I haven't posted in a while, though I'm not sure it matters. I've come to terms with the fact that this blog serves my selfish need for therapeutic writing rather than any unfilled need of fellow obsessors. That's okay.
Just in case, though, I want to share a new tool I've found. One of the ways my OCD manifests itself is through excruciatingly careful reading. I can't decide if it makes no sense or perfect sense that I have two degrees in English. Either way, I am a very slow and careful reader. My painstaking attention to every sentence and it's meaning, undertones, relation to the main idea of the piece, etc. really slow me down. This does come in handy when I'm editing a paper or reading a dense piece of social or literary theory. However, when I'm just trying to get through a week's worth of PhD coursework reading, much of it only tangentially related to anything I'm studying, pouring over each sentence is counterproductive.
Even as I read the week's long and detailed articles and books, I know the goal is to get the main idea not to master the concepts. However, my OCD brain won't listen to reason. That comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with the disease. So my new tool has turned out to be amazing.
The website spreeder.com offers a free online speed reading application. The goal of the app is not to help you learn to speed read, though Spreeder does offer products that do. Instead, you load the material you're reading into the application and choose a pace. The application starts you out at 300 words per minute showing you one word at a time. When you hit play, the words flash before you, one at a time, at the pace you've chosen. This paces your reading and forces you to keep moving even when you're tempted to reread.
The application has been great for me. At first, I was skeptical about how much I could really take in reading at a pace far faster than I was accustomed to. I knew I was a very competent reader, but I'd spent my whole life dwelling on each word and sentence, so I doubted my ability to keep up with the shockingly fast pace of 300 WPM. However, after "spreeding" a couple of pieces and quizzing myself on the content, I found I retained about the same amount of knowledge as when I read at a much slower pace.
My fellow PhD students were doubtful about the amount of critical thinking I could do as I read at such a rapid pace. They have a good point. I did have to change how I performed my coursework, but after a few minor changes, I've got a really good system. After I "spreed" a piece, I make notes on what I found compelling or confusing. I write down facts that stuck out and questions I want to pose in the seminar. When I walked into class last week having done these things, I had completed all the reading and retained more than enough to participate in the conversation. I was even able to quote facts and figures using my notes.
I think there are a lot of us with mental illness in PhD programs. A professor once said to me, "We have to be a little crazy to want to spend endless hours alone reading and thinking." And he's probably right. The ruminating associated with anxiety disorders, including OCD, can come in handy working on your dissertation. So the more honest scholars are with one another about our struggles, the stronger academics we can all become--especially if many of us do struggle with the same things.
In that spirit, I'm sharing both my struggle and my solution.
A
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Struggle
I had a hard day today, both in general and with OCD. I had an 8:00 am doctor's appointment and was sure the office would be running on time since I was the first patient of the day. Well, I was wrong. I didn't get seen by the doctor until 8:45. I was establishing primary care, so we went through a family history, talked about my health, and reviewed my prescriptions.
Doctor's appointments can be hard for me. One of my major topics for obsessing and agonizing is my health. Health is something over which we have little control. We can make good decisions: don't smoke, eat healthy foods, wash our hands. But ultimately most of the diseases that will kill us will have causes that are at least partly environmental or genetic. My husband's grandfather is in his late seventies and smoked from ages eight to sixty. Not surprisingly, he was recently diagnosed with lung cancer. However, very surprisingly, the cancer in his lungs was in no way caused by his smoking. Instead a genetic predisposition to skin cancer and his love for golf were the major causes of the baseball-sized tumor in his lung.
The lack of control over my health--and the health of my family and friends--is part of what makes me anxious. I have no way of knowing if a killer amoeba is eating my brain or a malignant tumor is growing in my dad's pancreas. On the other hand, there are some diseases linked directly to personal actions. Hepatitis, cirrhosis of the liver, and HIV are all linked to behaviors--behaviors stigmatized by American culture.
It is this odd combination of unpredictability and ability to place blame that makes me fixate on the possibility of being infected with HIV. It is one of my deepest and most disturbing fears. It is a uniquely well-suited tool my brain uses to make me worried, depressed, and irrational. If I had HIV I wouldn't know; it would be my fault; it would harm my husband both physically and mentally; it would cause my family distress; I would be judged and shunned; it would be catastrophic. So when the doctor brought up the CDC's recommendations for HIV testing in young people, a switch was once again flipped in my brain. I began obsessing.
