The C in OCD

Now that we know a little bit more about anxiety, let’s get into more depth with the brand I have a special relationship with: OCD.

So you’ve got an anxiety disorder.  You have the magic ability to see what others don’t, dangers lurking around every corner.  But wait!  You don’t just have general anxiety, you have a special kind of anxiety, called obsessive compulsive disorder.  If anxiety is really “super vision”, then OCD is “Super Vision”, capital S, capital V.  With anxiety, you can see danger everywhere, but with OCD, you see everything else, too.  You see beyond the surface, to how the universe really works.  And the world has rules.  Everybody knows that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.  But we, chosen few, know far beyond that.  We don’t always understand why they are, or what the consequences are for disobeying, but we know they are bad, and we know we must follow them.

The rules are different for everybody.  For example, my dad gets very upset if the house is a mess, but I don't.  I like things to be clean and neat, but I don’t have to have it that way, and honestly, I don’t have the energy to keep up all the cleaning, so I just let it go.  I have lots of other rules to keep up with. One of my rules are: you have to keep your feet even.  No stepping on cracks (if you do, it takes a lot of work to “fix” it).  If you step on one texture with one foot, you have to step on that same texture with the other, too.

Another rule is that I can only shower once a day, and I can’t change from my PJs into “real clothes” until I have showered.  That’s all well and good, unless I want to work out that day: getting all sweaty and gross, covered in germs from the equipment at the gym?  Yeah, definitely need to shower.  So that means, I have to know if I’m going to work out in the day, and I have to do it as early as possible.  Another issue is if I’m doing any severe cleaning.  I don’t mean washing the dishes or doing my laundry; I mean cleaning the bathroom, organizing the shed (there is squirrel excrement everywhere, bleh), or doing yard work, and stuff like that.  The ideal would be to wake up, put on my spandex and go to the gym, come home and do some deep cleaning, then shower off and enjoy the rest of my day.

I could just shower twice, and I’ve done that a few times.  But it feels terrible, like I’m sinning.  I don’t know if it’s because I feel like I’m wasting money on the water bill, or if I’m just wasting time (there goes twenty minutes I’ll never get back).  It could have to do with my hair: I am obsessed with my hair (and I don't use the word lightly).  It always has to be perfect, but I can never quite get it right: if I do something wrong, then it’s frizzy, or greasy, or lopsided, or gritty, all of which I don’t want to happen.  I’m constantly experimenting, trying to get it perfect, and when I try a new thing, it works for a while, until it doesn’t anymore.  If I’m showering twice a day, I’ll only look good half as much of the time!  It's the end of the world!! What can I do????  Anyway, I’ll come back to that later.

Let’s see, some other rules...  I have a lot of rules about doing the dishes: when I load up the silverware in the dishwasher, I have to but in the large utensils, then the sharp knives and the kitchen shears, then the butter knives, then the spoons and forks.  Each kind of utensil has to be evenly spread throughout the rack.  When I load the dishes, I need to start putting cups in one corner of the top rack, and the plates in another corner of the bottom rack.  There’s a place for bowls, for small plates, and then everything else just goes where they can fit.  Unfortunately, other people in the house have different ideas of where things should go, and it used to drive me nuts, seeing them do that.  But I would tell myself “either you let them do it the wrong way, or you have to do it, all the time, every day.”  So I’m getting over it, slowly.  But when I'm doing it, I still have to load it my way, obviously.

Now, let me tell you a little bit more about compulsions.  The “rules” I was just talking about do fall under that category, but they’re more complicated than just compulsions.  There are also less complicated ones, called “tics”. The simplest way to describe a tic would be to call it an itch.  When I was eight, I started smelling my hands.  I’m not entirely sure why, but it came on pretty fast.  After a while, every time I touched something, I had to smell my hands.  It was interesting, understanding the world around me a little better, by knowing not just what everything looked and felt like, but what they smelled like, too.  And you could bet your britches that my hands were always clean, because if they weren’t, they would smell bad, and I would have to suffer through it.  I didn’t really think much of it, until I was playing at some church activity, and a girl my age asked me why I was doing that.  I thought about it, and I said “I don’t know, I just... have to.” I had to, because it was a tic.

I still smell my hands, all the time, but it’s not in response to touching things anymore.  I don’t even notice I’m doing it, I just... do it.  A lot of times I don’t even have to be inhaling, I just have to touch my nose, scratching, rubbing, or just making contact.

Another tic I’ve had, ever since I was about six or seven, was biting my cheek.  Once again, I’m not sure why, but up until I got braces, I was doing it all the time.  My dad thought it was so cute, but I just thought “well, if my cheeks itch, I gotta scratch them, right?”  When I got braces, I actually ended up with some really interesting scars, but they went away after I finally quit.  Unfortunately, it's come back over the past couple of years.

Another common thing for OCD involves counting. I have some interesting compulsions with that.  I don’t count tiles or anything, (although I used to count steps as I walked on the stairs) I just count things in my head as I do them.  I have different numbers for different things, but it’s usually either three or four.  When I’m making chocolate milk, I have to count the spoonfuls of Nesquik, and it was always three scoops.  It got kind of weird when I started liking it darker.  I ended up going “One, two, three, and one more, and a little bit more.”  I also have a thing about tapping or touching my skin, usually my face or arms.  I always have to make sure it’s even (touched one cheek?  Now you have to touch the other.  Scratched one arm?  You know the drill).  Sometimes when I do this, I have to count it.  It’s almost like music: “ONE two three FOUR five six,” over and over again. 

I’ll probably come back to compulsions later, but I’m ticking like crazy trying to write about them, so I’ll have to give it a rest, for now.

Before I go, I'll leave you with a little homework. If you haven't seen it, I recommend the movie Matchstick Men, with Nicholas Cage. It's a fabulous portrayal of OCD. His routines and rituals, counting as he opens and closes doors, locks and unlocks doors and windows, and, of course cleaning, are all perfect examples of OCD, and it's the second time I ever saw OCD on screen.

Until next time,
Penny