I’ve lived with obsessive compulsive disorder for as long as I can remember.
It started as a child. I remember sitting on my bed one day, and getting a terrifying thought that told me if I didn’t touch the bedpost a certain number of times, my family would die. Of course, I tapped the bed post until the thought went away.
Throughout my life, the themes have changed — but the fear and the distress always remains the same. It’s funny, really.
Each time I experience a new theme, I convince myself that it *has* to be the worst one, and wish for the one before to show back up. But once it does, I’m reminded that actually, both themes are just as debilitating as each other.
Some themes are harder to talk about than others; so distressing that I couldn’t even tell my psychiatrist for almost a year, scared that I was a monster.
Others are easier to talk about, despite them being just as crippling.
Take relationship OCD, otherwise known as ROCD, for example.
ROCD is a subset of OCD where the obsessions and compulsions are centred around your relationship. Common thoughts are usually around whether the sufferer really loves their partner. This is something I haven’t experienced.
My own experience’s main feature was being worried I had cheated — or that I was cheating — on my partner.
This theme has come around twice. Once with my ex, and once with my current partner. Despite the change in partners, the worries remained the same. These thoughts, combined with false memories — another side effect of OCD, in which a ‘memory’ isn’t really a memory, but feels like one — made my life hell for two years.
It seems to always start with memories of being with friends. Friends that I’ve known for years. Male friends with whom our relationship has always been completely platonic.
But as soon as the ROCD starts, it digs into these memories and starts making new ones. Suddenly, I have intrusive thoughts that I have done something sexual with these friends, that I have cheated, or that I have done something I have not told my partner about.
I rack my brains over and over again until my head is all muddled and I cannot tell which memory is real or not. And then the guilt sets in.
I sit with a constant feeling of panic as I try my best not to bring it up.
I remember a few times, even contacting these friends for reassurance that these scenarios never happened. They confirmed that they hadn’t.
One rule of OCD is that you don’t seek reassurance, because that only reinforces the OCD (I learned this in therapy), but sometimes it is too overwhelming and I spill everything.
Each time, I’m reassured and told that these things didn’t happen — but when you have images in your head, it’s hard to tell what is real and what is not.
Deep down, I know that these thoughts are just that — thoughts. But OCD can be strong. It is a bully, determined to make you question everything and convince you that you’re a bad person.
My ROCD is always centred around appropriateness. I panic that I have done something wrong if I look at someone attractive in a pub (well, before the pandemic), or If a male comes up on my suggested friends.
The thing with OCD is that it always attacks the things you care about — and of course, in these instances, it’s my relationship.
With therapy and medication I have managed to 90% overcome this theme, but it does pop up now and again; usually when I’m going through something stressful.
I think the difficult thing is that I know that it could pop up at any time and completely debilitate me. But that’s just something I have to live with — uncertainty. OCD’s biggest enemy.
To deal with OCD, you have to deal with the uncertainty, but it’s taken me a long time to get there.
I feel lucky that my ROCD has not been an issue for over a year now, but I am reminded of scattered thoughts now and again.
I wish people recognised how awful ROCD can be – and that there are multiple subtypes of OCD.
It’s not about hand washing or ordering your cupboards.
It’s living with an illness that leaves you panicked and distressed and like the worst person in the world.
It’s intrusive thoughts that you can’t shake off, that circle your head for days. It’s compulsions, strong ones, both physical and mental.
It can affect your ability to function and to get through day-to-day life. I remember when my OCD was mainly physical, I would avoid leaving the house because I didn’t want to go through my compulsions, like spending 15 minutes walking down a two minute road, looking back every single time because I was panicked that I’d dropped something with my name and address and bank details on it.
OCD is a spectrum, and no experiences are invalid. It’s something we all experience differently, with three common things: obsessions, compulsions (physical or mental), and distress.
I feel lucky in that after years of trying to fight it (something that OCD also loves because it becomes stronger), I’m finally learning how to overcome it.
And I wish that for everyone suffering with OCD — because it feels like being free. Finally.