This obsession has come and gone since high school. It is at times intense and tormenting. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. Imagine being convinced that you've given yourself and the person you love most in the world a death sentence. Horrifying! What a monster you'd be! Or at least that's what my brain tells me.
I've been tested for HIV. A year ago I finally broke down one after weeks of feeling intense pain and guilt every time I looked at my husband and felt like I'd killed him. I went to my local health department and got an oral swab test. It was negative. Part of me knew it would be. I haven't engaged in any behaviors considered "high-risk" and my husband and I had been together for seven years at that point. But the OCD part of me didn't care about reason or odds or even facts.
After the test I was able to move on from the obsession for about a year. Today it cropped up, hopefully temporarily. I told the doctor I'd been tested using the oral swab, which I was assured was accurate. I asked her if that satisfied the guidelines and if the test was indeed accurate as I'd been told. She shrugged a little and tilted her hand back and forth in a so-so motion. That's when my stomach tightened up. She said it would satisfy the requirements and she'd put it in my chart. But the damage had been done. Her doubt in the test was enough to fuel my obsessions and my brain began to churn with the well-worn thoughts from a year ago.
It's a horrible feeling. Miserable. Helpless. Frustrated. Angry with yourself, with the disease, with the trigger. OCD turns your brain against you. The things you love become the targets of terrible things that are your fault. You want to be happy. You want to look at your family and feel, above anything else, love. But that's not what I feel; I feel fear. I fear that I have or will hurt them in some way, inadvertently but through my actions all the same.
When I obsess over HIV infection my compulsion is online research. I do research to reassure myself that I have a very low risk of infection and that the test I took was accurate. A few minutes ago I was anxious for my husband to leave the room so I could research. I was so angry at myself for thinking that.
I did okay at managing my anxiety and obsessive thoughts today. I acknowledged them and redirected my attention. I took deep breaths and was aware of the tension I held in my body. But tonight, sitting on my couch unable to enjoy being alive, happy, healthy, I am so frustrated. The Prozac is a huge help--I would be paralyzed with fear right now if I'd not been taking my medicine. But at the end of the day, I want my brain to be on my side. I want it to leave me alone, let me be happy.
I had a hard day and am ready for sleep. Tomorrow is a new start.
A
Doctor's appointments can be hard for me. One of my major topics for obsessing and agonizing is my health. Health is something over which we have little control. We can make good decisions: don't smoke, eat healthy foods, wash our hands. But ultimately most of the diseases that will kill us will have causes that are at least partly environmental or genetic. My husband's grandfather is in his late seventies and smoked from ages eight to sixty. Not surprisingly, he was recently diagnosed with lung cancer. However, very surprisingly, the cancer in his lungs was in no way caused by his smoking. Instead a genetic predisposition to skin cancer and his love for golf were the major causes of the baseball-sized tumor in his lung.
The lack of control over my health--and the health of my family and friends--is part of what makes me anxious. I have no way of knowing if a killer amoeba is eating my brain or a malignant tumor is growing in my dad's pancreas. On the other hand, there are some diseases linked directly to personal actions. Hepatitis, cirrhosis of the liver, and HIV are all linked to behaviors--behaviors stigmatized by American culture.
It is this odd combination of unpredictability and ability to place blame that makes me fixate on the possibility of being infected with HIV. It is one of my deepest and most disturbing fears. It is a uniquely well-suited tool my brain uses to make me worried, depressed, and irrational. If I had HIV I wouldn't know; it would be my fault; it would harm my husband both physically and mentally; it would cause my family distress; I would be judged and shunned; it would be catastrophic. So when the doctor brought up the CDC's recommendations for HIV testing in young people, a switch was once again flipped in my brain. I began obsessing.
This obsession has come and gone since high school. It is at times intense and tormenting. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. Imagine being convinced that you've given yourself and the person you love most in the world a death sentence. Horrifying! What a monster you'd be! Or at least that's what my brain tells me.
