Another Casualty of OCD

Nearly 10 years ago, I opened an account on eBay. I had no idea what I was doing, but a lot of people I knew were making a few extra bucks selling items there and I thought I'd give it a try. Within a short time, I turned my curiosity into a business with nearly 4,000 customers. That figure still boggles my mind.

The past couple of years have been overtaken by ocd, and just attempting to survive in a somewhat normal life. I didn't sell much of anything on eBay, until the end of last year. When I did, because I was having serious contamination fear issues, I did carrier pick-ups and did not actually go to the post office. Long story short, someone stole packages I put out overnight for our carrier to pick up in the morning, I was not aware of it, and the first I heard about it was through some very angry negative feedback. I did my best to compensate buyers with refunds or replacements, but a couple of people just weren't having it and the negative feedbacks stood.

As a result of the negative feedbacks, eBay's new DSR system, and my low selling volume, my seller account was permanently suspended. After learning this, I opted to close my nearly decade old account with almost 4,000 feedbacks. It no longer exists.

While eBay has become a shady place where I don't want to do business, there is still a part of me that mourns something I once worked so very hard to achieve. If not for ocd, I would have simply gone to the damn post office and there would have been no need to leave my packages out for the carrier to pick up. My customers would have received their items. My account would still have 100% positive feedback, and would still exist. Nearly a decade of effort and work is gone.

And that makes me kind of sad.

Can I Just Stop?

Sometimes, when I start thinking about how normal my life was just three short years ago, I wish so desperately to go back to that time. I wonder if it will ever feel like that again, if it's even possible. My mind wanders to the many people living that way right this very moment, and I wonder, why can't that be me? And then I think...yes, why can't that be me? And I wonder, between my handwashing ritual and the ritual where I need to bleach a spot on the floor over which I opened a piece of mail which seemed especially contaminated, if I could just do it. Is it that simple?

About 8 years ago, I was a smoker. A smoker who had long before decided that she would never smoke as a parent (because mine smoked around me and I was always sick and hated the smell). A smoker who suddenly found herself pregnant after being told it was unlikely to happen. So, after much deliberation on how I would quit, I realized that I was making it much more complicated than it needed to be. And I quit. I literally stopped mid-cigarette and just quit. Done. Was it easy? Oh, for the love of all that is holy, no. By the third day, I seriously thought there was no way in hell I could ever quit for life. But I never touched another cigarette again, not even once.

I wonder sometimes if it is like that, giving up the ocd. Painful, scary, empty in all of the places which used to be filled by old habits...but eventually it becomes normal again. Would it be possible to just do that? Has anyone ever done that?

Of course, logic tells me it has to be possible. Prior to my development of this mind-warping fear of contamination, I did live without all of these restraints on my life. I lived free, outside of this mental cage. I was happy. I did not wash my hands to the point of pain or even bleeding. I did not use so much chemical cleaning solutions that my nails were literally eaten right off. I did not have to wash shoes before entering the house, only to remove them anyhow. I did not check everyone I came into contact with for signs of contamination. I did not have a fear of opening packages mailed for fear of what kind of contamination might be on or inside of them. There were no "safe" places and "risky" places. And the worst part of going out of the house was poor weather, not the 3+ hour ritual to get back in the house.

I've never tried this. I've attempted it in bits and pieces, but never with full level commitment to doing it. Typically, it just takes one small sign of potential contamination to send me spiraling instantly into a cleaning frenzy which lasts hours and leaves my hands painfully raw and often bleeding. I just keep trying to imagine my mother, and all of the pointless stupid shit she did - all in vain - to appease her own ocd. None of us did those things, and strangely, we were cleaner and healthier than she was. It's amazing, that. The ocd rituals tend to bring more risk than just living.

I fucking hate this disorder. It takes everything. And while it is possible to get one's life back, I deeply resent the fact that I have to struggle painfully with shit that is completely normal for everyone else.

Acceptance

The jist of my former lost post was this:

The goal is not the absence of fear, but the acceptance that things can happen and that life goes on anyway.

Living my life in fear of what might happen is not living my life. These things may never come to fruition. Or they might. But either way, giving in to ocd means trading the possibility of something undesirable happening for guaranteed misery.

Acceptance. Not the absence of risk, but the healthy acceptance of healthy levels of risk. Yes, a few shitty things happened to me a couple of years ago. Some of them could not be prevented with any level of effort on my part. The things that could have been prevented required no extraordinary risk avoidance, I just failed to do the bare minimum. I put myself in a situation that was very likely to end up badly (not by ocd standards, but by actual standards). And considering the level of risk, what happened was pretty mild. The fallout was not, but that was all ocd.

