Along with Bipolar: OCD

 

Around age 8, I became fearful of bugs possibly being in my bed, and I can’t remember any incident that set this off, but I started doing a bedtime ritual. I’d pick up my pillow, look under it, then repeat a specific number of times. This is where my obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) began.

My OCD was pervasive, but not so pronounced that it interfered heavily with functioning. And I kept it secretive, not wanting anyone to know I had special routines to ward off the bad. As OCD rituals increased, I often didn’t associate them with warding off anything in particular. It was more about feeling anxious if the placements and counting weren’t properly done. Also, I don’t recall how new OCD practices were added, which was happening all the time, or how they might be modified, these actions becoming a part of me, automatic so to speak.

I had protocols to follow, all day long, morning to night. Most involved placing objects a certain way, lifting them, then placing them down again, for a certain number of counts. If I didn’t get the final placement right, I had to start from the beginning. All objects on a surface, shelf, or anywhere else needed to be squared up, lined up, straight, and centered. Other counting habits were incorporated into personal hygiene routines, preparing food and eating, getting dressed, really anything, and there might be tapping, prolonged rinsing, keeping items from touching, or other unnecessary actions added. When I could drive, I’d check the headlights, gear shift, wipers lever, and the level of the windows obsessively. Before leaving the house, I had to check the security of locks and make certain the stove and other appliances were off through a series of testing and tapping.

There was a manual in my head that I staunchly followed and expanded for many years, a rule for every action.

Somewhere in my twenties, while in a live-in relationship, I came upon a magazine article about a girl figuring out her OCD with a therapist and working toward recovery. In her case, she feared death or harm to her loved ones. That struck me, and I thought about that, and wondered what my OCD might be trying to repel. I gained some insight into the fear component, and even though I couldn’t pinpoint mine, I sought to minimize the habits I’d developed around it. No, it wasn’t about bugs, but maybe any kind of danger I dreaded coming near me. I never fully identified that, but it wasn’t necessary.

Around this time, my partner used a bench grinder to shape and smooth metal. He finished and turned it off but left it plugged in. My inner OCD manual said to tap the plug 3 times and unplug it. As I reached for the outlet, he commented, “It’s off, you know. Are you afraid it’s going to hop down and run away?” And then we laughed. And I realized I was not anxious about an incomplete OCD task. (On a side note, I was also glad that my OCD hadn’t been revealed, my action instead a moment of oddness and chuckling.)

That was when I began using humor to cut down on counting and tapping. I’d apply the same kind of jokes, in my head, as had been successful with the bench grinder. I also told myself that I could count 5 times today, and I better get the feel right because do-overs were no longer on the table. The next day I’d reduce the count to 4, then 3, then 2, then just allow a reasonable check, like a visual scan that stove knobs were in the off position.

This helped in my recovery, as did continuing to explore the origins of why I needed these rituals, as did reassuring myself that it was time to let go.

I gradually stopped counting and tapping. I loosened up. OCD didn’t completely go away, but it’s no longer dominant.

My mind sometimes goes to inventing rituals again, but I deflect that with a joke or shaking my head and saying no.

I have what I think of as residual OCD now. Objects still need to line up, in their proper place, and this doesn’t bother me terribly as the sense of order stabilizes me enough to take on tougher issues. I don’t fuss forever, as I did in the past, or return to a room if I think a book might be set at a crooked angle. Neatness does help me feel organized, especially helpful on those chaotic days when I just can’t find calmness.

And I know that good and bad things happen all the time, unaffected by imaginary rules designed to keep them away. My control over everything through patterns in actions is an illusion, my power through rituals a distraction from accepting life as it is.