I've been tested for HIV. A year ago I finally broke down one after weeks of feeling intense pain and guilt every time I looked at my husband and felt like I'd killed him. I went to my local health department and got an oral swab test. It was negative. Part of me knew it would be. I haven't engaged in any behaviors considered "high-risk" and my husband and I had been together for seven years at that point. But the OCD part of me didn't care about reason or odds or even facts.
After the test I was able to move on from the obsession for about a year. Today it cropped up, hopefully temporarily. I told the doctor I'd been tested using the oral swab, which I was assured was accurate. I asked her if that satisfied the guidelines and if the test was indeed accurate as I'd been told. She shrugged a little and tilted her hand back and forth in a so-so motion. That's when my stomach tightened up. She said it would satisfy the requirements and she'd put it in my chart. But the damage had been done. Her doubt in the test was enough to fuel my obsessions and my brain began to churn with the well-worn thoughts from a year ago.
It's a horrible feeling. Miserable. Helpless. Frustrated. Angry with yourself, with the disease, with the trigger. OCD turns your brain against you. The things you love become the targets of terrible things that are your fault. You want to be happy. You want to look at your family and feel, above anything else, love. But that's not what I feel; I feel fear. I fear that I have or will hurt them in some way, inadvertently but through my actions all the same.
When I obsess over HIV infection my compulsion is online research. I do research to reassure myself that I have a very low risk of infection and that the test I took was accurate. A few minutes ago I was anxious for my husband to leave the room so I could research. I was so angry at myself for thinking that.
I did okay at managing my anxiety and obsessive thoughts today. I acknowledged them and redirected my attention. I took deep breaths and was aware of the tension I held in my body. But tonight, sitting on my couch unable to enjoy being alive, happy, healthy, I am so frustrated. The Prozac is a huge help--I would be paralyzed with fear right now if I'd not been taking my medicine. But at the end of the day, I want my brain to be on my side. I want it to leave me alone, let me be happy.
I had a hard day and am ready for sleep. Tomorrow is a new start.
A
Friday, July 12, 2013
(Im)perfect Explained
I named my blog (Im)perfect because it identifies the black hole at the center of my OCD: my need to feel perfect. The OCD part of me wants desperately to be able to say "I'm perfect. I'm the perfect wife, dog mom, employee, student, friend, daughter etc." But every day I fail. It turns out that despite my best efforts, I am imperfect, flawed, fallible.
The OCD (and my upbringing as a girl in protestant south Georgia) sets the impossibly high goal of perfection; I am obsessed with not making any mistakes, ever. Then OCD also reminds me--over and over and over--that I fail. That's the obsession and compulsion. I don't turn light switches on and off; I don't wash my hands repeatedly; I don't even keep a particularly neat house, that is unless I'm expecting company.
The obsession is perfection and the compulsion is to punish myself when I'm not.
If you have OCD, you're nodding your head. You know the impossibly lonely and maddening feeling of being swept into a gyre of obsessions and compulsions. If you don't have OCD, I'll give you an analogy. Think back to a time when you have felt sheer panic. Maybe it was the time you lost sight of your toddler in the mall or when you found out someone you love was in the hospital. Your heart beats so hard you're sure everyone can see it jumping out of your chest; your hands sweat even though you're cold; your mind races and fears the worst without regard for logic or reason. Now imagine feeling like that every time you can't explicitly remember locking your door, every time you walk into a public bathroom, every time you think you may sense an abnormality in your body. That is OCD. That hard, steady heartbeat; sick feeling in the pit of your stomach; disregard for logic because panic has taken over. In a real crisis, friends and family rally around you, but with OCD you are isolated. You are aware enough that your obsessions are unreasonable that you keep (most of) them to yourself. Yet, holding them inside doesn't make them feel any less real.
