Obsessively Compulsively Yours

Moving House

2011-03-09T16:18:00.001+01:00

Hello :)

This blog is moving house to...

http://obsessivelycompulsivelyyours.wordpress.com

Hope to see you there soon!

Addition - Toni Jordan

2011-02-16T18:13:00.003+01:00

This is slightly more difficult to do than I thought it would be – although there are all sorts of books and films which feature OCD, the decision of whether to analyse them carefully, dissecting every scene or to be content with a shorter piece was not easy. So I’m going to give this a go, and we’ll see how it turns out… yes, you did hear that right, I am introducing an element of spontaneity into my life.

So, today I’m going to talk about Addition; a funny, quirky novel by Toni Jordan. Let’s start with a quick resumé, shamelessly lifted from the author’s website –

Grace Lisa Vandenburg counts. The letters in her name (19). The steps she takes every morning to the local café (920); the number of poppy seeds on her slice of orange cake, which dictates the number of bites she'll take to finish it. Grace counts everything, because numbers hold the world together. And she needs to keep an eye on how they're doing.

Seamus Joseph O'Reilly (also a 19, with the sexiest hands Grace has ever seen) thinks she might be better off without the counting. If she could hold down a job, say. Or open her kitchen cupboards without conducting an inventory, or make a sandwich containing an unknown number of sprouts.

Grace's problem is that Seamus doesn't count.
Her other problem is...he does.

The first thing I would like to say about this book is that after reading, I automatically assumed that the author suffered from OCD – she explains it so well, the utterly nonsensical thought processes, the importance that the rituals hold and the way that it affects those around the sufferer. Not only did she choose a less well known aspect of OCD, but she manages to pull it off with humour, without belittling or mocking the illness.

Grace has had OCD since she was a child - it appeared after a traumatic event (which is revealed to us later on in the book) and has gradually consumed her life, leaving her unable to work (she has a Maths degree and worked as a teacher). Her OCD is severe but very controlled - by keeping the rituals to the maximum she is able to avoid much of the anxiety.

Her family have learnt to work around the OCD, and I think that they are pretty despairing. She has a niece who accepts the OCD as part of her aunt is a great character, providing a nice juxtaposition to the rest of her family. They obviously love Grace, but are unsure how to handle her.

And then Seamus walks in and sweeps Grace of her feet - and as her OCD becomes more and more evident, she is forced to come clean about it. I love the scene where she explains her OCD and how it affects her - it felt so familiar, especially the fact that handwashing came up immediately... I can't count how many times I've been asked about that!

Seamus encourages her to have some treatment, and when Grace decides to accept help, she is offered a combination of group therapy that seems to be loosely based on CBT and medication. I love the group scenes – the element of competition between the members, swapping tips and questioning how ill the others really are. The therapist is portrayed as a bit of a hippy – always going on about journeys and other metaphors that do tend to grate. I’m not sure that it’s the most accurate representation of CBT, but it made me laugh out loud at points!

Then there’s the medication issue – Grace describes how her head seems to split in two, a sort of angel and devil on each shoulder. I didn’t like this – I haven’t met anyone describing it like this and I think that it could put people off trying medication…

Grace finally decides that she doesn’t want to be cured – she comes off the medication and stops the therapy. The problem is that I just don’t see that this is a permanent solution – by giving in to the OCD and working around it, it just gets stronger. I have met people who don’t want to get better – who have too much invested in being ill, or who can’t take the risk that CBT demands you do and it makes me sad – you can’t want to live like this forever.

The main conclusion that can be drawn from this book is that we should accept people for who they are, and not expect them to change. Grace comes as a package – OCD and all, and Seamus decides that she’s worth it. It’s a lovely idea, but not really the answer when it comes to OCD. CBT is hard, but living with OCD is harder... and I can't help but wonder how long the relationship will realistically last - what is an amusing quirk at the beginning of a relationship isn't quite so sweet when it's three o'clock in the morning a year later...

I did enjoy this book and would recommend it to others... but with a couple of warnings:

1) Medication for OCD takes trial and error - if one drug makes you feel flat and emotionless then another may not. It can take a lot of shuffling and trying different combinations before finding "the one".

2) Living with someone with OCD is not that easy - giving in to the demands of OCD means that it becomes stronger and stronger, dominating family life, and fighting it leads to tears, strops and lots of worry...

3) Treatment is hard work, but it is so worth it. To be able to live normally, to have OCD free hours, days, weeks and hopefully months is fantastic, and it is worth fighting the fight.

However, after everything, someone with OCD is still a someone. We can get lost beneath the illness and just the thought that someone who is not related to me could love me, obsessions, compulsions and all is a lovely thought.

Obsessively compulsively yours

Bellsie

Representation of OCD in the Media

2011-02-02T10:46:00.001+01:00

When it comes to media – be it newspapers, television shows, films or books – OCD gets around, and I don’t think it’s always a case of any publicity is good publicity…

A huge amount of the time the character shows a form of mild and stereotypical OCD – whether it be washing their hands for all of two minutes, showing a propensity for neatness or, an old favourite, turning a light switch on and off a couple of times, we rarely get a chance to see the darker side of OCD. It’s important to note that one of the diagnostic criteria for OCD is that it takes up at least an hour of your day – it’s not a little quirk that takes all of thirty seconds and causes no anxiety.

I get that it’s not easy for the public to grasp that the young father who has sexual intrusive thoughts about his daughter is not a paedophile, that the child who is worried about killing his family is not a murderer in the making, but surely by representing the illness fairly, with the nasty bits left in, the understanding will come.

There are some good examples out there, it’s not all bad, but the majority show OCD as a funny, ridiculous twist to a comic character, or make a brief attempt at fleshing out the back story of the protagonist or a minor character.

So this is my new series – finding representations of OCD in the media and taking a closer look….

It isn't all bad...

2011-01-14T17:39:00.000+01:00

Okay, a sickeningly saccharine post coming up, so you have been warned. OCD messed up my life – it took away my confidence, my hope and my joie de vivre. It robbed me of any joy and screwed around with my family, but…

Yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking. How can something so horrible bring anything good? But it has. I have decided that Medicine is not for me and that I want to become a Psychologist – a pretty major life decision and one that I would never have considered if I hadn’t had OCD. I am more relaxed, more easy-going than I ever was before – whilst working on the OCD a lot of the background anxiety and social nervousness has faded. I have started to write again, taken up running, discovered the world of mental health and become involved in a charity.

