Category Archives: OCD

what it was like

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B.C.B.T. (Before Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy):

I was in bondage to obsessive-compulsive disorder for over fifteen years; I was depressed, overwhelmed, scared, sad, and I felt guilty all the time. I was terrified of thoughts and wallowed in grief and terror for over a decade.

Doubt and this lingering wrong feeling were the normal for me; it was only for small periods of time (sometimes even seconds) that I felt peace.  I worried about ridiculous things– like that I might cause someone to kill him/herself or that I would sexually abuse a child.  I wondered if Jesus was really Satan and if people were really demons, if everyone was pretending to be my friend just so that it would hurt worse when I found out the “truth.”  I woke up in the morning and felt sick to my stomach within a few seconds.

I worried about hell, about my soul, about whether or not my prayers could reach God.  I wondered if writing fiction was the same as lying and if writing about the hard things in life was displeasing to God.

This niggling feeling of unease was constant– sometimes it was at the back of my mind, lingering there in the background, and sometimes it was at the forefront, screaming at me like a siren that SOMETHING IS WRONG.  Peace was fleeting and momentary, and I had to keep asking after it: do you think this is okay?  Do you think this was wrong?  Do you think I’m going to heaven?  Do you think I should worry about this?

I cried a lot.  Sometimes I fell asleep with quiet tears, and sometimes I would WEEP and KEEN while my roommates could do nothing to comfort me.

It was a cycle of horror: I would obsess and stress about A Particular Issue for two to three weeks, until I had completely exhausted myself in every way, and then it would fade into the background.  But only for awhile.  It or another obsession would attack again in a week or so.

I felt alone and scared and not even the gentle hand of a friend on my back could bring relief.  I felt deep confidence that I was condemned and doubted everything else.  At times, I lost my grip on reality and thought I was really, sincerely losing my mind and would end up in a straightjacket or room with padded walls.

I felt hopeless.

A.C.B.T. (After Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy):

I hated almost every minute of CBT and (at the time) thought my therapist was a BEAST, an unfeeling monster.

But twelve weeks later, I was in charge of my OCD and not the other way around.  I knew that I had been a victim and not a monster.

I am living in freedom, I do not suffer from intense intrusive thoughts nor do I feel the need to perform my compulsions to relieve any anxiety, and the quality of my life has improved SO SO SO much.   I don’t have to confess everything all the time or seek reassurance from my friends.  I don’t doubt the tiny decisions I make each day.  I am okay with uncertainty.

And I know it’s not a cover-up!  I know that CBT didn’t work like a band-aid, covering up my problems and making me blind to them.  It worked like an electrician: it RE-WIRED my brain.  Now I can think like a “normal” person.

I still have bad days, just like everyone else.  Sometimes I am sad, bored, cranky.  I fight with friends and hurt because of it. But it’s all in the normal course of life; I experience these the way that others do.  I begin each day at zero instead of at -1000, handicapped so that I have a million miles to make up before I can even deal with things the way others do.

GLORY TO GOD for leading me to CBT, which has UNLOCKED MY PRISON. I am MYSELF now: joyful, creative, secure in my relationship with Christ, and not living behind a mask. My smile is REAL, and I love my life and my God and myself! I give credit to Jesus Christ for such an incredible rescue. Thank You, Lord, for two years of freedom; I am looking forward to an eternity of it.

Would you like to learn more about CBT?  I am happy to answer any and all of your questions with complete honesty.

as CBT started to work

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On Tuesday, the sky was ominously green as Sophie and I walked through the parking lot and into Target; it a way, it reminded me of the sky the night that Trapper called it quits.  Once we were inside, the tornado siren began to blare, muted by the walls of the store.

Stella and AJ Cook were in the produce section, checking for a fresh cantaloupe.  “Hey,” I said.  “Do you know what’s going on outside?”

“My mom just called,” said Stella.  “She said a tornado’s coming through Fridley.”

“Excuse me,” said a red-and-khaki worker to our quad.  “We’re asking everyone to move to the back of the store, away from any windows, for the next fifteen minutes.  There’s a tornado warning.”

Sophie, Stella, and I looked at each other; AJ looked toward the doors.  “I suppose we’d better listen,” he said.  And so it was decided.

We left our shopping carts by the fruit and headed for the back of the store, choosing an aisle of rugs and runners.  I sat down on the bottom shelf.  Sophie sat beside me, and AJ and Stella sat on the shelf opposite us.  Target employees were milling back and forth, talking into their walkies like police at the scene of a crime.  The atmosphere was dry, ready.  “I hope that everyone in the store tonight sings a song together before this is all over,” I said.  “It just seems right.”  AJ sat with his long legs sprawled into the aisle; Stella, beside him, had her knees pulled up to her chest and her chin resting on them.  “This feels like the perfect setting for a movie,” I said.  I nodded at AJ and Stella.  “You two are the Young Couple in Love.  You know, like in Armageddon or Poseidon.  The young folks so in love when it’s tested by tragedy.”