My specialty is remembering things I've done and said in the past, both immediate and distant, that may have been stupid, inappropriate, or embarrassing. An instance will come to mind and my conscious gets a glimpse and panics. The event, totally incompatible with the current identity I have constructed for myself, is horrifying. "How could I have done/said that?" I ask myself. "How did I not know that was wrong/a mistake/something I'd regret?" I continue. My mind's first instinct is to push the thought out, to ignore it or pretend it isn't there. But then I feel guilty. "Shouldn't I feel bad about it so I don't make that mistake again? Shouldn't I feel guilty to punish myself for having made such a huge mistake?" my mind asks. Then I beat myself up. I tell myself how dumb or irresponsible I was. I catastrophize. I ask myself what if X had happened or what if Y tells everyone about that someday? For example, I think back to the drunken parties I went to in high school. I remember doing stupid things--of which I am sure there are pictures somewhere. What about the stuff I don't remember doing? Did I do something terrible and I don't remember it? Did I do drugs and not remember because I was drunk? Did I sleep with someone? What if there are pictures or video of me doing something drunk and stupid and someone decides to put it on Facebook someday? What would my husband think, my parents, my future children? What if someone tries to blackmail me? What would I do? How would people react? What would that do to my reputation and my identity?
Even with medication and therapy, as I write this my heart beats faster, I'm tapping my foot to expend some of the nervous energy, and my mind is speeding up and heading down the rabbit hole.
Life is unpredictable and scary and unfair and cruel. I'm not guaranteed a happy and peaceful life. I have made mistakes and why shouldn't I expect them to come back to haunt me? Why hasn't the universe punished me for all the stupid things I've done? And what will I do when all my mistakes catch up with me? Will the people I love still love me when they find out everything I've done wrong? Will I be the same person when all my dirty laundry comes out?
These are the questions my mind tells me to ask myself every hour of every day of my life. I'm my own worst enemy.
So I chose (Im)perfect because depending on how you choose to read it, it can mean "I'm perfect" or "Imperfect." Every day I struggle to find a comfortable place between these two poles. I am certainly imperfect in the sense that I make mistakes and am flawed. But I also want to be happy with who I am. I want to be and accept a perfect version of me, flaws and all.
I'm working on it.
--A
The OCD (and my upbringing as a girl in protestant south Georgia) sets the impossibly high goal of perfection; I am obsessed with not making any mistakes, ever. Then OCD also reminds me--over and over and over--that I fail. That's the obsession and compulsion. I don't turn light switches on and off; I don't wash my hands repeatedly; I don't even keep a particularly neat house, that is unless I'm expecting company.
The obsession is perfection and the compulsion is to punish myself when I'm not.
If you have OCD, you're nodding your head. You know the impossibly lonely and maddening feeling of being swept into a gyre of obsessions and compulsions. If you don't have OCD, I'll give you an analogy. Think back to a time when you have felt sheer panic. Maybe it was the time you lost sight of your toddler in the mall or when you found out someone you love was in the hospital. Your heart beats so hard you're sure everyone can see it jumping out of your chest; your hands sweat even though you're cold; your mind races and fears the worst without regard for logic or reason. Now imagine feeling like that every time you can't explicitly remember locking your door, every time you walk into a public bathroom, every time you think you may sense an abnormality in your body. That is OCD. That hard, steady heartbeat; sick feeling in the pit of your stomach; disregard for logic because panic has taken over. In a real crisis, friends and family rally around you, but with OCD you are isolated. You are aware enough that your obsessions are unreasonable that you keep (most of) them to yourself. Yet, holding them inside doesn't make them feel any less real.
My specialty is remembering things I've done and said in the past, both immediate and distant, that may have been stupid, inappropriate, or embarrassing. An instance will come to mind and my conscious gets a glimpse and panics. The event, totally incompatible with the current identity I have constructed for myself, is horrifying. "How could I have done/said that?" I ask myself. "How did I not know that was wrong/a mistake/something I'd regret?" I continue. My mind's first instinct is to push the thought out, to ignore it or pretend it isn't there. But then I feel guilty. "Shouldn't I feel bad about it so I don't make that mistake again? Shouldn't I feel guilty to punish myself for having made such a huge mistake?" my mind asks. Then I beat myself up. I tell myself how dumb or irresponsible I was. I catastrophize. I ask myself what if X had happened or what if Y tells everyone about that someday? For example, I think back to the drunken parties I went to in high school. I remember doing stupid things--of which I am sure there are pictures somewhere. What about the stuff I don't remember doing? Did I do something terrible and I don't remember it? Did I do drugs and not remember because I was drunk? Did I sleep with someone? What if there are pictures or video of me doing something drunk and stupid and someone decides to put it on Facebook someday? What would my husband think, my parents, my future children? What if someone tries to blackmail me? What would I do? How would people react? What would that do to my reputation and my identity?