And best of all? I have learnt who my friends are (yes, I know that’s an old cliché, but it’s true – the strangest of people stick around when the going gets tough) and made some new ones. I’ve seen births, pregnancies, engagements and promotions in the OCD community in the last few months – the most inspiring amount of joy when you feel that OCD is unbeatable. I have a new circle of people to whom I can always turn – who are thrilled to hear about the good days and ready to cheer you up on the bad days.

And best of all? Yes, I’m going to say it… I’ve learnt a little bit more about who I am. And that can’t be bad.

Obsessively compulsively yours

Bellsie

Keep on Running

2011-01-01T13:40:00.002+01:00

If asked to describe me using just one word, elegant, sporty, lithe and agile would be somewhere down the bottom of the list. Probably nudging skinny and loudmouthed. So when I finally emerged from the other end of the two year plaster cast and crutches saga and declared that I wanted to start running, I was met with surprise. And a lot of laughter.

I followed the Couch to 5k training plan - panting through the intervals of running and walking and returning a sweaty, exhausted mess. Now I'm training for my first 10k, which I should be attempting in March (although having taken 6 weeks off for exams, revision and Christmas, I'm finding it a little hard to get back into the swing of it).

I am not one of those runners that you see floating past you in their fluorescent vests and tight trousers - I lumber along like an elephant with a broken toe. It's hard work and sometimes I have to really force myself to get going, but the buzz that you get when you finish a workout is fantastic - that rush of endorphins is worth the pain and the sweat.

So what does this have to do with OCD? When I run, I think about my pace, about my breathing, about putting one leg in front of the other, about keeping on the pavement (I was pathologically clumsy). I have no space to worry, no time to count or turn things over in my mind. I cannot physically do anything but run. So when I'm having a bad day, instead of stewing in the adrenaline, I burn it - I run and I run, leaving the worries behind me.

I'm not a fanatic, I'm terribly slow and I will never be anything but an amateur jogger, but it gives me another way out, another tool to kick this out of my life for good. And that's what keeps me going, that's what keeps me running.

Obsessively compulsively yours,

Bellsie

January

2010-12-16T22:52:00.000+01:00

So I made it through the exams from hell without going mad. Cause for celebration I think. Unfortunately the lovely part of my brain that made me good at Physics appears to have fallen off whilst I was busy being crazy, but otherwise I appear to be in fighting form. Not pessimistic, just realistic about the results – I could have worked a lot harder and I could have worked a lot better but I made the decision that being in a healthy frame of mind was more important than coming top in everything… and I stick by that.

I have a plan… if Medicine doesn’t work out at the end of this year (I shall spare you the explanation but the French medical school system is fairly ruthless – out of the 1300 of us sitting our first year, only the top 200 will get through) then I will go to study Psychology. As I once said, it’s the blind leading the bloody blind, but I am fascinated and passionate about the subject (and God does it feel good to be enthusiastic about something again)

So that was the preamble that it took to get around to talking about what I wanted to – January is looming. The advent calendar is gradually revealing all of its secrets, the tree is waiting to be decorated and copious amounts of food are sitting in the freezer… and I find myself thinking about January. Although my OCD started when I was still at school and I was diagnosed and started on medication before I went to University, my first few months were okay. Not great, and I was still struggling a bit, but they were do-able.

Then Christmas came and I was pulled up in a whirlwind of revision and festivities (we don’t do Christmas by halves in my house), flying through into January and sitting my exams at the beginning of the month. Then came the turning point – a two week holiday where everything just seemed to fall apart. It’s funny – I can pinpoint the fortnight where my OCD stopped being an annoyance and became something that was ruling every part of my life. Suddenly I was plunged into the never ending cycles of doubt, ritual and fear, unable to do the simplest of tasks and literally a shell of who I once was.

We all know what happened next – how I gradually got worse and worse until taking the decision after my exams in May to drop out of University and (and in my head this always has a capital letter) Get Better.

Last night I lay in bed stewing in the exam flavoured juices, worrying about January coming. That I might start to lose my grip, that I might start slipping back down. Today, in my post-exam euphoria I know that I won’t. So this post is for me really, to prove to myself that there is something stopping me from falling back under the spell of the OCD. And there is – I have so many more tools to cope with this, I have better medication that is keeping me strong, I have a better understanding of how it all works and most of all, I am happy.

Because that’s what it comes down to in the end – the depression and the OCD happily chase each other’s tales, a dizzy loop of hopelessness and fear. But without one, the other is weaker, and now that my mood is so much better I feel so much more able to cope with the thoughts, to resist the rituals.

So wish me luck.

Obsessively compulsively yours

Bellsie

Because I haven't really forgotten you all...

2010-12-01T23:10:00.001+01:00

Well… shall I just apologise for that little hiatus or carry on as if nothing has happened ?

The answer is that a lot has happened and there are not enough words to express how different things are, a full spectrum of emotions have been played through and I find myself in a very different place to where I was a year ago.

So, I should stop being obtuse and come out with it – I am so, so, so (note that there are three there) much better. It hasn’t been simple, it hasn’t been an easy ride, but it has been worth it.

It didn’t happen overnight, it happened slowly but surely, bit by bit until one day I went to bed and realised that my day had not been ruled by OCD, that the horrible thoughts had not bothered me and that I know longer lived from ritual to ritual.

When I look back a year, to when I first started really addressing the OCD it all seemed entirely impossible. I screamed and I shouted my way through exposures, I cried and cried and thought that there was no way out, but with the encouragement of my family, of my friends and of my doctor, I carried on. Bit by bit, slowly but surely, the compulsions melted away and the intrusive thoughts bothered me less and less. You see (and I didn’t back then) I now understand OCD, I now get what everyone was telling me again and again – these thoughts are normal, everybody has them, it’s how you react to them that counts. It isn’t the thoughts that are the problem, it’s the meaning that you attach to them, it’s how hard you try to push them away, to stop them becoming real.

I’m human, I still have bad days, but I know that they are just that, a little blip and not a long, snaking slide down to the bottom of the playing board. I still have times where I worry obsessively, where I catch myself slipping into comforting rituals, but I feel as though I now have the tools to erect that ladder to clamber back up before it is too late.

I know there is a chance that I will relapse, that I also have to put the success down to the medication that I am on (and I’ll talk about them in different posts, this is my jubilant post, the one I’ve been waiting for) but hey, I still got here. I am back at University with a head full of ambitions and projects, no longer afraid of the shadows in my head and able to look forwards rather than back. And hey, I know I shouldn’t say this, but I’m proud.

Still yours, if a little less obsessively compulsively,

Bellsie

Driving Me Crazy

2010-05-20T20:20:00.002+02:00

I'm in the middle of a blip.