AJ laughed and dramatically grabbed Stella and shook her.  “You stay with me!” he roared.  “I’m not gonna lose you!”

“Exactly,” I said, laughing with the others.

An attractive male Target worker in thick black-rimmed glasses marched resolutely through our aisle, between our two groups.  I watched him as he walked to the end of the row and turned right.  “Someone should fall in love with a Target employee by the end of the movie,” I said.

“Sophie,” suggested AJ.

I scowled at him.  “Thanks a lot, AJ.”

“Or you,” he said, shrugging with upturned palms.  “Whoever.”

I sighed and leaned my head back against a black shag rug.  “No, it’s okay.  I will play the part of the Frustrated Writer.  The tragedy will be what shakes my character free of writer’s block, and the whole movie will be narrated by me, by what I write in the book.”

“Oooh, I like this!” said AJ.  “I dig!”

“We should probably have a dramatic scene where someone loses a phone call,” said Sophie.  “Stella’s mom calls back, and over the phone, she’ll hear her mom be … lifted away.”

“Yeah,” I said.  “Then Stella will go berserk, screaming all over the place and trying to run out of the doors, but AJ will hold her back.”

“I’ll have to wrestle with her!” he said.  “I’ll have to slap her to get her to focus.  It will all be so gripping.”  He grinned at Stella while she rolled her eyes.

“We’ll call it The Target Zone,” I suggested.  “Target Twister?  Bullseye Funnel?”

We continued to create an epic tornado-meets-Target screenplay while the muffled siren blared on.  And so we effectively entertained ourselves while danger swirled by outside, passing over our building as if we had blood on the doorposts.  The thought crossed my mind that this sort of thing—this Passover of danger—was becoming my new “normal.”  After only fifteen or twenty minutes, the sirens stopped, and the Target workers let us get back to shopping.  So we returned to our carts by the fruit, said goodbye to Stella and AJ, and eventually left Target.

“No singing, screaming, death, or romance,” I said to Sophie.  “All in all, a boring night.”  We both laughed, and it sounded like tiny bells ringing in the dark.

the Sons of Korah get it

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To me, there are two places in scripture that embody the depression and hopelessness inspired by OCD.

The first is in Luke 23:48-29, which takes place immediately after Jesus has died: “And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts. And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things.”  This one is more implied than overt, of course, but I can clearly imagine the deadness in the hearts of his friends as they watched their great hope dangle dead on a cursed tree.

The second is Psalm 88.  I’m drawn toward the Message version, and I used to sob as I read these words, feeling their truth weigh on my heart like the worst kind of pain and loneliness that existed.

God, you’re my last chance of the day.
I spend the night on my knees before you.
Put me on your salvation agenda;
take notes on the trouble I’m in.
I’ve had my fill of trouble;
    I’m camped on the edge of hell.
I’m written off as a lost cause,
one more statistic, a hopeless case.
Abandoned as already dead,
one more body in a stack of corpses,
And not so much as a gravestone—
I’m a black hole in oblivion.
You’ve dropped me into a bottomless pit,
    sunk me in a pitch-black abyss.
I’m battered senseless by your rage,
relentlessly pounded by your waves of anger.
You turned my friends against me,
made me horrible to them.
I’m caught in a maze and can’t find my way out,
    blinded by tears of pain and frustration.

I call to you, God; all day I call.
    I wring my hands, I plead for help.
Are the dead a live audience for your miracles?
Do ghosts ever join the choirs that praise you?
Does your love make any difference in a graveyard?
Is your faithful presence noticed in the corridors of hell?
Are your marvelous wonders ever seen in the dark,
your righteous ways noticed in the Land of No Memory?

I’m standing my ground, God, shouting for help,
at my prayers every morning, on my knees each daybreak.
Why, God, do you turn a deaf ear?
Why do you make yourself scarce?
For as long as I remember I’ve been hurting;
    I’ve taken the worst you can hand out, and I’ve had it.
Your wildfire anger has blazed through my life;
    I’m bleeding, black-and-blue.
You’ve attacked me fiercely from every side,
    raining down blows till I’m nearly dead.
You made lover and neighbor alike dump me;
    the only friend I have left is Darkness.

I praise God that he faithfully saw me through the very worst throes of OCD, and I believe that he will see me through whatever else lies ahead.  But I have known deep depression, darkness so intense that I could see no escape, terror that ignited my heart with a wild fury.  And he has seen me through it all.

