Living with OCD
I want to start this out by saying that I’ll be talking about mental health issues brought on by the pandemic. If you’re uncomfortable reading or feel it might negatively affect you, I’d advise not reading.
“I’m just a little OCD.”
“God, you’re so OCD!”
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is an oft joked about disorder, but the reality of it is much worse. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say it feels like being in a torture chamber of my own making, my brain being an inescapable hellscape that’s unable to let go of its incessant need for things to be just so.
My OCD, along with my dyslexia and ADD, are things you’ll often see me talk about on Twitter. I do talk about it on Instagram, but I just haven’t been on there long enough to really dive much into it.
So what exactly is OCD?
OCD is an anxiety disorder that causes sufferers to do certain compulsions to relieve the aforementioned anxiety. Like with dyslexia, there are plenty of different types, but a lot of times they cross over. I’m only going to talk about four types in this blog post that I’ve found the most common I see people talking about with friends and on social media. Please remember that this is a generalized analysis and while sometimes OCD can be really obvious in a person, these often overlap with other disorders like ADHD, Autism, etc., and should be diagnosed by a professional.
Checking
Checking OCD is probably one of the OCDs we see most in media, and that’s people being obsessed with checking things related to their personal safety like their lights, appliances, and door and window locks. Unfortunately, it’s not as quirky as it’s made out to be on TV shows like Monk. These compulsions can be done for literally hours at a time and make it difficult to maintain relationships.
Another way this type of OCD can manifest in non-safety-related ways, like rereading documents and emails to make sure it’s perfect and there isn’t anything inadvertently offensive included, researching symptoms of a disease constantly, obsessing over details, and repeatedly checking on loved ones.
“Just Right” OCD
“Just Right” OCD is a subtype that’s a little hard to describe because there isn’t really one fear that triggers it. It’s more of a feeling of something isn’t right when things aren’t a certain way, or the need to start something over to make it perfect. This one often goes hand-in-hand with Symmetry and Ordering OCD. Some of the compulsions that go along with this type of OCD is performing the same action over and over, changing the wording on something until it’s just right, or rearranging, reordering, or organizing things repeatedly.
Contamination OCD
Contamination OCD is something we’ve all heard of, but most likely you’ve heard it called “extreme germophobia” or “germ-centric OCD.” And especially during this pandemic, it’s been a lot more prevalent in being diagnosed.
The symptoms to look out for this particular type of OCD are thoughts about feeling dirty or unclean, either physically or mentally, persistent fears of exposure to sources of contamination, and a persistent worry about germs or sickness. Some of the compulsions are avoiding sources of contamination, the compulsion to get rid of items that are considered dirty, washing or cleaning contaminated items, or specific cleaning or washing rituals.
Symmetry and Ordering
This is another type of OCD you’ll see heavily caricatured on TV shows. Monk and Modern Family specifically come to mind, though Monk did a better job with some of the emotional side effects of living with OCD.
Some of the symptoms for this subtype of OCD are needing items to be aligned in a certain way, the extreme need for symmetry or organization in items, or symmetry in actions (like having to crack your knuckles on your left if you do it on your right). Some of the compulsions include having to rearrange things until they’re “just right” and feeling (Does this sound familiar?), counting rituals (like needing to reach a specific number a certain number of times), and organization rituals.
What has been my experience?
Well...I didn’t intend it this way, but I actually suffer from all four of the subtypes I talked about. This blog post is actually helping me learn a little bit more about my OCD—which is not something I expected.
My journey with OCD has been a little different. I didn’t get diagnosed with OCD until the pandemic hit, despite having pretty clear symptoms of the disorder. This is because a lot of OCD symptoms overlap with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), which I was diagnosed with when I was seven. While my OCD didn’t get bad enough to require therapy until the COVID-19 pandemic hit, I’ve likely had it as long as my ADD.
My OCD started out with the Ordering and Symmetry and “Just Right” OCD subtypes. For the life of me, I couldn’t write anything on paper and continue using that paper without my handwriting looking perfect or if there was a misspelled word—it was also spurred a little bit by my dyslexia and the shame of its effects on my learning and writing. This also affected my ability to move things when we got them settled in. After I got married and moved in with my husband, Mr. M, my checking OCD started. My checking got especially bad after we moved to Hawaii and the neighborhood we live in gets burgled at least once a week.
I had some mild contamination OCD…then the pandemic hit and my OCD truly became an unmanageable hellscape. My contamination OCD exploded all over the place. I got to the point where I couldn’t touch the walls in my house, and if anything that got “contaminated”—including couches—it had to be washed with soap and water. I can’t go outside without needing to take a shower, even if it’s a quick trip somewhere that barely requires getting out of the car. I can’t touch, well, anything, without feeling like I need to wash after. This made my anxiety a constant 100 and brought me to the point of panic attacks when I couldn’t stop running into things, like having the shower curtain touch me on the way out of the shower and having to take four showers in a row. I couldn’t even let Mr. M touch me without flinching away at first. (And these were just a small portion of my triggers.)
After that, I knew I had to start therapy. It’s helped beyond measure, honestly. I haven’t gotten rid of all of my triggers yet, but I’ve gotten rid of a solid 40% of the issues that came with my contamination OCD in the few months that I’ve been going. Life has gotten a lot easier for me, but I know there’s a lot of work to be done.
If you’re suffering from OCD, I highly encourage you to try therapy. I personally use BetterHelp, which is online therapy, because I couldn’t find a therapist taking my insurance that was taking on new patients, and I managed to get a wonderful therapist right off the bat.
If you’re wanting to read more, I got my OCD information from Northpoint Recovery, Very Well Mind, Healthline, Treat My OCD, and WebMD.
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