Category Archives: intrusive thoughts

OCD torture

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Through my website, I can see what search terms are bringing people to my blog, and this week, the number one search term was “OCD torture.”  It breaks my heart.  But I can completely understand and relate.

For those who are in the throes of such torture:

Welcome to my blog.  I know what you’re going through– I was there myself, only about 5 years ago.  And the torture was long-lasting for me– nearly 15 years of it.  It’s crazy how we can even bear up, isn’t it?  Sometimes I am amazed that I survived, was able to get through school, was able to keep my job.  Every single day, I hurt so bad.  Every single day, I had this feeling that something was wrong, something was off.  I felt frantic.  The weight of the world was on my shoulders, even from when I was young.  Personally, my OCD attacked my Christian faith and made me doubt my salvation, and that doubt is like pure agony to one who loves Christ.  So many evenings I spent weeping, almost keening, because I couldn’t handle the thoughts and doubts that were inhabiting my brain, burrowing into it as if they’d stay forever.

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My OCD attacked whatever was most important to me.  It made me think people were secretly against me, it made me think I shouldn’t tell my problems to my best friend, it made me think it was sinful to write (one of my life’s greatest loves), it made me think I was gay when I clearly was not, it made me think I was a sex offender, it made me think it was wrong to meet new people or to talk to anyone I didn’t know (not helpful when your job is recruiting!).  It made me feel guilty if I brought home a STAPLE from work.  It made me feel guilty and sinful all the time.  And TERRIFIED too.  It wasn’t always just a dull agony.  Quite often it ramped into a shrill, turbulent nightmare.  Overwhelming, engulfing terror would swallow me whole.  And then sometimes, to hide itself, it would make me even doubt that I had OCD (tricky bastard!!).

Notice I say it made me feel this way.  OCD, my disorder, made me feel this way.  The guilt and terror were not from God.  The thoughts and doubts weren’t my own.  They were given to me, like the ugliest of gifts, from my disorder.

I remember reading blog post about the unpardonable sin, thinking that is me.  I am in those shoes, and I will never be out of them. Guess what?  I have been delivered from that ugly hold OCD had on me.  I still have it.  But I’m the boss; it’s not.

How?  Cognitive-behavioral therapy, specifically exposure and response prevention therapy, which I’ve explained on my blog here.  Now, after twelve weeks of CBT, I have been in control of my OCD for the last four years.  It’s like another life.  When I feel guilty now, it’s because I’ve done something wrong.  When I doubt something, I don’t freak out– I seek out advice from family, friends, and the Holy Spirit.  I know my soul belongs to God.  I can look at OCD’s silly suggestions and see that they are ridiculous.  I don’t have to entertain them.  I can toss them aside like I never could before.

And my OCD knows it’s not in control anymore.  To be honest, it doesn’t even fight me as much now that it knows it loses every single time.  It knows I have the tools to toss it out the window, so it keeps pretty quiet around me.

Meanwhile, it is torturing you.  I hate that.  I want you to be free like I am.  It is going to be a rough road, but there is help.  Find a cognitive-behavioral therapist, buckle in, and do whatever you have to do to complete your therapy.  And when you want to quit, you can post a comment on this blog, and I will be your cheerleader.  Skip the traditional talk therapy.  You need someone who knows how to do ERP.

Start today.  It’s time for freedom.

Note for those without health insurance: If you can’t afford to see a cognitive-behavioral therapist, and if you’re ready to take back your life, you can try a self-guided CBT experience with an iPhone app like the one at http://www.liveOCDfree.com or by using a book like “Stop Obsessing!” by Edna Foa or “Freedom from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: A Personalized Recovery Program for Living with Uncertainty” by Dr. Jonathan Grayson.

OCD and suicidal thoughts

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Recently Janet at the OCDtalk blog posted about her friend whose obsessive-compulsive son had just committed suicide.  The post broke my heart.  It reminded me of earlier this fall in Boston where I met Denis Asselin, the winner of the International OCD Foundation Hero Award.  Denis’s son Nathaniel, who suffered from intense body dysmorphic disorder (on the OCD spectrum), took his own life in 2011.  It was beautiful but devastating to listen to him talk about his beloved son.  My heart is heavy as I think about these families, now missing an important member, and about the horrific pain that these young men were experiencing that made them see no other way out.

It’s a dark, heavy topic, but tragically important to discuss.

OCD is so often thought of as simply being neat or orderly– or sometimes even anal retentive about certain things.  Media portrays obsessive-compulsive disorder as a quirky, nitpicky, and sometimes comical disorder, but let me level with you: OCD is debilitating, devastating, and torturous.

Can you imagine feeling nothing but sheer, unadulterated terror for days, sometimes weeks, on end?

I remember some of my darkest, hardest, most terrifying days.  I lived in the Brighton Village Apartments with Becky and Tricia.  During the day, I was given the small grace of suspending my obsessions– at least enough to make it through work (most days– not all), for which I am grateful.  In the evenings, I would return to our apartment, where I would drown in an ocean of terror.  My soul felt untethered, lost, condemned; I felt the hot, ugly breath of hell on my neck all evening.  I felt unforgiven and completely cut off from the God I wanted so desperately.  (It is making me cry right now as I write about those dark days.)  And the torture of not knowing— heaven or hell?  saved or condemned?  found or eternally lost?  heard or ignored?– was the worst kind of mental anguish.