There is hope.  Even though those friends couldn’t imagine it in their wildest dreams as they stared at that lifeless body stapled to the cross, the resurrection was just around the corner.

deviant ART
Depression_by_ironcpu

creative gifts from mental illness?

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I saw this picture online last week, and I wanted to post it on my blog and see what people thought of it.

I’m trying to decide what I myself think of it, especially as an obsessive-compulsive who is also a creative writer.  Do I believe that my creativity is tied up inexorably with my mental illness?  Would I be just as creative without OCD?  Do mental illnesses perpetuate the arts or stifle them, or does it depend on the person?

Before I went through cognitive-behavioral therapy, I used to wonder if I wouldn’t be as interesting without my OCD.  I don’t devote much time to thinking about that anymore, so this picture is really bringing up those old thoughts.  While I believe that OCD/mental illnesses can draw creativity out of a person, I don’t believe that it is the wellspring of it, by any means.  In many ways, my OCD hampered my creativity.  Now that it is under control, I feel much more creative freedom.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.  Mine are obviously not yet sorted out!

OCD shared experiences

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Last Wednesday, I was interviewed about my OCD in front of a group of around 100 students at the college where I work.  It was such a blessing to be able to share with them.  We talked about wanting to keep OCD a secret, about how OCD affected my relationships, about cognitive-behavioral therapy, about how long it took for me to find relief.

Afterward, I had a small group of students who hung around to ask questions and to connect with me.  One girl was crying, telling me her older sister had OCD and she hoped that her sister could “come as far” as I had.  Another told me that she had never had the chance to meet someone who struggled the same way as she did.  Another asked some great, probing questions about CBT.  Two days later, I had a mom email me and tell me that her daughter had come to my chapel talk and told her how great it was to hear from someone else who’d been diagnosed with scrupolosity.  I’ve scheduled or am scheduling several coffee dates with these newfound obsessive-compulsive friends.

The mom wrote:
I could tell it meant a lot to her the other night to hear that someone she knows, and is successful and enjoying her career, and has remained faithful amidst all the doubts scrupulosity brings is living an abundant life.  You are the first person she’s met that truly struggles as she does; someone who understands better than any councelor or psychologist or psychiatrist  OR MOM WHO HAD READ EVERY BOOK SHE CAN GET HER HANDS ON TO HELP HER DAUGHTER.

It’s sad, but it’s also true.  No one really gets an obsessive-compulsive like another obsessive-compulsive.  I am so grateful for every opportunity I have to connect with someone else who GETS IT.  We haved lived a nightmare together– while others only hear about it second-hand.  OCs truly share a unique experience of pain, struggle, and attack.

I hope that these new OCs I’ve connected with will also one day share my story of victory.  Please Jesus.

uncertainty

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I spent last weekend with my incredible friend Cindy, whom I know from Northwestern.  Cindy went to law school at Georgetown and now lives and works in Washington, DC, and she was kind enough to take the Amtrak to Boston to spend the weekend with me.  So, so good.

We did lots of fun stuff, but to be honest, some of the best parts of the weekend were just all the wonderful conversations.  You have to understand that Cindy is 100% brilliant, and you can talk to her about absolutely anything, and she has all this valuable insight.  One night, we ate a late dinner at the Cactus Club (where, btw, I had the most incredible chicken and avocado quesadillas), and we got to talking about Rene Descartes (since I had begun his book Meditations on the flight out to Boston and because he is playing quite a significant role in my YA book) and about his dream argument and the way he was establishing universal doubt.  It led to a great conversation on uncertainty and how healthy it actually is (in fact, it was the key to my therapy!).

Cindy and I talked about how certain statements and discussions used to jar us in regard to faith, but how as we got older, we both reached a point where we decided, “Look, I am committed to this Christianity thing.  I think it is true, even though I can’t really know that.  But I’m not going to be swayed by every new scientist and fact and detail and argument that arises.  I’ve made a choice and I’m sticking with Christ regardless.”

I’d like to hear what you think about this.  My assumption is that different ages will have different reactions.

Not to go all Narnia-nerd on you (but let’s be honest, I can’t always help it), but I told Cindy it reminded me a lot of Puddleglum the Marshwiggle in The Silver Chair.  Are you familiar?  Let me set the scene for you.

Puddleglum and friends are in the Underworld, and the evil Queen of Underworld is strumming her magical guitar and has tossed some sweet-smelling something-or-another into the fire, and the marshwiggle and his friends are falling under her spell as she tries to convince them that there is no Overworld.

“But we’ve seen the sun!” they argue.  The queen asks what a sun is, and they describe it as very large, very bright lamp.

“You’ve seen my lamp,” she contradicts, “and so you imagine a bigger and better one and call it a sun.”  The same argument is repeated when they bring up Aslan.  “You’ve seen a cat,” she said, “and you imagine a bigger and better one and call it a lion.”