A couple of months ago I passed my driving test. It took three tries, which as you can imagine was a joy for a perfectionist like myself, but I got there in the end and the world was opened up to me - I was given a taste of freedom and I hungrily gobbled it up.

And then one tiny thing came trundling along and like finding a hair in a bowl of pasta, suddenly I wasn't so hungry anymore.

People die in cars. I could kill. And this isn't like with the knives - one moment of inattention and the world could come falling down around me. I could hurt, I could maim, and I could be killed. When buying my first car, instead of thinking of all the wonderful possibilities that were layed before me, all I could dwell on was whether it was within this metal shell that I would take my last breath, or even worse, kill someone else.

The problem with OCD is that once you let one little thought in they come rushing at you like a swarm of bees, each one with its own delicious sting. I made that mistake and I'm paying for it.

Obsessively compulsively yours,

Bellsie

Over to You

2010-05-20T20:17:00.002+02:00

I was just about to write a post (and don't you worry your pretty little heads, it'll be on its way in a minute or so, but I put the pro into procrastination)... and I was wondering who reads this.

So who are you? If you don't want to give away your identity (and I understand that) then maybe you could just post a bit about yourself anonymously?

Oh, and any ideas of topics would be gratefully received. Maybe I would post more then.

As ever, obsessively compulsively yours,

Bellsie

Keeping the Faith

2010-04-29T21:02:00.003+02:00

I've been putting this post off for quite a while. It's not that I'm ashamed of my religion nor that I feel that it isn't a suitable topic for a blog about OCD, but because it's taken me that long to work it all out.

Sometimes I think that having OCD would be easier if it were not for my faith, although I know well enough that it would soon grab on to something else, but I do find it unfair. I have had horrible sexual intrusive thoughts, terrible visions of my family dying, torturous hours of compulsions and yet it when the OCD latched itself onto my religion I felt that it had crossed one boundary too many. That there was literally nothing sacred anymore.

I have torn myself apart over God. Over being a good Christian (although I am yet to find the Bible passage that says that if you don't cough four times in a row you are a terrible, terrible human being with no chance of redemption). I have thrashed out impossible catechism after impossible catechism, the questions and answers tangling together into a thick rope that tightens itself around my neck.

And yet I'm still here. I'm still here. I still trust and I still hold on. And maybe I'm naïve and maybe I'm just being silly, but sometimes it just makes sense.

Obsessively compulsively yours

Bellsie

Where I Am / Have Been / Am Going...

2010-03-26T19:06:00.003+01:00

Yeah... so it turns out I was a bit depressed. Apparently it's not normal to want to spend your entire life curled up in bed, to be unable to see past four o'clock, let alone make plans about the future, to want nothing more than to fall asleep and stay that way.

Sometimes the OCD seems so huge, so utterly enormous that it eclipses everything else - and there was something else. The OCD explains the counting, the endless thoughts, the checking and the ordering, but it doesn't explain the despair, the utter apathy. Someone commented on my last post that perhaps I was suffering from depression, and the answer is yes...

So under strict orders (and quite a lot of threats) from near tetherless parents I mentioned to my Psych that I might not be on quite the right balance of medication. Turns out I wasn't. So she added my new best friend, Clomipramine and within a week I was feeling brighter, I was able to crack a smile without feeling like my face was frozen solid, I could think past lunchtime, I was actually able to leave the house.

And here I am, a month on and feeling good. Not only is my mood immeasurably better, but I feel so much more able to apply the CBT and make good progress with the OCD.

Not a terribly eloquent post, but hey, I'm happy.

Obsessively compulsively yours,

Bellsie

Back to the Future

2010-02-19T20:18:00.002+01:00

In five months time, I will turn 21. When my sister reached this milestone, two years ago, she was completing a dual honours degree, living in Spain and in a stable relationship. Where am I? Chronically single, living at home, no qualifications to my name and an unhealthy affinity to my pyjamas. Things aren’t looking great.

My grandmother, who is unaware of the fact that I am pathologically odd, asked me last week where I saw myself in ten years, and the true answer is that I don’t know. I am too awkward, too wrapped up in my own head to ever be romantically involved with another human (“Sex? Yes darling, just give me three hours to rearrange my shoes until they are perfectly straight”), the idea of having children (and I once proclaimed that I would have at least six) fills me with fear – so convinced am I that they would die due to either my irresponsible oversights or, even worse, as a result of my own violence that I cannot honestly see myself ever contributing to the gene pool.

And then you have the question of a career. I have wanted to be a doctor since I was two, and yet due to the OCD I messed up my first year so badly that even the idea of attempting to return fills me with a dread of failure. What about Psychology? Blind leading the bloody blind I hear you cry. I can’t concentrate, reading is a struggle and I feel as though my neurons have burnt out, reducing to a small, smoking ball of neurosis.

So where do I see myself in ten years time? I have no bloody clue.

Crazy Pills and Crutches

2010-01-29T08:54:00.000+01:00

Medication has been proven to be very helpful in the treatment of OCD, but it is a very individual thing. What may be a miracle drug for one person will be almost completely useless to another. However… medicine is not a permanent cure for OCD – you often only feel better whilst you’re still popping those crazy pills.

So, is medication a crutch? Yeah, I guess that it is in some ways. Okay, so there’s the argument that it is there to correct a chemical imbalance (which I totally subscribe to – I’m much more comfortable with this model than the psychoanalytical one) but people can and do recover from OCD without. But what’s wrong with a crutch? I’ve just come out of plaster and although I could have walked around on my broken foot, it would have taken much longer to heal and been more painful – and the same is true with taking the medication for OCD.

It is certainly not week to accept help of the pharmacological kind - psychotropics are not "stress -reducers;" they correct genuine disorders. Far from being a sign of weakness, it takes a certain degree of strength to admit that you have an illness that may need medication. Is there any sense in struggling through CBT, putting yourself through hellish levels of anxiety when there is something available that will make it all just that little bit easier?

In the end it is a personal decision – some will decide that they can make it alone (and I’m very impressed by those who do, but please don’t try to push me to mimic your bravery) and others, like me, will decide that we need that crutch for a while. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Honest.

Obsessively compulsively yours

Bellsie

On Crazy Pills and Other Magic Tricks

2010-01-29T08:36:00.000+01:00

I have always had a good memory – ask me what your phone number was eight years ago and I’ll be able to tell you like a shot, but there is one thing that I just can’t remember to do, no matter how much I integrate it into my routine – take my medicine.

On the day that I was diagnosed with OCD I was given a prescription for some anti-depressants. Nobody quite knows why, but at high doses these can be very effective. So off I went to the chemist to be welcomed into the world of the medicated mentalists.

