Recently I was diagnosed with OCD after a solid year of battling
extremely distracting and aggressive, violent, gory thoughts about
the death of myself and my loved ones, in some cases I would think
about myself hurting them. I loved to think about falling down the
stairs, jumping off a bridge, falling or impaling objects, and my
personal favorite, car accidents.
Eventually I could no longer drive because I became fearful that all
these thoughts about car accidents would cause it to actually happen.
I went into a state of depression and believed that these thoughts
were actually suicidal thoughts. I had no one to talk to about this
because I started thinking that perhaps I was suicidal because why
else would I think of dying this much?
Eventually I decided to tell my Dr and she referred me to a therapist
who I am still seeing. My therapist and I uncovered my history of OCD
and dated it back to when I was 11 and believed I was possessed by
the devil. Today I am relieved to know that I was not going through
a state of psychosis or schizophrenia then. Anytime I had a second
to think I was telling the devil I wouldn’t sell him my soul. For
months this was happening to me, and I’d even dreamt about the devil
(dreams which I still have today). Now I know it was my obsessive
thoughts.
The obsessive thoughts are the majority of my OCD but they are
dramatic enough to leave me feeling powerless and out of control all
the time (though people say I am a control freak). I have a tendancy
towards symmetry in my body (ie: finger tapping, kicking, scratching
on both sides of my body to make it feel ‘even’).
Now I recognize other things I do because of my OCD (usually
religious obsessions… I was raised a hardcore Catholic). For
example, making the sign of the cross when I get into my car to bless
my drive, flipping over shoes (when I was younger my mother told me
that shoes that were facing the ground meant I was stepping on God
instead of the devil… to this day I think something bad will
happen), not stepping on cracks, counting stairs, etc.
As you can see a good amount of my obsessive thoughts and some
compulsions are religious in nature.
The worst part of having OCD is hearing people say they think they
have it. This part really hurts me because they don’t understand the
real anguish that came from my obsessive thoughts. It isn’t fun for
me to spend 10 minutes thinking about stabbing my mother and which
knives would be most effective. These thoughts happen several times a
day and cause me a great deal of anxiety.
I am still in weekly therapy and recently began medication with
Zoloft.
I’m grateful for this website and wish you all the best.
2 Responses to “Lucy’s Story”
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Mel on Sep 08 2008 at 9:36 pm
hey
i can totaly relate to being frustrated with hearing people talk about maybe having OCD…
“The worst part of having OCD is hearing people say they think they have it. This part really hurts me because they don’t understand the real anguish that came from my obsessive thoughts.”
I think if people really have OCD and know the pain and time that it takes from everyday life they wouldnt talk about it so freely as if having OCD is some kind of novelty. I have been reading a few posts and really appreciate how people can share thier stories and im really glad that websites like these are in place, thankyou for your post it helps to know i am not alone with this destructive doubting disorder.
Haley on Dec 03 2008 at 10:12 pm
I am so greatful to hear im not the only one suffering from ocd, I think it started when i was about fifteen although i was totally unaware at the time what i was suffering from was ocd, but i always thought i had some life threatening illness for example i started out having chest pains so i automatically thought i was having a heart attack and it ended up being acid reflux and when my grandmother passed away of cancer i always thought i had cancer if my head hurt i had a brain tumor this one still haunts me sometime and i remember one time i was having pains in my knee and i thought i had bone cancer and that lasted for over two months and all i really did was lay in bed think about how awful it was going to be to die from cancer so young and why was it happening to me. Then it kind of subsided then when i was about 21 now 24 i was working as a phlebotomist and having to stick people i knew had hiv or hep gave me extreme anxiety for about a year i had this horrible thought that i was hiv positive and was going to give it to my son and husband and that lasted about a year until i got pregnant with my second son and had an hiv test as i was scared to get one until then, i also wash my hands quite often and i have rituals i have to do in the shower so it takes me like 30 to 45 mins just to take a shower and then when my second son was born only 10 weeks ago my ocd flared up big time only this time it was intrusive unwanted thoughts about harming my kids it makes me sick to even talk about it, it is getting better over time but i still have them and i have bizzare thoughts all the time they come out of nowhere like what if there is a dead body in the dumpster and i will try to avoid having to go take the trash out. It is very time consuming and i hate it i take klonopin and zoloft but the first time i took zoloft it made my anxiety ten times worse so i try to avoid taking it. Anyways sorry so long just had to vent and im so glad im not the only one out there.