OCD comes of age: My wrestle with the beast

We all have intrusive and distressing thoughts occasionally. Mary might see a woman on the news who suffocated her elderly mother with a pillow for talking during Love Island and think “Imagine if I did that!?”, but she’ll more than likely have forgotten this by the time Eileen Dunne moves on to the day’s round-up of Brexit news (as would most people). However, if Mary had OCD, she mightn’t be able to shrug the thought off so easily. She might fly into a blind panic, convince herself she had senicidal tendencies and that she was a danger to her 90-year-old mother Bridget and thus avoid being near Bridget and pillows at the same time in case she lost control and smothered poor Bridget! That’s OCD for you. The thoughts that OCD sufferers have are no more abhorrent or unusual than those that other people have and people with OCD are totally aware of how irrational thoughts like this are. The difference with OCD is that sufferers aren’t able to simply write off thoughts that distress them as rubbish. OCD involves patterns of thought that cause sufferers to attach undue significance to intrusive thoughts. These thoughts become obsessions that frighten the living shite out of the sufferer and this, in turn, leads to strong compulsions to engage in neutralising or avoidant behaviour. Giving in to the compulsions provides short-term relief from the anxiety but fuels the vicious cycle of OCD, thereby snaring the sufferer into a life of misery. It’s a cycle I’m all too familiar with.

I’m 27 and I’ve had OCD since I was nine years old. I’ve thus had it for eighteen years. If my OCD was a person, it’d be an adult this year. It’d be able to buy vodka and fags! That’s mental. It has waxed and waned throughout the years but it’s been a constant and malignant presence in my life. While I know there are people out there who are far, far worse off than me, I can’t understate the impact that OCD has had on my life. It’s caused me heaps of anxiety and sadness, it’s deprived me of so much happiness and it’s caused me to doubt my worth, my morality, my ability…my everything. It’s brought me to the edge a few times. But it’ll never win. It might catch hold of me now and again but I’ll never let it own me. I’m sharing some of the highlights, you might say, of my experience to let those of you with OCD know that you’re not crazy, you’re not bad and you are absolutely not alone. There is a way out of this torture and you can beat the bastard. This piece will also be enlightening to the “I’M SO OCD TOO!” brigade who think OCD is all about neatly arranged cupboards and symmetrical ornament displays. It’s much more complex than that. Anyway, here goes…

I was an awkward child who was different from my peers. While other boys were obsessed with football, I was running a shop from my bedroom. I had Visa/MasterCard stickers, a till, the works! I was anxious occasionally but generally pretty carefree. That all changed when OCD reared its ugly head. OCD hit me in 2001 following a relatively minor upheaval. At that point, I became obsessed with checking and re-checking that doors were closed when I was in a room. I can’t remember what I feared would happen if I didn’t but I was absolutely terrified of whatever it was so I kept doing it. I knew it was irrational but that meant nothing. Impending doom was sure to materialise if I didn’t do what OCD demanded. I went from checking doors to checking my homework diary repeatedly before bed in case I’d forgotten to do something and would be devoured by the teacher the next day- that had never happened before. I was a diligent child who didn’t forget things like that but it made no difference. I simply had to check and re-check as OCD implored me to. The more I checked, the more I felt compelled to check. My life became dominated by intrusive thoughts and compulsive behaviours. And so my wrestle with the beast had begun.

As a child, I was also fascinated by medicine. I loved picking our GP’s brains about obscure medical conditions and I had a pretty impressive collection of medical texts- everything from The Wordsworth Medical Companion to the BMA’s A-Z of Family Health. I seemed destined for a medical career. But in 2003, my pastime was infiltrated by OCD and the books I’d once derived immense stimulation from became tools of torture. I developed an all-consuming fear of my relatives becoming seriously ill, leading me into a vicious cycle of checking every ache, cough and twitch my family members had against the symptoms of deadly diseases in my books. I even started inspecting the toilet after a family member had been to ensure there weren’t traces of blood- irrefutable evidence of fatal illness to me then! I’d worry all day at school, spend the evenings checking, checking and checking and then I’d either cry myself to sleep or pass out with exhaustion. My anxiety and distress became so severe that I reluctantly decided to donate my cherished books to a charity shop so that I couldn’t check them anymore (I now know that such avoidance only perpetuates the vicious cycle). Goodbye childhood ambitions!