First on the list came Paroxetine (or Paxil or Seroxat or Deroxat… whatever you want to call it) – not only did this do nothing for me but the side effects were less than desirable. If I didn’t take it for a couple of days then I turned into a pre-menstrual like monster, sobbing and screaming at regular intervals. Not surprisingly it was my parents who suggested that it was time to look for another drug. Oh, and you can’t mention Paroxetine without talking about the brain shocks… the feeling that small electric shocks are going off inside your head. Needless to say, this was another reason to change.

Next came the Sertraline – and this worked for me straight away. With OCD you gradually push the dosage up to the maximum that your body can tolerate (within the guidelines – you don’t just shove a packet down your throat) and this is exactly what we did. The best side effect of Sertraline? I am now a very cheap date – it takes just one glass of wine and I’m anybody’s.

Then there was what they call augmentation, which is just a medical word for when you add something else to the mix in the hope that it will help the existing medication to work better. In my case this was with Risperidone, an atypical antipsychotic. At first I didn’t want to take what I call my super crazy pills – I am not psychotic and even the thought of them scared me. In the end I agreed to try them for a month or so, and that’s where you find me today – still on them. They help to reduce the frequency and intensity of the intrusive thoughts and trust me, they are so worth it. Side effects wise they aren’t too bad – they make you quite sleepy but as I take them before bed that isn’t a problem.

So there you go, the ground work for my next blog.

Obsessively compulsively yours

Bellsie

That's so OCD!

2010-01-15T19:27:00.003+01:00

For the first time in my life, I am vaguely fashionable – OCD is suddenly cool and you can’t go on Facebook without being told that your friends are ‘so OCD about cleaning their car’ or wash your hands without being asked if you have what is fast becoming a desirable disease, so let’s get this straight –

Just because you colour code your Tupperware, you do not have OCD (although you probably need to get out more). You do not have OCD because you wash your hands after eating or because you can’t sleep if your cupboard door is open. OCD isn’t always having to put your socks on first or eating your Smarties in a special order, it is a real illness and do you know what? It ruins lives.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder can be funny – even I accept that some of my more bizarre rituals are laughable and so far from logic that trying to apply reason makes your brain ache. I get that you don’t mean it to hurt, but there are people out there who cannot leave there home because they are so terrified of becoming ill and dying, there are people who cannot cuddle their daughters because they are convinced that they are paedophiles, there are children who are so scared of killing their parents that they will refuse to touch a knife – there are lives that hide behind this witty little acronym. OCD means suffering.

Please don’t belittle our fighting. Please don’t use OCD to mean someone who is particular about the way things should be. Please remember that to some of us it isn’t a joke.

Obsessively compulsively yours,

Bellsie

In Which The Picture Says It All

2009-12-29T21:01:00.003+01:00

Okay... so not the best picture of me (and God knows why I decided to tuck my paper napkin into my top) but check out the knife in my hand...

Yep, I reached my goal - I ate Christmas lunch with a sharp knife.

And I'm bloody proud of it.

Obsessively compulsively yours,

Bellsie

Lies, Damned Lies (but no statistics)

2009-12-27T18:52:00.001+01:00

I am swiftly becoming a master of deception, a fount of knowledge when it comes to deceit and dishonesty, and do you know what? I don’t like it.

When I was diagnosed with OCD, my mother was warned about the fact that the avoidance, the hidden compulsions, the endless loops of worry would be on a far greater scale than she would ever be able to guess. She was also told that I would do anything to get out of doing my exposure therapy, that I would manipulate situations in order to avoid facing my fears. And they were right.

I will arrange to not be in the kitchen when the cake is ready, I will tell my parents that my bedroom is messy when it is not, I will “forget” to do an exercise, I will pretend not to count as the figures march through my head, I will pull my face into what is supposed to resemble a nonchalant smile (but is probably more like a squinting grimace) and try to look as if I am letting the thoughts pass through instead of wrestling with each one until we are both beaten.

I am not proud of these actions. I do not like this manipulating or the outright lies, but sometimes the fear is just too strong, the doubts just too powerful, the worries just too real.

So this is a sorry, I guess.

Obsessively compulsively yours,

Bellsie

A Load of Old Bollocks

2009-12-03T15:31:00.002+01:00

I am starting to see the light, it is starting to occur to me that these thoughts that march through my mind are exactly that, just thoughts. A thought is different to an action, and thinking something does not equate to doing it.

I have made huge progress with a fear that has gripped me for so long – I am now able to hold a sharp knife in the same room as my brothers. I still have the overwhelming anxiety that comes with the utter certainty that I will kill them, that I am actually a horrible, terrible person and that I have no desire stronger than that of stabbing them to death… but I haven’t done so, and surely that says something?

I suppose this is the point of the exposure therapy – I am testing out the hypotheses that the OCD has forced me to put in to practice, and each time I realise that they are a little more, well, wrong. I have messed up my shoes, and yet nobody has died, I have kissed my brothers just once, and yet they are still all in one piece, I have passed a knife to my mother and yet she is not lying in a pool of her own blood – something is not right here, and I’m starting to think that the bugger that is OCD has been tricking me all along.

I’m starting to think that it’s a load of old bollocks.

Obsessively compulsively yours,

Bellsie

Living by Numbers

2009-12-03T15:24:00.001+01:00

The human heart has four chambers. There are four horsemen of the apocalypse, four gospels, four points of the cross. It is considered as unlucky in Oriental cultures, as it sounds like the word “death”. In the English language, it is the only number with the same number of letters as its value. There are four movements in a symphony, four seasons in a year, four suits of playing cards. It is the smallest prime and the first positive non-Fibonacci number.

Four, eight, twelve, sixteen.

Four. The only thing that makes sense in this mess. My back aches and my eyes sting, but still I stay folded over the table, numbers pouring through my head and rice pouring through my fingers. I am hungry and I am tired, and yet I cannot be sure that I counted right, I cannot be sure that I did not make a mistake, that I am not putting someone’s life at risk through my actions.

Forty eight, fifty two, fifty six, sixty.

I am stuck in this loop, caught in the thick, sinking dread and drowning in the anxiety that fills every tightened muscle, every chewed fingernail, every wrinkle of worry. I have been promised a way out, I have been entranced by the magic pills that they throw at me, by the tricks of the mind that they try to show me, but at the end of the day I know that this is it.

One hundred and twelve, one hundred and sixteen, one hundred and twenty, one hundred and twenty four.

A self pitying sob catches in my throat and I hold my breath, sucking in the toxic thoughts that seep through every pore, the waves of concern that radiate from my frazzled mind, the shards of shattered beliefs and the pungent stench of doubt that surrounds me. I am nothing but a shell, a stage upon which the catastrophes and terrors of the world perform their well-rehearsed dances of despair, and yet still I count, pulling the numbers around me like a safety blanket.