Yes, my intellect works just fine. But the other part of my brain, the one which operates on more primal urges like fear, is having a much more difficult time catching on.

Acceptance. That is my mantra. Reasonable risk. Acceptance. Not absence of fear. Just acceptance.

Would You Like Scabs With That?

Oh, ocd, you tricky bastard.

It's become clear to me time and again that ocd does not want me to enjoy my life. It's like having a bully 24/7. Mostly, I am regaining control, but there are times when all hell breaks loose. One of those times was Monday, when some clothing items I ordered from a favorite store arrived in the mail. I opened the package, thoroughly (to the point of ridiculous) inspected each item, and placed them in the "safe" pile. And then it happened.

As I was unfolding a pair of pants, something was inside of the last fold which looked exactly like a chunk of scab picked off of a wound. I froze, broke into an instead sweat, and felt paralyzed with fear. Of course, everything in the bag was then considered contaminated, and every item was returned. I have no idea what that actually was, but it was disgusting. My ocd tells me there aren't many things which look exactly like a scab, but in reality I'm sure there was a perfectly logical explanation. But ocd wouldn't have it. I will not be able to order again from that store for a very long time.

(Edit: this entry was about three times as long, but when I published it, Blogger ate the rest of my f#%king post. I'm not pleased. I'm also not re-writing it, because I spend enough of my life redoing shit because of the goddamn ocd. I'm not doing it here, too.)

Band-Aid Success

My kitchen is clean. Boxes are dealt with as they arrive.

And today I removed a band-aid which has been in place since 2009. I cried the tears of a person being released from prison. Because, in a way, I was.

My progress hasn't been without difficult days, nor has it been particularly fast, but it continues to move forward.

Oh how my brain craves certainty. But nothing in life is certain, except possibly that one can drive oneself mad seeking it.

Some Big Stuff

Typically, when groceries come into the house, it is mandatory that they (the containers) are cleaned with bleach. This results in a nasty bleach odor, runny nose, and raw or even bleeding hands and fingers. But even soap was not acceptable. Well, no more. I started with washing just half of the groceries with soap, the other half with bleach. Now, I am washing pretty much everything with regular soap. Eventually, I would like not to wash my groceries at all, but this is huge progress.

In addition, I am now no longer using gloves to handle the laundry. At all. And while that went easier than I expected, I had a really difficult step backwards immediately after. I found something on my daughter's pants that I was sure was something awful. I went on a massive cleaning spree after that, including discarding the pants. Not proud of that. And it totally took the joy right out of my accomplishment (I have not handled all of the laundry glove-free in approximately a year and a half).

I am beginning to feel present again in my life. I'm not where I want to be, but I am feeling happier. I am beginning to enjoy things I used to enjoy before I hit rock bottom. I spent hours today listening to music and singing, and even dancing with my son. It was great. Smiling genuinely feels so good!

There is still the matter of my not leaving the house in quite some time. Oh, I have plenty of excuses, but none of them really justify it. The difference now is that I really would like to go out, and I am nowhere near as fearful as I was before. The weather just really sucks.

Oh, and I don't have nail fungus. I have nail psoriasis. Heh. Either way, my nails look like shit. One of these days I will polish them and take yet another step toward feeling like my former self. Not there yet, but working on it.

Out With The Old Obsession, In With The New

An interesting thing I have noticed about OCD, through my efforts toward recovering my personal control, is that my mind quickly finds something else once a compulsion or obsession is calmed or eliminated. My mind will literally scream at me (well, not literally, just in the sense of a very intense stream of worried thoughts bombarding my consciousness) new, random things to worry about. For example, if the price total of several things I am buying doesn't feel right, or if something about one or more of the items feels wrong, I will be afraid that something bad will happen. I have struggled with that one before, but it mostly vanished when replaced by the more severe contamination fears. It is attempting to return, which I take to mean that the contamination obsessions are loosening their grip on my brain. At least with the magical thinking variation of OCD, I was functional and happy.

A Fungus Among Us

I think things are improving. However, I do find that it is very easy to slip backwards and to become a bit of a hermit by not leaving the house. I suppose dropping the decontamination ritual upon returning home would eliminate the whole desire to stay inside (which, in turn, exacerbates the OCD). But that will take some effort.