Those apartment buildings were built like an X, with the pool and laundry facilities at the center where all four wings came together.  I remember– and this is not an isolated event but something that happened every time I was in that third-floor laundry room– I would look over the balcony down to the first-floor pool area, usually empty, and I would think, If I threw myself off this ledge head-first, I would finally know: heaven or hell.  I would have my answer, instead of the torture of not knowing.

But what if the answer was hell?  I couldn’t hurry that on.  What I wanted even more was annihilation— to cease to exist.  I craved oblivion.  That is true pain for you.

I realized that I was already in hell– just of a different stripe.  I was living like a condemned person, in TERROR and heartache and loneliness, and in constant combat with the blasphemous thoughts that plagued my mind.

Most people wouldn’t have guessed it.  I smiled a lot at work.  I even managed to fool those closest to me who knew the anguish I was experiencing.  But I would look over that balcony at the hard floor, and I would think about it.  OCD is that devastating.  I believe obsessive-compulsives (even those who take their own lives) are some of the strongest people you will ever meet.  They fight a constant war.  It is no wonder to me that many want to lay down their weapons and surrender.

And yet, here I am, eight years later, happy and healthy and secure in my faith, enjoying life and friendships and a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.  I am not tormented by my own thoughts, and uncertainty isn’t anguish any longer.  I want to gently take the faces of the anguished obsessive-compulsives into my hands, stare them directly in the eye, and tell them, There is hope.  There is help.  It doesn’t have to stay this way.  I would hug them and cry with them and personally drive them to my cognitive-behavioral therapist.  I was once where you are.  Follow me to freedom.

If you are struggling today with intrusive thoughts, obsessions that plague you, compulsions that take over your life, THERE IS HOPE.  I promise you.  This is a disorder– just a disorder, albeit a powerful, ugly, life-thieving one.  Follow me to freedom.  There is Truth, and it is not what you are hearing from your OCD.  Rescue is possible.  Follow me to freedom.  Email me.  Joy, happiness, laughter, truth, peace, safety– these may seem like impossibilities, but they can be yours too.

suicide

hearing your story on someone else’s lips

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The week after OCD Awareness Week, I am going to be a part of a breakout chapel service at the university where I work.  (I am employed by Northwestern College, the most wonderful Christian college in the world … as an alumnus, I’m a little biased.  Ha!)  I am going to be interviewed by one of the campus therapists, and I am just so eager to tell my story.

I think one of the most helpful things for OCs is to hear their own story on someone else’s lips.

It makes us feel less alone.

I remember my first conversation with another obsessive-compulsive.  I was sitting on a dock underneath a sky of summer stars, and as we talked, it was like shrugging off a giant sheath that had separated me from everyone else.  I was not alone; this person had the same experiences.

And when I read Kissing Doorknobs by Terri Spencer Hesser, it was like reading my own biography.  It stole power from OCD, just reading that, because it showed me how not creative the disorder is … sure, it has a variety of manifestations, but at their core, they are really very similar.

And that is what I am hoping will happen for someone in the audience on October 17th.  For that person to say, That sounds just like me!  I am not an anomoly.

obsessive-compulsive since age seven

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My OCD struck at age seven.  Strep-throat-gone-to-hell and all of the sudden curse words were running through my head as if I were some foul-mouthed sailor, when the truth of the matter was that I was a shy (Yes, really!  Hard to believe now!) girl from a conservative home, who would have never DARED to utter those phrases outloud.

I began to worry that I would lie if I gave my opinion, so for a while, my answer to everything was “I don’t know.”  Favorite color?

I don’t know.

Did I like my teacher?

I don’t know.

Should we do this or that?

I don’t know.

Ridiculous.

I have this image in my head of running to find my mom under the clothesline, smacking my fist against my forehead, and confessing.  My poor mom.

I wish we’d known then.  It would be another fifteen years before my OCD would even be named, but I’ve wondered what life would have been like had we caught it back in the summer of 1989.  Drat you, internet, for coming along too late!

Every once in a while I google things like “my daughter is attacked by bad thoughts” or “my daughter has bad thoughts” or “my daughter keeps confessing” to see how quickly the trail leads to OCD.

My heart breaks for the obsessive-compulsive children out there, wild minds racing, hearts terrified, robbed of childhood.