Two hundred and ninety two, two hundred and ninety six, three hundred, three hundred and four.

They want me to let go, to release the last, fraying piece of power that I hold. They tell me that I am not responsible for them all, and show no gratitude for the protection that I offer. They tempt me with tales of unthinking frivolity, they lure me with talk of a future, they entice me with wonderful snippets of a reckless existence, and yet for them I grip tightly, refusing to let go. For them, for their own good, I let the numbers soak through my skin and into my veins, I let the rigid rules dictate the structure of my life. I hear their desperate pleas, and yet still I count.

Three hundred and eighty eight, three hundred and ninety two, three hundred and ninety six, four hundred. There.

And yet still I count.

Why Y-BOCS?

2009-11-20T20:24:00.002+01:00

The spectrum of severity and the need to test treatments for OCD underlines the importance of reliable and valid scales when it comes to rating the symptoms. It needs to be sensitive to the slight changes in severity and frequence of both obsessions and compulsions, and currently only one scale seems to encompass this definition - the Yale Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale, or Y-BOCS.

There are two other rating scales used in the diagnosis and treatment of OCD - the Maudsley and the Leyton Obsessive Compulsive Inventories, but these depend on self rating and confound measurement of trait with other variables. The Y-BOCS is not influenced by the number or type of obsessions and compulsions, and rather than cataloguing the symtoms experienced, it analyses the impact on the sufferer's life and the resulting anxiety.

The intended use of the Y-BOCS is the quantification of symptom severity in patients diagnosed with OCD and their response to treatment - it is not designed as a diagnostic test. Symptoms are assessed with regard to the amount of time spent daily on obsessions and compulsions, the interference that this provokes, the subjective distress that is caused and the resistance that the sufferer is able to show when faced with both are measured on the scale.

At the end of the day, no scale is perfect, but I think that the Y-BOCS is an efficient tool for the monitoring of progress - by applying the scale every now and then, it is possible to see even the smallest of steps, and I think that's important.

Obsessively compulsively yours,

Bellsie

Stigma

2009-11-11T18:59:00.002+01:00

Last week my grandmother phoned to tell me that she was taking me on holiday for two weeks in February, and yet rather than the unadulterated pleasure that this should have caused me, instead I was filled with fear. She doesn’t know that I have OCD.

The stigma attached to mental illness includes the attitudes, feelings and behaviours that occur when a label is placed on an individual or a group, when they possess an undesirable characteristic, when they are seen as crazy, mad or just different. It is debilitating and upsetting, and in some cases, worse than the illness itself. It means that many sufferers fail to seek help, or are reluctant to share their experiences with others, and worst of all, it means that we feel ashamed.

I’ve been lucky – the majority of my friends have been very supportive, but stigma doesn’t necessarily translate itself into pure hostility. For how long will I be thought of us weak – one friend asked me if I thought that I would be able to go back to Medicine – for how long will I be thought of as the girl with OCD, for how long will my illness overshadow my achievements and opinions, how long will I be stuck with this label on my forehead?

How can stigma be addressed? By providing public education for sure, by assuring a fair portrayal in the media and working on awareness, but shouldn’t we start a little closer to home? Should we not take a stand at the root of the problem, by ‘coming out’ as mentally ill, by being brave and not caring about the consequences?

I am, I have to admit, a hypocrite. A few weeks ago I was interviewed for a podcast for OCD sufferers, but am I going to post my episode on Facebook, or email it to my friends? No, because I’m too ashamed, too scared of their reactions, so once again I will hide this huge part of me, stand in front of it and pretend that it isn’t there.

And that’s sad, I think.

Obsessively compulsively yours,

Bellsie

Keeping it in the Family

2009-11-06T19:14:00.002+01:00

Last night I made a huge advance in my exposure therapy. I only kissed my youngest brother once before bed, rather than the usual requisite of twice. I cried, I screamed and I shouted, but I did not give in. The thing is, I would be prouder of myself, I would think more of this achievement if it were not for the fact that I did all of this in front of my family.

I think that it’s pretty well accepted that mental illness does not pick and choose – anyone from David Beckham (yes, another OCD sufferer) to the girl down the road can be struck down by an invisible illness. The thing that has got me thinking is the affect that this has on the family, on those that care for and love the crazy people of this world.

Whether it’s the endless reassurance that I demand in order to satiate the dragging doubt or the complicity in my rituals that I require, they certainly don’t get an easy ride. I will never have enough words to tell them, but I appreciate the fact that my mother will reply to the endless questions that I ask, repeating again and again that yes, it is off, I am thankful that my father will push me into doing the exposure therapy, that he will challenge me and yet give me a great big hug when I do make it. I will never be able to thank my youngest brother enough – at the age of ten and without any understanding of the condition he is my greatest cheerleader.

They live with this illness just as much as I do; they sit through the anxiety with me and celebrate when it falls, they calm me when I cannot breathe, so tight is the worry that squeezes me, they laugh with me when I need cheering up, they give me a kick when I don’t want to face my fears. And for that I am truly grateful. And truly sorry.

Obsessively compulsively yours,

Bellsie

Acceptance

2009-10-21T19:40:00.001+02:00

God grant me the serenity to
accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
- The Serenity Prayer, AA

I have OCD. It isn't fair, and yet it is not unfair - tiny flaws in the biochemistry of my brain means that I live with a chronic and debiliating condition.

Change cannot happen without acceptance - I cannot recover without first accepting that I was ill in the first place. Perhaps I am not a sick, homicidal maniac just about to break free of my inhibitions and kill everyone in sight, perhaps I am poorly. Perhaps I am not responsible for everything that surrounds me, blessed with a God like power, perhaps I just have a disorder that means that sometimes I have a hard time working out that my presence and actions have a limited effect.

I suppose that at the end of the day this elusive acceptance means coming to terms with the fact that this world is not perfect and nor am I, that I must live in the present rather than ruminating over the past and worrying about the future. Instead of using all my physical and mental energy to control the uncontrollable it is time for me to make some goals, to start the hard and long journey to the new, OCD free me.

It is not that I am not up for a challenge and my competitive spirit is itching to get out, to attack the progress charts that are lurking inside my computer, it is just that there is this tricky acceptance thing in the way.

Obsessively compulsively yours,

Bellsie

In Five Years Time

2009-10-21T19:04:00.000+02:00

Where will I be in five years time? Perhaps I’ll be studying to become a doctor, working long hours and socialising hard, doing the job that I dreamt about for so many years. Perhaps I’ll have decided that Medicine is not the future that it promised to be and have transferred to a different course. Maybe I’ll be studying for my masters, or teaching or nursing or any multitude of possibilities.

