I am no stranger to fear.
The type of fear that paralyzes me has me going ramrod when I’m lying in bed desperately trying to fall asleep, as I’ve become acutely aware of things I never thought twice about. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) eats at the corners of my brain like a parasite, chewing with an insatiable appetite until I can’t quite discern what’s me and what’s the intrusive thought, like a woman losing her mind but aware of her descent into madness. My brain is a beat-up car, and the driver is me, desperately trying to pump the brakes, but instead I keep pushing on the gas until I’m speeding headfirst off a cliff, and sometimes I’m not even scared of driving off the edge because at least that means I’ll stop.
OCD is like an elementary school bully, picking on the things that make me sick to my stomach, reminding me that I am the monster I question myself to be; except I don’t get reprieve when the bell rings and the school day ends. I do not find sanctuary at home. I’m perpetually stuck in a classroom with stagnant air, feeling like I can’t breathe, and I’m never going to be dismissed. Every doubt sticks like chewing gum under a desk, nasty and unwanted, and the more I pick at it, the more it grips the surface, endless and non-removable. Each variation of a thought is akin to sticking freshly chewed wads to the surface, when debris is most likely to catch on it and remain. My worries are lint and dust, accumulating until I’ve convinced myself the doubt is no longer a doubt but the truth. If I have these thoughts, they must mean something about me. Suddenly, the classroom is unfamiliar and distorted, as my mind disconnects from my body. The room begins to bend and contort, my new truth slamming into me like a bully shoving me against the lockers. Elementary school analogies feel foreign. I see my classmates’ blurry faces, but they don’t really look human, and I question if I am really here right now, and why my hands don’t look like my own as I grab a pencil and furiously write five things I can see, four things I can hear, three things I can touch…
I used to think this type of suffering was fictitious. What I had seen in movies about OCD did not reflect the ego death I’ve become so familiar with, nor did the endless questioning and dire need for certainty seem so obtrusive. Often portrayed as a quirk, as something that could be put to rest when the end credits rolled. I was so unaware of the constant anxiety, the shame and guilt it brought, and the inability to wrangle my thoughts over things I once felt so confident about. The suffering was constant. I considered myself logical, yet couldn’t unthink myself out of these dystonic spirals. Like being pushed down a never-ending staircase, I assumed I would indefinitely tumble.
Therapy has taught me that OCD is a liar.
Demanding answers to unanswerable questions, forcing urgency like my life is dependent upon the answer. Stopping me mid-sentence because I need to figure it out, like right now. I need to engage in a compulsion before it transitions from possibility to probability. I need reassurance, I need to Google, my search history morphing from curiosity to desperation. It all hinges on the incessant need for truth in a world that will not give it to me. The hardest thing is sitting in the discomfort of not knowing, tapping my fingers against my thighs as I lie in the fetal position like a child that needs soothing. Rocking back and forth as if I can shake the panic out of my body. And when my brain begs at me for reassurance? When the bully taunts me, hoping I’ll turn around? I have to choose to walk away from it.
It took me a long time not to fight back, when my basic human instinct is to fight to survive.
There are times when it is harder to resist than others. Sometimes my intrusive thoughts show up in my dreams, reminding me that slumber is not an escape, picking at old wounds I thought I’d healed, stuck with the irritated scab for days after. Other times, I’m triggered out of the blue, and I’m knocked off my feet by a wave crashing into me during times when my feet are supposed to be planted securely in the sand. Chain those experiences together, and I found myself drowning in the ocean, but exposure response prevention is the life preserver that keeps me afloat now.
There is no honor in struggling in silence, in furiously beating my arms and legs against the water when I needed to be taught to tread. My brain gave me reasons to delay therapy, ranging from humiliation to indignation, the inability to come to terms with the fact that this is my new reality, and it won’t just disappear if I do these compulsions just right, just one more time.
Because you can’t reason with a bully. You can’t will yourself to calmly tread water the first time you’re submerged in an intimidating ocean.
Of all of the regrets I have, not getting help sooner tops my list every time.
I have finally learned to swim.
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