As far as I can remember, I worried a lot more than other kids. I didn’t know I had OCD until around 2016. I became more anxious to the point where I started having intrusive, lurid thoughts. They turned my stomach and flipped my whole life upside down.
I had finally opened up to my loved ones about it and then started my journey to understanding, and tackling, my obsessive-compulsive disorder.
When people think OCD, they think of someone bent over backward, arranging their desk to look perfect, or cleaning spray and cloth in hand, scrubbing things spotless. However, for many people – including me – this is not the case.
It started suddenly for me, a fleeting thought, the same kind we get daily, ranging from simple worries that you said something to offend someone, embarrassed yourself, or that you left the straighteners on. But then there’s a tabooer side to it, the explicit and wrong.
It got worse and worse, I would have thoughts that I was an evil person under the command of my brain misfiring intrusive thoughts that I was going to commit something so immoral and wicked. I started, what many people who struggle with mental health disorders have, CAMHS and medicine.
I went to CAMHS for around three to four years and tried nearly every medicine for OCD and anxiety that was available to no avail. They made me feel like a robot who couldn’t feel anything. However, my fantastic cure was just another form of my OCD.
I looked for reassurance from people to help me deal with my form of OCD. Sufferers like me do not engage in physical compulsions, no need to flip the light switch five times or make sure all your electronics are switched off, we instead resort to playground ‘pinky promises’ or the age-old ‘swear on my life?’.
It affected nearly every part of my life, from my relationships with friends, boyfriends, and family as well as how well I perform at university. When I have any thoughts, lurid, vulgar, or downright silly, I seek help from the people around me which tires not only them out but contributes to my mental exhaustion too.
It’s widely misunderstood, passed off as an annoying habit or lack of trust in relationships with people, but it’s so very real to people like me. We chronically overthink and we try and help it the best we can.
In recent months, I have found that outright distracting myself has helped and offered relief to my obsessions. Going on walks, watching movies, playing games, listening to music, and the oh-so-expensive retail therapy.
This article should stand as an example that people with OCD don’t just clean, we don’t all say, “I’m such a germaphobe!” some of us have very cluttered desks and untidy homes, but we still have OCD, I hope this can be read as a teaching moment or make people like me feel heard.
I want to thank everyone in my life for helping me with my OCD, for putting up with me, and for always having my back when it feels like the world is falling apart in front of me. I’ll end with something I wish someone had said to me, you don’t simply ‘overreact’ – you do overthink, and that’s okay.
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