Perhaps I’ll be better.

Perhaps I won't.

Keep On Taking Those Crazy Pills (appt n°2)

2009-10-15T16:14:00.003+02:00

(Just found this on my Blogger dashboard - I forgot to post it last Friday. It was written when I was still quite low and is therefore a little slow and clumsy, but I'd rather leave it that way)

It is once again Friday and therefore once again time for me to step into Dr T's immaculately furnished room.

"So, today I want to know a little more about Bellsie!" She exclaims perkily, causing me to shrink into my chair with more than a little doubt clawing at my mind. Please don't tell me that she's going to go into the pyschoanalytical area that I was dreading. I'm afraid that I don't believe that the reason that I have OCD is because my father looks a little too like my goldfish - I am strongly on the neurological side of the fence.

As it turns out she only wants me to describe myself so I try to drag myself from the lethargy and despair that has been consuming me (yes, I know that it's my fault for not telling her last time that I was on medication and that it was not working) and manage an adjective. Serious. She smiles and writes it down. Not stupid, I add, but not clever either. She nods again. I stop - that's about it really.

This obviously is not enough. She continues to poke various adjectives at me, offering each one to me with an inquisitive frown. Spontaneous? I shake my head vigorously. Loyal? I nod. And so it goes on.

Why do I feel that my OCD has taken the form that it has? I proffer my own favoured explanation - the reason that my main fear is of accidents and catastrophes, the reason why my head is filled with images of my family dying in horrendous circumstances, the reason that I fear hurting someone so very much - my eldest brother had an accident about five years ago. She asks a little more about this event and I dutifully talk her through the whole ribbon of head injuries and helicopters, of bikes and brains until she seems satisfied.

The question of medication is finally raised. Would I consider taking something? I feel that it is time to come clean and therefore admit that I am taking an SSRI (a type of antidepressant). She explains that the reason that it is not working is that I am on too low a dose - with OCD you have to go for the higher end of the spectrum. She decides to add another medication to the cocktail, another form of crazy pills. I leave happily, prescription in hand.

I like her, I really do. I'm just not feeling like liking anybody at the moment.

Obsessively compulsively yours,

Bellsie

Who is this for?

2009-10-15T16:12:00.001+02:00

I want to write about the Y-BOCS (the scale that is used for evaluating OCD), I want to write about the biology of OCD, about the medication that is used to treat it, about how I’m doing with my CBT. However, I am more and more drawn to the idea of using the blog as a confessional, to share with you all (well, the one or two that will read this) how I really feel and not just the “I’m fine” that I casually throw to my parents or my psychiatrist.

There is a problem. I have reached a point where I have to consider my audience – who is reading this? When I started writing this blog I sent the address to a few carefully selected individuals who were aware that I had a problem – friends and family members, but it’s not really meant for them. What was originally going to be a tool with which to better explain what OCD actually is and how it affects my life is in danger of becoming a soup of introspection and self pitying posts, but do I really want a friend to know that I have obsessions about killing them? It is likely that they will not understand that this obsession is as unfounded as the rest of the bunch that I keep tied up in my muddled brain and could perhaps (and not entirely without reason) be more than a little startled.

Ah, the refreshing debates sparked by modern technology!

Obsessively compulsively yours,

Bellsie

Feeling Blue

2009-10-14T19:51:00.002+02:00

I have come to the decision that there is more to life than this. I know that doesn’t sound earth shattering, I know that most of you are probably sitting back and wondering how it took me twenty years to realize it, but to me it signals something pretty big.
I want to live. I want to get better. I want to have a career, a family; I actually wouldn’t mind a social life. Okay, so maybe that’s going a bit far, but I certainly want the first two. I do not want to wallow in this toxically inebriating self pity for the rest of my life.

So where has this come from? I was very low last week and I felt that I had no future, that I was

drifting along in a worthless body, empty of spirit and full of worry, too heavy to carry on and yet to light to sink in to the real stuff. I remembered what another mental health blogger, Seaneen had always said – when you feel like ending it all, give it a month. In my case a week sufficed. I don’t want to die anymore.

Suicidal thoughts still hold such stigma – it wasn’t that long ago that suicide was still illegal. Why is it that we can talk openly about sexuality, about our views on everything from politics to the mind numbingly boring, about religion and beliefs, and yet when it comes to a matter of life or death, when we feel like we are not made for this world and wouldn’t mind taking our chances in the next, people clam up and turn away?

After seeing my psychiatrist on Friday I am now taking a new medication as well as an increased dose of my older SSRI – I will go into this more in a later post as although I find Neurobiochemistry thrilling, I understand that I am probably alone. Anyway, suffice to say I am feeling a lot better – I don’t know if it’s the medication, a sort of placebo effect or just the natural course of my OCD and the depression that clutches so tightly to it, but I am able once again to smile.

As it turns out, I do have something for live for. I have a new cousin, a beautiful little girl. She’s the most perfect little thing and I want to be in her life. Oh, and a certain someone from Australia surfaced in my kitchen this evening, completely unexpected and yet completely perfectly on time.

Obsessively, compulsively yours,

Bellsie

In Charge (Hyper-responsibility)

2009-09-30T09:24:00.003+02:00

Have you ever really thought about what you’re responsible for? I mean really analysed it? If you agree to lock up for the night, are you responsible you accidentally leave a window open and are burgaled? Is it your fault if you do not wash your hands after seeing a friend who is ill with a cold and then pass the virus on to your family? Would you say that you were responsible for an accident because you had not neutralized an intrusive thought?

As you can see, the line between normal behaviour and hyper-responsibility is very blurred and only becomes more so when you start to think about it. Unfortunately for those who suffer from OCD this is exactly what happens – a vicious circle of analysis of thoughts and guilt over past, present and even future behaviour that literally feeds the OCD.

We are tricked into believing that we have a powerful and quite ridiculous ability to influence and therefore either cause or prevent “bad things” from happening. CBT attempts to reattribute at least some of the responsibility that sits squarely on an OCD sufferers shoulders by showing the limited effect that we can have on these situations – if a burglar has decided to break in then he is unlikely to be deterred by a locked door – it therefore makes no difference how many times we have checked that it is locked.

Then there is the fascinating “thought-action fusion” which is just psychospeak for the belief that the mere presence of an intrusive thought will trigger the feared action – if I have an image of myself stabbing someone then I feel that this is a sure sign that I am not only capable of doing so, but also that I have a secret desire to - I am therefore obliged to control these thoughts, to suppress them or neutralise them... it is my responsibility.

