I saw this thread and figured I’d do a similar one about my OCD and how different OCD can be in different people, my thoughts on representation of OCD in media and how I got better and how I still deal with it every day. This is going to be a long thread. Sorry. https://twitter.com/shiraisinspired/status/1305226398387310592

To someone on the outside my OCD looks like “touching” as my doctor called it. I need things to feel even. If I touch something I need to touch it again. And maybe twice more because touching something four times is two sets of two which feels better than one set.

But it wasn’t just touching. It was every aspect of my life. I had to eat two of everything, I had to repeat everything I said a second time under my breath, I had to have an even number of things at the store. If I couldn’t have two of something I wanted nothing.

I remember the day I realized it had taken over my life. I was 9ish and I climbed onto the roof of a building at a park. My mom saw me and started yelling at me to get down and when I got down I realized I had touched the roof an odd number of times. I thought about it for weeks.

I was already in therapy for depression. I’ve had depression my entire life and that just feels like a part of me. But OCD felt different. It felt like I was crazy. I didn’t know what was wrong with me.

Unlike a lot of people with OCD, like the person in the thread I quote Tweeted, I don’t have any fears associated with OCD. I don’t think anything bad is going to happen if I don’t do it. It’s physical. I feel it in my body. I just need to even things out or I feel horrible.

I’m glad I don’t have the fears but it makes it harder to explain. Even though I manage my OCD very well I can feel it in every part of my body right now as I’m forcing myself to think about it. It feels like every muscle in my body is tight.

When I was about 10 my mom caught me touching. It got so bad I couldn’t hid it anymore. I don’t think she knew what it was but she found doctors that did.

Fortunately for me one of the best behavioral therapists who focused primarily on ODC in children worked in the DC area. I’m not sure how I got so lucky but he honestly changed my life.

I’ve never found therapy useful for depression because like I said it feels like such a part of me. It doesn’t feel like it’s fixable. Antidepressants helped but the therapy never did. Behavioral therapy for ODC did. Dramatically.

I was too young to remember all the parts of the therapy but I remember the first time we met he went to talk to my parents. He told me if I didn’t do any of the touching while he was gone he would give me $1. I wanted the $ so I just tried to stay as still as possible. I did it.

From there it was a lot of bribing me with packs of sports cards. If I made it all day I’d get a pack. If I made it all month I got a box of cards. I had a whole calendar I’d check off.

I’d fuck it up all the time and lie about it. But I genuinely tried. And when I did try and I got through it and the bad feeling eventually went away I realized it wasn’t the end of the world if I didn’t touch something. It took many years but I got it under control.

So you’d think this thread would be over soon, but I haven’t told you about the other parts of my OCD... the impulsivity and the guilt.

My OCD has this fun added element where I just can’t keep my mouth shut. If I think of something to say I just say it. It’s haunted my life. It ruins every relationship I’ve ever been in and it has cost me plenty of work.

If I do manage to keep something to myself, which I am a lot better at now, I immediately feel a compulsion to say it. I have this deep guilt for keeping this secret. I just need to say something even if I know I shouldn’t.

Again, I am much better at this now but as a kid I’d just unburdened myself and tell my parents about every bad thing I ever did. I couldn’t lie and I’d just say horrible shit all the time to people.

I’m still a terrible liar and I’m still say shit I that I think is “funny” when it’s just actually mean, but the guilt is very minimal if I can manage not to say it. The impulse control still sucks but the compulsivity is managed.