Intrusive Thoughts

I don't know how old I was the first time it happened, but it was before I was 10, and I think it was sometime after I started grade school. One day I was sitting and thinking about how, even as I moved through space, I was moving through time. In a way, I thought, playing with the emerging concept, it's like there's a very long cord behind me, that traces everywhere I've been. If I could only see it, I would be able to follow every step, every move, since the day I was born.

I sat there, visualizing this cord as a thin thread fastened to my back, an unbreakable track laid down over the years, tracing back and forth, crossing itself, twisting around itself, around me, wrapping around, under and through furniture and buildings, forming knots great and simple as I traced and retraced my steps every day ...

I started to feel uneasy, thinking about that tangle of invisible thread. Knots. That was bad. The thought of knots being created in my invisible cord made my shoulders feel twitchy, bothered me in some deep and previously unnoticed core. I had to do something about it. It was unbearable that there should be knots in my path. I had to fix them. I had to retrace my steps and untangle those knots.

It's called OCD, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. I'm lucky. My case is pretty mild, at least I think it is. I consider it mild because I've been able to keep it from interfering with my day to day life too much, without needing medication.

I decided to write about this because I ran across a courageous and compelling blog, My OCD Journal. Zakk does a brilliant job of describing what it's like to have OCD. I've really been enjoying reading it and I've added it to my links. He makes me think about my OCD, not something I normally do. Normally I just grit my teeth and shoulder through it, but he's made me want to write about it.

It's not an easy thing to write about. Like my infertility there's a lot of shame attached to the illness, in my mind. I don't know why. It's a physical illness in both cases. I do what I can to control things, but the existence of my illness is simply beyond my control. Life happens. You do what you can. After all, what's the alternative? Lie down and die? Something in me has never been able to do that - even on those days when I really wanted to just give up, some tiny spark in my gut has forced me up and doing, coping and learning, stubbornly ignoring my shrieks of protest.

The shame and the need to hide the OCD was there almost from the beginning. It didn't take too long before my mother noticed something was wrong. She gave me a funny look one day as I was carefully backing and bending to untie an invisible knot and in a wary tone asked, "What are you doing?"

I realized immediately from the sound of her voice and the expression on her face that what I was doing was not normal. Shame rose up and without thinking I told my first lie about the OCD.

"Nothing."

She accepted my answer but kept looking back at me as she walked slowly from the room. I waited until she couldn't see me to go back to my ritual. From then on I was very careful about how I untangled myself. I turned my rituals into elaborate pieces of misdirection.

* Yawn, stretch, twirl casually 180 degrees.
* Look casually behind me as if looking for something, keep going until I'm facing front again, look bewildered that I didn't see what I was looking for.
* Pretend to be dancing, pirouetting on the balls of my feet.

After a few months of this, I got mad. In a way I can't explain, this had never felt like it was coming from me. Or at least, not the me that made decisions. This was coming from my body. The part of me that thought and chose what to do was being forced into these actions by my body, and that made me angry.

This was my body. I told it what to do, not the other way 'round. I'd had enough and I was taking charge of things again. From then on I would resist the compulsion, the twitchy, distressing, worry, worry, worry feeling. In fact, I would even seek it out, deliberately tangling myself up and then just bear the feeling until it subsided. I was going to show myself who was boss.

It worked. A little. I was able to make the worst of the compulsions go away and I've managed them ever since with that technique. I'll force myself into the discomfort and grit my teeth until it subsides. It's great for dealing with the compulsions.

It doesn't work for obsessions and intrusive thoughts, though. Those I fight with regularly. I distract myself by thinking of a song or getting busy doing something very complicated. It's hardest when I can't do anything like that, when I'm trying to still my mind to fall asleep, or focus my attention on something important. Then the intrusive thoughts flood in and I wind up spending all my energy shuttling them off to the side of my mind, over and over again.

But, that's just life. I'm lucky things aren't much worse. I can even look at this and see how it has helped me be a stronger, better person.

Anway, go read My OCD Journal. You'll find it illuminating.