You can try to get over these feelings, the scrutiny of the consequences of every action by passing the responsibility on to someone else – the avoidance that I talked about before. This is not a solution – more a sticking plaster than a cure and is unhelpful for everyone involved. The only answer is to accept that most of these "bad things" happen only because we are in the wrong place at the wrong time and that we have a very limited influence on the course that life takes.

I'm not quite there yet.

Obsessively compulsively yours,

Bellsie

First Impressions (Appt n°1)

2009-09-26T16:14:00.002+02:00

Well, I had my first appointment with my new psychiatrist on Tuesday... let's call her Dr T.

She certainly wasn't what I was expecting - she's neither young nor old and was dressed in lime green. We went through the basics - name, age etc. and she asked about family relations... she had no idea why I was there! Anyway, I put her out of her misery and came clean about the OCD.

I had printed off what I call my crazy list - my hierachy of compulsions. We went through them one by one and she was great - irreverant, funny and relaxed. She asked if I was ready to work with her, and warned me that it would not be easy.

Anyway, that's about it for now. Not a terribly articulate post, but it needed to be said.

Obsessing over Obsessions

2009-09-22T19:31:00.003+02:00

The most well known facet of OCD is that of the compulsions performed in order to alleviate the anxiety - we all have a mental image (although some of us are more mental than others) of the typical OCD sufferer - an uptight, anal misfit washing their hands again and again, measuring the gaps between the droplets of water on the shower door, checking that the door is locked until the handle droops with despair.

This, however, is but one image of OCD. The illness is comprised of two different problems - the obsessively disturbing thoughts that the sufferer cannot control, not matter how hard he tries (and the harder you try, the more power they gain) and the compulsive actions that everybody recognises.

Everybody has intrusive thoughts - everyone has imagined throwing themselves under a train impulsively, everyone has done a spontaneous U-turn on their way out in order to check that they have turned the oven off, but it is what you do with this thought that counts (pun not intended)

With OCD these thoughts are not everyday worries or horrible images in your mind, they are associated with the misguided belief that we are somehow able to stop harm from occuring, that we have the power to control these events. By ascribing such power to meaningless thoughts, we try too hard to stop the "bad thing" from happening - this is where the compulsions come in. This hyper-responsibility is the very essence of OCD, and I'll come back to it in a future post.

In giving these thoughts the attention and importance that they crave, the sufferer ends up in a vicious circle - the intrusions become more frequent and more distressing.

Most sufferers (it can be different in children) recognise that the obsessions are ridiculous - this is known as insight in the mental health world (the nice people in white coats that look after us crazy people). I know, for example, that I am not a violent person and that I will not kill my brother, however I refuse to touch a sharp knife, consumed by the anxiety that this situation generates. The "what if"s dominate my life and mean that I am trapped in the hell that is OCD, and the only way out is by testing these hypotheses, by proving to myself that these horrific thoughts and images will not "come true".

It's not as easy as it sounds.

Obsessively compulsively yours,

Bellsie

Just In Case (Avoiding Avoidance)

2009-09-13T20:28:00.002+02:00

I love to bake. Cakes, biscuits or buns, I find a real pleasure in seeing the mixture turn into something delicious. However, the minute they are ready, I have to call my father to come and turn off the oven.

Avoidance is an integral and yet oft forgotten part of OCD. When avoidance increases, compulsions decrease – this seesawing problem fuels the disease and means that it is often difficult to tackle. For me, this largely manifests itself in my checking compulsions – if someone else switches the iron off, or turns the knob on the oven, if it is somebody else locking the door, then the responsibility is no longer mine. This starts a vicious circle of avoidance and anxiety – every time I shirk my responsibility then it means that it will only get harder.

It’s easy to see why one gets oneself onto this path, even if you can see that it will only lead to disaster – I imagine that every one of you has evaded liability by passing the task to another person. It is too tempting to avoid the anxiety and compulsions that would arise from completing the action yourself. I could either ask someone else to lock the door, or I could spend three hours wobbling the handle in an attempt to convince myself that it really is shut – which one would you honestly choose? It brings up another reason that CBT is so hard – I have to accept the fact that my OCD will worsen before it will get better. I have to face the compulsions before I can resist them.

Obsessively compulsively yours,

Bellsie

Update

I have to construct a hierarchy of my compulsions in order to start tackling them one by one. I have made a good start – moving a shoe (chaos is not the goal, just enough to ensure a feeling that it is “not right”) and putting off the performance of my morning routine – taking my medicine and making my bed. It is not easy, but I have so much support and I am determined to get better.

ERP (Welcome to Hell)

2009-09-07T18:41:00.001+02:00

You’ve probably heard people telling you to face your fears before, and it’s certainly what we think of as the traditional treatment of phobias – chucking an arachnophobic into a pit of spiders or winding a boa constrictor around the neck of someone whose worst nightmare is… well, exactly that.

However with OCD the fear is not just of an object – it is of the thoughts, images, doubts and impulses that accompany daily life. Therefore we must expose ourselves to the anxiety and allow for it to fall naturally without avoiding or abating it. Sounds easy, doesn’t it?

The particular flavour of CBT used for the treatment of OCD is something called Exposure Response Prevention or ERP. This treatment is not only the most effective way of getting over this horrible illness, it is also hellishly difficult. We must allow the thoughts to pass through our head without reacting; we must sit out the spike of anxiety without allowing ourselves to react by performing a mental or physical ritual, without neutralising the thoughts.

The exposure refers to facing our fears – labelling the thoughts as OCD and irrational, and the response prevention describes the act of stopping yourself from engaging with them. The aim of this treatment is habituation, a nice scientific word that basically means getting used to it.

Let’s look at an example that you’ll all have experienced at some time in your life – jumping in to a cold swimming pool. The water feels freezing and you want to stand and shiver, but by moving around and thinking about something else the water starts to feel normal.

Okay, so that was a pretty prosaic example. For someone with OCD this can be a little bit more difficult. If we take someone who has intrusive thoughts that mean that he believes himself to be a paedophile (a pretty common and yet never talked about obsession) has to allow himself to be around children despite them and without stopping them.

Just one last thing, and then I’ll shut up. There’s an experiment that psychiatrists often use to describe why you must not fight the thoughts...

Try to think of a pink elephant for a whole minute? Did you manage? If you did, well done, I’m sure that you’ve got better concentration than me.

Try not to think of this pink elephant for another minute. Didn’t manage it, did you? The more you fight these thoughts, the stronger they get.

Good job that I’m ready for a fight then.