The fucker then took its leave for a year or so. However, it returned with a bang in 2005. One day at school, my art teacher was demonstrating how to model clay. As she talked, I noticed a knife beside her. It was as blunt as a spoon and wouldn’t have cut butter but that didn’t matter. A thought shot into my head: “Imagine if I stabbed her to death…HOLY FUCK…I’M A KILLER!!! WHAT IF I GRAB THAT KNIFE AND PLUNGE IT INTO HER HEART!!!???” Anxiety shot through me like electricity. I went home that day feeling like evil personified and cried my eyes out. For weeks, I was so frightened I might lose control and stab someone that I avoided sharp objects (a great way to get out of doing the dishes though!). This fear of harming someone exploded to the point where I couldn’t be alone around anyone vulnerable for fear of losing control and hurting them. Despite having absolutely no desire to harm anyone or anything, I’d thoroughly convinced myself that I was a monster and, as such, my trust in myself diminished. I’ve never truly reclaimed it. At this stage, I was referred to therapy by my GP and the OCD started to abate somewhat. Yet, it was always there.

The OCD fluctuated throughout my teens and developed into random and inexplicable manifestations that I’ve never been able to understand. At one stage, I felt compelled to re-watch episodes of Neighbours and Home and Away multiple times online after the original broadcast in case I missed anything the first time (unashamed Aussie soap lover- remember when Sally Fletcher had OCD?), thereby taking the pleasure out of them for me. OCD has a habit of doing that- turning things I love into weapons to beat me with. Yet, things got better during my mid-to-late teens once I’d had some more therapy, thrown myself into socialising and stumbled upon the delights of downing cheap cider in the park with my mates. Looking back, I was a bit of a dick then but I developed a stronger self-concept and emerged from my shell. The OCD began to abate again. I thought/hoped the beast had withered away. I got away with believing this for a few years…

I didn’t really do myself justice in the reputedly life-defining Leaving Cert. Thus, after a year of working, I returned to education in 2011 and completed an Access Diploma. Having seemingly overcome the worst of my OCD, I was able to focus. I relished the challenge and discovered I had a decent level of intellect. I got top marks in the course and then went to Queen’s University Belfast to study law. I was so proud to have accomplished all of this. However, OCD wasn’t going to let me have it without a fight. When I got to QUB, OCD made me believe that I didn’t deserve to be there, that I was inferior to all those around me and that I simply wasn’t enough. I then started to obsessively compare myself to everyone I knew there in terms of several markers of success, robbing me of the confidence I had cultivated. This inferiority complex got the better of me in late 2013 and I broke down. I withdrew from life for weeks and lay in bed crying and dozing. I was riddled with anxiety and my immune system collapsed. I had a flu-like illness multiple times from then until the New Year. My self-esteem and drive disappeared from under me.

But, I did bounce back. In 2014, I began intensive therapy, I learned to drive, I began to take better care of my appearance and physical health and I clawed back the self-esteem that OCD had stolen. I went into second year with a level of happiness and optimism I hadn’t known in years. I was driven, enthusiastic and I embraced university life. I worked so hard that I finished second year top of my class, proving OCD wrong. I did deserve to be there. But the fucker wasn’t done with me. Yet again, OCD turned something I enjoyed into a weapon of torture. I went into final year believing that I had to be perfect this year and that I had to get a First or it would all be for nothing. Thus, instead of being driven and optimistic, I was terrified and downtrodden. My defences were open and OCD crept in. I became obsessed with ensuring that notes I took in lectures were written immaculately because I worried that if I didn’t, I would misinterpret some aspect of them during revision and thus fuck up my finals. I knew that was totally irrational but it didn’t matter. I then felt compelled to rewrite my notes after each lecture until they were “just right”. This involved re-printing the slides, re-writing the notes I’d taken and re-starting if I made the slightest error. A one-hour lecture meant three hours of re-writing and several pounds of printing credit. I wasted two months doing this and slipped into OCD’s clutches again. It all got too much and I collapsed into an anxious, weeping wreck at a crucial time. Thankfully, therapy and tough self-love enabled me to push past this. I buried myself in study for the last few months of final year and I achieved First Class Honours despite OCD nearly derailing me. I’d won this round. I was ecstatic. I felt in charge for the first time in ages.

