.”

Later, he gave me a different perspective on what I’d done.

We had driven our vehicles—his truck and my car—to the gas station together about a month ago so he could pump my gas for me after he pumped his own.

I’m capable of pumping my own gas, but if he’s with me, he’ll do it for me. It’s a sweet thing for him to do.

He had to move his truck out of the way of another customer before the tank in my car was full, so I finished up the job.

Larry walked up as I was putting the fuel cap back into place.

I heard it click. But one click didn’t seem to be enough. So I turned it some more. Then some more.

I liked hearing those clicks because they seemed to tell me that the cap was properly closed.

Once we got to a restaurant to eat lunch, Larry said, “You need to control your OCD with the cap, because if you break the seal, it will have to be replaced.”

Larry said once I heard that one click, the cap was sealed.

“How do you know it was OCD making me do that?” I asked.

I wanted to know what he had noticed.

He then gave me a description of what I’d been doing. I turned the cap, yes. Then I stopped and looked at it. Then I turned it again. Then I stopped and looked at it. Then I turned it again.

Yep, obvious signs (in me) of checking OCD.

And I had no idea that I had done anything that anyone else would notice. I thought I was keeping my checking to myself.

At first, I was horrified.

Of course, Larry probably noticed because he knows me so well, knows my OCD so well. And he wasn’t concerned about me showing my OCD as much as he was concerned about me breaking the fuel cap seal.

But I had examined the fuel cap in public, where others could see me. Did anyone else see me?

The incident got me thinking. I’ve always thought that I hid my OCD from others so well. I certainly try to be careful to not let anyone witness my compulsions, or rituals: my staring at lamps, my fiddling with things like water faucets and light switches, my habit of picking up pieces of lint from carpets.

In fact, I try not to do the compulsions in the first place. That’s my goal.

But if I do perform a compulsion, and if others notice, what am I so afraid of? That they’ll think I’m weird? That they’ll think less of me?

Do I really care? I’m not sure.

If they care about me, they’ll ignore my compulsions or ask me about them. If they ask me about them, it’s an opportunity to educate others about OCD.

And if they don’t care about me, why do I care what they think of me?

I don’t want to make a spectacle of myself. But in reality, that’s not likely.

Perhaps I’ve spent too much time worrying about people seeing my OCD. Instead of thinking of ways to hide my OCD, maybe I would do well to focus more on getting better.

If you have OCD, how hard do you work at trying to hide your compulsions from others? Whether you have OCD or not, how would you like to react if a friend performed an OCD compulsion in front of you?

Anxiety and slowing down



Sam enjoys slowing down a bit by lying in her new bed.



It’s possible to find a lesson in any situation, and the situation with my broken foot is providing plenty of lessons. One of them is the importance of slowing down.

There are 14 steps up the front of my office building. There’s a ramp in back, but it’s a long one, and it takes me seemingly forever to go up it using crutches. I’ve got my protective, giant boot on. So I’m taking the steps.

The steps seem too narrow to properly use the crutches, so I hold on to the railing and start up. My husband comes behind me, carrying my purse, camera bag and crutches.

“Take one step at a time,” he says. “That way, you’re not putting all your weight on your bad foot.”

Oh, one step at a time. One step at a time? That will take forever.

But I do it. Good foot up, bad foot up. Next step: good foot up, bad foot up. All the way to the top.

***

I sit watching TV in the den with Larry. Commercial time. I get up and check something on the computer.

Back to the den. I watch the show. Then I think about a soda.

I get up again and hobble into the kitchen.

Back to the den. Commercial time. I get up and go to the bedroom and put on my sweatpants.

Back to the den.

***

I’m showered, dressed and booted. I sit in the recliner, foot up, to wait for Larry to finish getting ready to go out to lunch.

I lean back. I lean forward, looking for the newspaper.

No, I’ll just sit here.

I lean back.

I lean forward, reaching for the TV remote.