Obsessively, compulsively yours,

Bellsie

Obsessively Compulsively Ordered

2009-09-05T20:34:00.000+02:00

Okay, I admit that I’m a bit of a perfectionist. The OCD is not completely to blame for this – I am incredibly competitive and I’ve always liked things to be ‘just right’, but it certainly makes it a little more difficult and time consuming.

One of the initial manifestations of my OCD appeared when I was in my second to last year of school. In French lycées, you have at least two to four hours of tests a week. Having always been academic and just a little determined, this didn’t bother me in the slightest and I took it as a weekly challenge. Although I had always been neat, it started to get over the top and I would copy out my Maths tests over and over again until they were neat enough to hand in. Strangely enough, I never managed to finish, and my marks plummeted. Nobody ever asked me why.

Around this time, I also developed an intrusive thought about my family being killed in an accident, and one of the compulsions related to this obsession was symmetry. Everything needed to be straight, parallel, perpendicular. I would spend hours rearranging my pencil case so that every pen was pointing the same way, that the lid was at the right angle… and one of my peers’ favourite games was to tip it out on the floor and watch me scramble around, or to subtly turn one pen around.

I knew that my symmetry and neatness compulsions are irrational. I could see that making sure that my books are in alphabetical order, or that my bed is perfectly made would not stop these horrible things from happening, and that desisting from doing so would not induce catastrophe, but as the OCD tightened its grip on me, I fell into these routines and they became harder and harder to stop.

Three years on and I still have these obsessions and compulsions, but I am now ready to fight them. Tonight I will mess my shoes up before I go to bed and I will not (hopefully) tidy them until morning. I know that I am just postponing the inevitable, but surely that makes a difference and I have to start somewhere.

Wish me luck.

Obsessively compulsively yours,

Bellsie

Living with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

2009-09-04T14:01:00.000+02:00

Have a look at this...

http://www.coldflyer.com/living-with-ocd/

CBT à la Française

2009-09-01T00:11:00.000+02:00

When I finally plucked up the courage to go and see my GP about the obsessive thoughts and rituals that were ruling my life, I was diagnosed with OCD, offered medication and referred for CBT. I was given a phone number to call and was offered an appointment that same week.
To many of you, this would sound like a fantasy situation – no months or even years sitting on waiting lists, no struggling to get the help that you so desperately need. So how did I do this? I didn’t go private nor did I have to blackmail the mental health team – I simply live in a different country, France.

Here, therapists must be registered with the AFTCC (Association Française de Thérapie Comportementale et Cognitive) in order to practice. They must, naturally, be either a practicing doctor or psychologist (although there are exceptions – midwives who are trained specifically to deal with post-natal depression etc.) - I have been seen by a GP who had specialized in mental health, a psychologist and a psychiatrist.

Although it sounds as if the system is perfect, it certainly isn’t. You must be referred by your GP in order to be reimbursed the total cost of your treatment, and in some cases it is your private health insurance that is expected to pay up. Living in a rural population the CBT practitioner, although trained in CBT (TCC), may be out of practice and not used to applying it – I was the first case of OCD (TOC) that my psychologist had seen, which didn’t exactly instill much confidence in me! There is also the issue of continuity of care – as you are able to self-refer (if you are prepared to pay up), you can have many courses of CBT, and even be offered medication (by a psychiatrist) without the knowledge of your GP. When my psychiatrist went on a long holiday without any prior warning, my GP was required to trust me when it came to prescribing medication, as he had no idea what I was taking.

No system is ever going to fulfill all expectations, but I think that although the French model has its problems, they are nothing compared to the horrific stories that I have heard through other message boards. From people having to wait up to a year for CBT to those who have been refused a course of the aforementioned therapy as their condition is not judged severe enough, or because they have not yet tried medication in an attempt to control their OCD. I also know that there are success stories – people who have had the treatment and support that they need on the NHS, but the regional variations are just not acceptable.

I'm about to hop back on to the CBT train... but more of that later.

Obsessively compulsively yours,

Bellsie

Living by Numbers

2009-07-30T15:43:00.000+02:00

The human heart has four chambers. There are four horsemen of the apocalypse, four gospels, four points of the cross. It is considered as unlucky in Oriental cultures, as it sounds like the word “death”. In the English language, it is the only number with the same number of letters as its value. There are four movements in a symphony, four seasons in a year, four suits of playing cards. It is the smallest prime and the first positive non-Fibonacci number.

As you may have guessed, it’s also my lucky number. Although not the most distressing facet of my OCD, counting is probably the most invasive – from counting steps and mouthfuls to strands of spaghetti and tiles on a mosaic floor, the number four and its multiples rule my life.

Humans have a tendency to try to explain the inexplicable, to control the uncontrollable. We make links where there are none – the number thirteen is thought to bring bad luck, the act of breaking a mirror condemns the accident-prone to seven years of misery, catching the bride’s bouquet will mean that you will be the next to marry. Superstition and magical thinking surround us, and yet it is when it gets out of hand that it becomes a problem.

Of course, if you can have lucky numbers, you can also have unlucky numbers. For me, this is the number before four, and even typing it feels wrong. Three. There you go. I am not alone in having these numerical aversions – I have come across people who have changed their phone number or bank sort code so that it didn’t contain a “bad” number, sufferers who, like myself, buy all objects in multiples of their “good number” (which is okay when you need a new toothbrush, but more troublesome when it’s washing powder day) and even people who have moved house because they cannot live at number thirteen.

Let’s be honest, it’s not all bad – I’m sure that many people would like an excuse to eat four chocolate biscuits rather than just the one, but unfortunately these bonus moments are pretty scarce. I know that everyone who works at my local supermarket is aware of my problems, as are the other students living on my floor and sharing the communal kitchen – how do you explain why you are freaking out because a few grains of rice have gone down the sink without sounding just a little crazy (“Let me get this straight, if you don’t eat in multiples of four then everyone you love will die in horrible accidents?”) or becoming an object of tormenting mockery (if anybody out there shares a kitchen with someone with OCD, please refrain from removing items from their pots and pans. They will notice.).

There is a light at the end of the tunnel. CBT, or cognitive behavioral therapy, is just as effective in dealing with mental compulsions as the more physical aspects of OCD. By breaking the spell of these magical numbers, the magician, sorry, sufferer comes to terms with the fact that these thoughts, these associations, are illogical and by repeatedly facing the obsessions and resisting the compulsions (in my case, hearing a siren and not counting to four, sixty four times), the sufferer gradually builds up a level of tolerance to the fear to the point where they can simply brush it aside.

I might still need the four chocolate biscuits though.

Obsessively compulsively yours,

Bellsie