Parents can look for the following possible signs of OCD:

  • repetitive confession
  • constantly seeking reassurance
  • raw, chapped hands from constant washing
  • unusually high rate of soap or paper towel usage
  • high, unexplained utility bills
  • a sudden drop in test grades
  • unproductive hours spent doing homework
  • holes erased through test papers and homework
  • requests for family members to repeat strange phrases or keep answering the same question
  • a persistent fear of illness
  • a dramatic increase in laundry
  • an exceptionally long amount of time spent getting ready for bed
  • a continual fear that something terrible will happen to someone
  • constant checks of the health of family members
  • reluctance to leave the house at the same time as other family members

I waited fifteen years to be diagnosed.  Just take your kiddo to the psychiatrist.*

*I’m not mad at you, Momma. 🙂  How could we have known?  You’re my favorite.

slavery and freedom

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Last Thursday and Friday, I attended the Global Leadership Summit through a satellite site, and it was incredible.  This was my second year attending, and both last year and this year were phenomenal.  Essentially, the Willow Creek Association pulls together a knock-out faculty of world-class leaders to speak; it’s like being smacked upside the head (in incredible ways) each hour.

On Friday, Pranitha Timothy of International Justice Mission spoke about human trafficking and about her work with IJM to rescue many from slavery.  It stirred my blood.  It always does, to hear stories about slavery and freedom.  I want my life to matter, want to do something important for the Kingdom.  I could almost picture myself going into dangerous situations to pull children out of slavery and get them safely back into school.

On Saturday, I met with a college student whom I have known for about a year and a half, a young man who is living in his own personal OCD hell and is ready to break out of it by pursuing cognitive-behavioral therapy.  We sat together, discussing OCD and how hard it was and how no one understands– but also CBT and how it can give him the tools to step from darkness into light.  I told him that in just a short time, he could be free from OCD’s reign, and I realized …

I am an advocate for those in slavery seeking freedom.

I may not be rushing into workhouses to confront slave-owners or holding children in the midst of a chaotic rescue, but I am a CBT advocate, telling obsessive-compulsives over and over and over again that this is the way to freedom.

I still plan to support IJM financially (and you can too at http://www.ijm.org/give), but I realized that my personal rescue missions will look a little different.

eternal life

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Price: “Eternal life is not a substance, it is a Person, and it is enjoyed by knowing the Person.  It is knowing God and knowing Christ.”

I remember reading this in college and having something click inside of me.  It’s not about Heaven.  It’s about JESUS.  Which is why my favorite verse is now John 17:3, which says, “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

It reminds me that my eternal life has already begun, since I know Jesus now and will continue to know him forever.

For someone who has religious-themed OCD and scrupulosity, this is like a rock beneath my feet.

OCD resurgence

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Happy Independence Day, everyone!  Interestingly, in the past week or two I have actually been experiencinglessfreedom from my OCD than I have in the last two years.

The curse words, the blasphemy are coming back … jumping to the front of my mind, just as they used to.  Not sure quite what set me off again.

No worries, I am not freaking out.  Much.  I am employing the lessons I learned from cognitive-behavioral therapy, using my self-learned narrative therapy, praying about it, and managing.  I have just felt so utterly free from it for so long that it is strange to have it all rushing back.  I hate it, but this time I know how to handle it.

An excerpt that is very similar to what life has been like:

I was distracted from thoughts of Matt by the responsibility of “managing” my OCD for two weeks on my own.  It felt as if Dr. Foster had noticed I had a garden hoe and then asked me to plow a ten-acre field with it.

I grabbed my iPod, threw on a sweatshirt, and walked around the neighborhood, treading the sidewalk with purpose as I re-exposed myself to the audio track and whatever muddy thought was slopping at the corners of my mind.  I felt like a new teenaged driver borrowing the keys for the evening, entrusted with my own mind and eager to show myself competent.  “Fuck,” I muttered under my breath when there were no other pedestrians near me.  “It’s just a word.” 

“My OCD wants me to think that thought,” I’d spell out in my head as I continued through the neighborhood, realizing that autumn’s chill had definitely hit Minnesota at full force.  “It’s not actually my thought.  I’m just the messenger.”

It was an awkward dance, one where I sidled up to the thought and tried to hold its hand.  One foot in front of the other, a stealthy warrior on a tiptoed journey toward freedom.

“Oh, you’re along?” I said to the black dot that was jogging to keep up with my longer strides.  “Well, keep up, won’t ya?”  I “dressed” it in a child’s train conductor costume and laughed under my breath as it seethed in humiliation.  “Chugga-chugga-choo-chooooo!” I said, pulling a fake train whistle above my head.  “Aren’t you a cute little conductor?”  It glared at me.

Another day, another walk, this time my little black dot in a Scottish kilt and a tiny tam beret.  The day after, a doll-sized sailor suit and white sailor hat.  It had toddled behind me, trying to keep a low profile, which was just fine by me.  By the end of the week I’d landed on an outfit for keeps—a pink tutu with tights and ballet slippers, which my OCD hated worse than all the rest.  I was bullying my bully, and it felt powerful.  Whenever my mind started to race, I said to my OCD in its ballerina getup, “You there!  Start twirling!”  And so it would, even as it boiled with rage.  “Keep on twirling!” I said with a smile.  “I’ll tell you when you can stop … little one.”

I felt an odd sense of control that I’d never had before, not completely free of OCD, but like someone separate from it.  I didn’t need to get my toes wet; I could stand on the dry bank, command my orders, and get back to work.