Even with medication and therapy, as I write this my heart beats faster, I'm tapping my foot to expend some of the nervous energy, and my mind is speeding up and heading down the rabbit hole.
Life is unpredictable and scary and unfair and cruel. I'm not guaranteed a happy and peaceful life. I have made mistakes and why shouldn't I expect them to come back to haunt me? Why hasn't the universe punished me for all the stupid things I've done? And what will I do when all my mistakes catch up with me? Will the people I love still love me when they find out everything I've done wrong? Will I be the same person when all my dirty laundry comes out?
These are the questions my mind tells me to ask myself every hour of every day of my life. I'm my own worst enemy.
So I chose (Im)perfect because depending on how you choose to read it, it can mean "I'm perfect" or "Imperfect." Every day I struggle to find a comfortable place between these two poles. I am certainly imperfect in the sense that I make mistakes and am flawed. But I also want to be happy with who I am. I want to be and accept a perfect version of me, flaws and all.
I'm working on it.
--A
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
I'm not Anna Parker
Anna Parker isn't my real name. Hey, at least I'm being honest about my dishonesty.
If you stumbled upon my blog because you or someone you know lives with OCD you're probably familiar with the stigma that accompanies mental illness. Crazy, unstable, dangerous, and psycho are all words that too often get huddled under the umbrella of "mental illness."
I fume when I hear many of the gun control discussions that have followed the tragedies in Aurora, Colorado and Newtown, Connecticut. Certainly mental illness played a role in both shootings; I refuse to believe a well person is capable of evil. But as an educator, I hate to think that the long-overdue conversations about mental healthcare and gun control are getting confused with one another. Amalgamating the two discussions will only result in more misconceptions. I believe in gun control; I love The West Wing and Rachael Maddow. If Congress passed a law banning all guns tomorrow, I'd have no dog in that fight. But I'm uncomfortable with the thought of being distrusted and penalized because I happen to have a terrible fear of communicable diseases and misspellings in emails (among other things).
Mental illnesses, their manifestations, results, struggles, and realities are as numerous as the people who live with them. Painting them with broad strokes is illogical. (But who am I to lecture anyone about illogical fears!) Much progress has been made in understanding mental health issues. However, the fact remains that if I used my real name to write this blog it would come back to bite me. The OCD part of me is deeply worried that it will haunt me despite my not-so-clever pseudonym.
So for now I will remain anonymous. I will share my life and my struggles but not my name.
I'm looking forward to the journey.
--A
If you stumbled upon my blog because you or someone you know lives with OCD you're probably familiar with the stigma that accompanies mental illness. Crazy, unstable, dangerous, and psycho are all words that too often get huddled under the umbrella of "mental illness."
I fume when I hear many of the gun control discussions that have followed the tragedies in Aurora, Colorado and Newtown, Connecticut. Certainly mental illness played a role in both shootings; I refuse to believe a well person is capable of evil. But as an educator, I hate to think that the long-overdue conversations about mental healthcare and gun control are getting confused with one another. Amalgamating the two discussions will only result in more misconceptions. I believe in gun control; I love The West Wing and Rachael Maddow. If Congress passed a law banning all guns tomorrow, I'd have no dog in that fight. But I'm uncomfortable with the thought of being distrusted and penalized because I happen to have a terrible fear of communicable diseases and misspellings in emails (among other things).
Mental illnesses, their manifestations, results, struggles, and realities are as numerous as the people who live with them. Painting them with broad strokes is illogical. (But who am I to lecture anyone about illogical fears!) Much progress has been made in understanding mental health issues. However, the fact remains that if I used my real name to write this blog it would come back to bite me. The OCD part of me is deeply worried that it will haunt me despite my not-so-clever pseudonym.
So for now I will remain anonymous. I will share my life and my struggles but not my name.
I'm looking forward to the journey.
--A
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