But Puddleglum puts his foot into the fire, shocking him into clarity, and he essentially says, “It’s sad that if you’re right, we’ve still managed to make a play, fake world that licks your real world hollow.”  Then he goes on to say, “I’m going to live like a Narnian, even if there isn’t any Narnia.  I’m going to serve Aslan, even if there isn’t any Aslan.”

Cindy and I feel the same way about Christianity.  Now, don’t get me wrong: I believe Christianity is real, and I believe Christ is real and is alive today and is working in my life.  But I will allow for doubt.  Uncertainty in certain dosages can be very healthy, and I have made a choice to serve Jesus Christ, no matter what.

Thoughts?

 

 

A Night to Believe 2012, Part Two

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I am writing this post from the Starbucks located in the lobby of the Boston Sheraton Hotel, having had an incredible weekend.  My friend Cindy joined me in Boston, and I was sooooo blessed by her company; together, we explored Boston and Cambridge, including adventures like eating White Trash cheese dip at Bukowski Tavern, incredible treats at Georgetown Cupcake, and my first experience on the subway!

But Saturday night was certainly the highlight.  First of all, the International OCD Foundation has incredible staff members, and they made this whole experience so simple for me– booking my flight and hotel, picking me up from the airport (someone was there with a “J. Sommers” sign!!), and giving me plenty of time to explore the city.  Jeff Bell, spokesperson for the foundation and founder of the Adversity 2 Advocacy Alliance, was the emcee of the event, and he sat down with me on Saturday morning and asked fascinating questions about my OCD and my writing, putting me totally at ease about the on-stage interview that would come that evening.

The event began with a cocktail hour, and then the award ceremony began.  Jeff Bell is an absolute all-star, and he discussed the theme of OCD awareness week, which was “Dare to believe … together we can beat OCD,” hitting hard on the DARE, the BELIEVE, and the TOGETHER.  I cannot tell you how impressed I was with this man– I can’t wait to learn more about his A2A Alliance.  He has also written a book, which I’d like to read and review on this site soon.

After that, I was the first to share.  I read an excerpt of my novel, and people laughed in all the right places.  It was an incredible audience, a vocal one, so you knew when they were totally jiving with you.  Love that.  Then Jeff interviewed me on the stage about my experiences.  The only question he asked me that I didn’t expect was “Do you ever worry that people will think your fictional story is actually your true story?” and I said, “No, I don’t worry about that because I’m not ashamed of my OCD.  Neely has a lot of the same experiences as I’ve had … except she has a much better love life,” which made the audience laugh.  We also talked about cognitive-behavioral therapy and about how it is simultaneously horrible/incredible and how someone will know he/she is ready for it “when the hell you’re in becomes worse than the hell you’ll have to go through.”  It’s true.

Next up was Jenn Cullen from Washington, DC, who wrote a children’s story called Ranger Ben Discovers the Mysterious Mr. OCD, this wonderful story to help children with OCD feel empowered to tackle their disorder.  She wrote it for her son Ben, who was diagnosed with OCD at age 5.  He is 13 now, and he joined her on the stage.  Very, very cool.

Then we watched a film trailer for Englander Claire Watkinson’s in-process documentary called Living with Me and My OCD.  Claire is so talented, and I am so excited to follow the progress of her documentary!

Vincent Christoffersen from New Zealand finished off the evening with his song called “Till I’m Down,” which I completely adored.  Vincent is 21, looks 15, and has the maturity of a 30-year-old.  He had wonderful stage presence and everyone LOVED him!

They also presented an IOCDF Hero Award to Denis Asselin of Walking with Nathaniel.  Denis’s son Nathaniel suffered from intense body dysmorphic disorder, on the OCD spectrum, and took his own life in 2011.  Denis made a 500-mile pilgrimage from Cheyney, PA, to Boston, MA, for BDD awareness and research.  It took everything in me not to weep as he spoke.

Afterward I met him and was very impressed by his humility.  I also met Michael Jenike, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School (by the way, I just looked him up, and his CV is 92 pages long!  Intense!), and a slew of people who thanked me for my story.  It was a wonderful, well-planned event, and I enjoyed being in a group of OCs and awareness advocates, and it only made me want to do MORE.  I want to just scream from the rooftops about CBT, and I want to help the general public to understand more about OCD (unfortunately, it still believes primarily that OCs are just “neat freaks”).

This whole Boston trip was an incredible adventure, and I want to thank everyone who voted for me in the creative expression contest.  I loved-loved-LOVED this entire experience, and I am so grateful to you for making it possible for me.

On a sidenote, I really want to go to the IOCDF annual conference in Atlanta when it rolls around next year … anyone want to join me??? 🙂