No, I’ll just sit here.

I’ll sit here and breathe. And listen to the tick of the clock.

***

I’m not a high-energy person. But I do tend to walk fast. In fact, I hate moving slowly. I feel like I’m wasting time.

Being in a boot and on crutches has slowed me way down. I can’t run up the steps. I can’t hurry down the hall. It’s a big change.

And one thing I didn’t realize about myself was how much I moved around. I may be at home watching something on TV, but I’m up at every commercial, sometimes before the commercial, going into other parts of the house, doing this, doing that.

Even when I’m sitting reading, I get up often to get something to drink, see what’s going on in the rest of the house, get on the computer or do some other activity.

Just sitting is hard for me. I think anxiety plays into that.

But it’s become more necessary to be still. If I move around, I need to use the crutches. And if I don’t make time for the crutches, I’m putting more pressure on the healing bone.

So I’m staying in one place for longer periods of time. I’m still moving around, but I’m trying to be OK with sitting for a little while without having to get up.

And that sums up what I’m doing: trying to be OK with being slower.

There are good things about being slower:

*I’m relaxing a bit more.

*I’m able to stay in the moment longer.

*My attention feels less scattered.

Do you ever feel the need to slow down your life? What benefits have you experienced from slowing down?

A bit of memoir: Walk everywhere, eat according to plan

This is a bit of memoir about a time when I probably had a type of eating disorder, or was moving towards developing one, though I’ve never discussed it with a doctor.

I don’t know whether or not the eating habits I developed were related to my OCD. According to an article on the website of the International OCD Foundation, eating disorders and OCD are separate disorders, but they have things in common.

Thankfully, after this particular time period passed, I never had the problem again.

But when I remember this time, I remember it almost as a warning to myself.

***

Walk, walk, walk. Walk fast, keep walking. Walk, walk, walk. No buses. No cars. Just walk. Walk, walk, walk.

Walk off those calories. Walk off what I eat. Walk off those calories.

Eat according to plan. Eat according to plan. Eat according to plan.

That was my mantra for the first semester of my second year in college. Walk everywhere. And eat according to plan.

Things were not going well.

I had moved out of my first suite and into another suite with three new women. While they were nice and we got along, it was a change, and I wasn’t handling change very well.

I wasn’t handling anything very well. I walked around in a fog, unhappy and hopeless. I was afraid of everyone and everything. I went to class, I did my homework. And not much else.

But I did walk everywhere, and I did eat according to plan.

I had been to the doctor’s office the previous summer and my mother had found out that I had gained 10 pounds during my first year of college. She expressed how she felt about it—“I knew you had gained weight”—telling me that if I didn’t watch it, I would gain more.

I wasn’t overweight, but I decided to lose weight and get back down to my starting college weight, which was really underweight.

I started out by counting calories. I knew the calorie counts of all the foods I ate, and I ate pretty much the same things day after day, at the same time of the day, day after day.

I wrote down everything I ate and the calories and constantly added them up during the day. And I felt particularly successful if I could keep the calorie count low.

I lived in campus housing away from where the classrooms were. I could have taken a campus bus to class. But I didn’t want to be on a crowded bus. And I wanted to walk the calories off.

So I walked to class every day, and went early so I could avoid walking through the bigger crowds of other students.

I remember every morning at around 10 a.m. I had a break between classes and sat in one of the wide windows in the classroom building and ate a cereal bar. I knew the calorie count, of course, and that would get me through until I could make it back to the apartment to eat lunch.

Because I avoided the lunchrooms on campus. I avoided being around other people except in class.

I lost weight. I got back down to my starting-college weight, and maybe even a little lower. I was definitely underweight. And tired. So tired.

But I felt triumphant, too, that I could lose the weight, that I could control what I ate and how much I moved.

The feelings of hopelessness and despair, the desire to be alone, the fear of being around others: I know for certain that I was depressed and anxious. I didn’t seek help for those things. Instead, I walked everywhere, and ate according to plan.