I have decided to set small daily goals, even if it is something as simple as packing a healthy lunch for my daughter instead of having her buy those disgusting school lunches. It is something we both want, and it will help me overcome some contamination issues with the OCD. It is currently difficult for me to touch most things because I fear that either I will contaminate it, or it will contaminate me. Which, of course, is absurd. I need to start living my life again and I know I can beat this.

My current goal is to pack a healthy lunch for my daughter each day this week, in addition to the typical exposures I have to deal with on a daily basis using the 15-minute rule (wait 15 minutes before acting on a compulsion). The 15-minute rule has worked wonders with my need to constantly mop the kitchen floor. I managed not to clean the floor for the entire duration of Thanksgiving break (that's Thursday through Monday, y'all!). Five days - a record for me. My lungs are thankful, and my hands are almost fully healed.

Quite unfortunately, due to all of the handwashing and the acrylic nails I was wearing, I managed to acquire onychomycosis (a fungal infection of the nails), which I understand is a bitch to get rid of. It's funny, because in all of my efforts to avoid contamination of various sorts, I ended up with a friggin' nail fungus.

ERP Works

I think I am still in shock. Yes, all of the experts will tell you that ERP is the gold standard for OCD treatment, but when you are staring into the hopeless abyss that is the reality that becomes of a life turned living ritual hell, it is really difficult to believe that anything can set you free.

I am not free yet. In fact, I have a lot of work ahead of me. But doing ERP the way I am supposed to has restored something that OCD stole from me: hope. I have been able, through doing ERP, to do things I have not done in two years. I am stunned that this works, mostly because it feels so counter-intuitive at first. I mean, come on, forcing myself to do things that my brain is screaming at me to avoid? Things that the mere thought of result in my heart racing, my palms sweating and feelings of near panic? How can making myself suffer heal me? But it does.

Today, I was able to confront one of my biggest fears. Two of them, actually. Not only was I able to proceed with what I needed to do without getting into major rituals, I tackled both of these things with minimal anxiety symptoms. Typically, even after my rituals, these two things leave my pulse pounding and my breathing shallow and quick. Not today. And, at least two or three times, something happened that absolutely, unequivocally would have sent me back to do things over again. A couple of months ago, nothing would have gotten done tonight. This time, I completed the task.

Despite the fact that I am still in the thick of this and anticipate my share of difficult days and mistakes, I feel...hope.

Consistency is Key

If anyone reading this is suffering through the nightmare that is OCD, and you are wondering what the trick is to ERP, I can tell you: consistency and ritual prevention.

For a few months, I did what I thought was ERP. I would force myself to do exposures, then I would either ritualize for hours afterward or I would take days off between ERP exercises to "recover". The only thing that recovered was OCD; I was getting worse for my efforts. The experience reminds me of a quote that really stuck with me, though I can't for the world recall where I found it. It basically stated that you cannot recover from OCD within the parameters of OCD. It is such an important thing to remember, because it is 100% true.

I have been feeling better lately, but not without hitting a new rock bottom first. One day, completely undone by my own anxiety, kneeling on the floor as bleach dissolved the skin on my hands and knees, I was howling in agony...and still could not stop the ritual. In fact, the pain was so severe (my chemical burns were so bad that I was bleeding) that I kept becoming distracted and having to start over. I was pleading for it to end, and I no longer cared how.

Over the days that followed, I knew I had two options; I either had to take control of my life back, or the self that had existed for more than 30 years would cease to be forever. I asked myself a very critical question; Is anything worth this? Anything? And I thought about that for a while. I examined the question, every terrible possibility, allowing myself to become immersed in the fears that had spawned this demon OCD. And the answer, unequivocally, was no. Even my very worst case scenario was almost laughable by comparison to the hell I had inflicted upon myself for two years.

Now, just having this realization is not a cure, and the feelings don't go away. However, it has served as a catalyst for me to begin doing the real, hard work of ERP. And, much to my astonishment, ERP does work. It really does. I know this because there are things I am doing now with a fair amount of ease which would have crippled me with fear to even think about a few months ago. Often, I find myself smiling because the work is becoming less like work and more automatic.

I faced a fear today that would have sent me into days of compulsion hell. I still did some precautionary measures, but it was not a full-on ritual disaster and I am not overcome with stress and anxiety. That alone is amazing. I don't think I'm out of the woods yet; I will never underestimate the power of OCD. But ERP, well, it's pretty powerful, too.