Armed with elation, I took up a graduate job with a law firm in Belfast. However, with the ecstasy and elation of my achievements, I let my guard down and became complacent in terms of OCD. I neglected my mental health. I drank and smoked many times a week. I lived off takeaways and developed a beer belly (not that I mind that as I’m scary-looking when I’m thin). With some exceptions, I got away with this for ages, even after moving home temporarily in late 2017. I returned to my old job in Derry and threw myself into saving for the next step in my education. Meanwhile, the carcass of OCD started protruding from the shallow grave I’d chucked it into but I ignored it.

Unfortunately, as you’ll have guessed, OCD caught up with me again. Late last year, I left my job to focus on getting away again- that’s taken longer than expected and I’m currently unemployed. Having excess time on my hands and having my self-esteem battered by rejections and ghostings by recruiters nearly every day sent me back into the cancerous clutches of OCD. Old worries resurfaced. New ones developed. My self-esteem and trust in myself began to dissolve. By August 2019, I was trapped in the cycle again. OCD was dominating every aspect of my life, from the minute I woke up until the minute I went to sleep. I trusted myself so little that I began keeping lengthy records of my daily activities to prove to myself that I hadn’t done anything bad that day. The anxiety of years gone by became the norm again. After a drinking binge during the August Bank Holiday, despair took hold. I felt I couldn’t cope anymore and I couldn’t see a future while I remained trapped in the cycle of OCD. I knew I needed help. I couldn’t bury the enormity of the problem any longer. Thus, I took the plunge and rang Pieta House. Within days, I’d been assessed and assigned a therapist. I began attending Pieta House in Letterkenny weekly. They were absolutely fantastic and kept me well away from the edge until I was able to attend CBT through the HSE. I began doing this in September and it has been invaluable. Skills I learned many years ago were renewed and I started to believe in a future that isn’t dominated by the tyranny of OCD.

As I write this, winter has landed. It’s dark and freezing. But I feel much lighter and brighter than I did in the height of summer. The OCD’s still there and my circumstances remain far from ideal. Every day presents challenges in terms of OCD and on an hourly basis I have to choose between giving in to OCD or telling it to fuck off. I don’t always take the latter option and even when I do, the anxiety rages at me for ages before it subsides. Yet, I’m getting better at standing up to OCD and the need to do so is at the forefront of my mind. While I’m far from being my best, I feel like I’m starting to gain control again and, as my wrestle with OCD comes of age, I’m cautiously optimistic that a bright future can be mine if I can maintain the upper hand in the battle. It’ll take a lot of tough self-love but I know well how important that is and I can do it. I might even be able to shrug intrusive thoughts off Mary-style in time!

Over the last 18 years, I’ve learned so much about OCD and about myself. When OCD has a grip on me, it restricts me like a concrete chest brace. It distorts and taints everything good in my life and traps me in an anxious rut. It can completely command me. Yet, I know that when I commit myself to implementing my CBT tools and to standing up to OCD, I kick the fucker’s arse and come out on top nearly every time. I’m able to embrace every opportunity that comes my way and to achieve things I never thought I could. While I’ll probably never be totally OCD-free and will probably need to dip in and out of CBT in the years ahead, I know I possess the power and the know-how to keep OCD in check and to cultivate a life that’s worth living. While it’s been a tough year, I know I can get better and I know I can get back to building the life I want. I want you to know that you can too. If you take only one thing away from my tired tome, make it this. While OCD is a powerful beast and it can beat you down like a ton of bricks, you are more powerful than it could ever be. You can develop the skills you need to win every war it throws your way. You can take back control from the beast. And you can lead a happy and fulfilling life if you’re able to fight and fight hard. The first step is to reach out, whether it’s to a helpline, your GP or someone you trust. I’m determined to win my battle against OCD. You can too! Take that first step today.