Mental illness in pop culture: “Silver Linings Playbook”

Larry and I recently went to see the movie “Silver Linings Playbook.” I had heard that the movie dealt with mental illness, and I was anxious to see how it was portrayed.

In the movie, Bradley Cooper plays Pat, a man newly released from a mental treatment hospital where he has been a patient for eight months.

Pat had undiagnosed bipolar disorder when he arrived home from work one day to find his wife, Nikki, in the shower with another man. Pat beat the man almost to death, and as part of a plea agreement, he entered the mental hospital.

At the time of his release, Pat resists taking his medication, and he insists that having a positive attitude, getting in shape and becoming a different person will win back his wife and his old life.

This doesn’t seem too likely because Nikki has a restraining order against him, and Pat is allowed no contact with her.

Meanwhile, Pat’s father, played by Robert De Niro, has lost his job and his pension and is bookmaking in order to make enough money to start a restaurant. He is consumed by the Philadelphia Eagles and how well they perform. He’s insistent that Pat being back home is going to bring him good luck with the games.

Pat meets a friend’s sister-in-law, Tiffany, played by Jennifer Lawrence. Tiffany is a recent widow. She hints at suffering from depression before her husband died, and after he died, she chose some very self-destructive behaviors.

Pat and Tiffany begin a friendship. Both are broken in their own way, and they understand each other in ways that others don’t. But they have their moments, such as when Tiffany senses that Pat thinks she’s “crazier” than he is.

Eventually, Pat asks Tiffany to give Nikki a letter from him, and Tiffany agrees to do it provided Pat participates in a dance competition with her.

I won’t give away any more of the plot. But we see Pat and Tiffany both make changes in their lives, and they come to understand themselves and their families better.

I thought the movie portrayed the hardships of mental illness very well. We see the confusion, worry and helplessness Pat’s family experiences as they learn to live with their son again.

We see the pain that Pat has as he faces his friends and acquaintances after having spent time in a mental hospital.

I don’t have bipolar disorder and I’m certainly not an expert. But I was impressed with Cooper’s portrayal of a man who seems captive to his emotions, who can’t seem to stay focused.

I especially liked how the movie portrayed the changes in Pat. He begins to take his medication, without fanfare, but with commitment. He goes to therapy. He exercises. He practices dancing, which he admits helps his focus and his discipline.

We see him improve over the course of the movie, and it’s due to all of those things as well as the relationships that he forges with family and friends.

The only quibble I had about the movie’s portrayal of mental illness was the way OCD was handled. Twice, Pat refers to his father’s superstitions and rituals about football games as “OCD.” I don’t know if De Niro’s character had OCD or not—it’s hard to tell. But those rituals were front and center in a lot of the storyline, and his problem seemed glossed over in the plot.

I recommend “Silver Linings Playbook” as a good movie in its own right, and a realistic portrayal of a person suffering from a mental illness.

Have you seen “Silver Linings Playbook”? If so, what did you think of the way it portrayed mental illness? If not, how do you think pop culture in general portrays mental illness? What needs to be improved?

Update on the foot

Thank you for all the kind wishes, thoughts and prayers that you sent my way for the healing of my foot!

I saw the orthopedic doctor on Monday. He told me that the break started out as a stress fracture but is now something called a Jones fracture.

He said it’s going to take a long time to heal because it’s in an area of the foot that doesn’t have a good blood supply, and one of the ligaments in the foot pulls across the fractured area.

Sometimes this type of fracture doesn’t heal, and surgery has to be performed to insert a screw.

For the next three weeks I need to continue wearing the boot and I need to keep weight off of it as much as I can. I’m struggling to use crutches. It’s exhausting to get around on those things!

I go back to see him in three weeks, and he’s hoping to see some new bone growth.

Let’s hope I won’t need surgery!