Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

   A funny little thing. It begins out of no where. At anytime, any age, to anyone. You start to develope interesting qualities. Your actions change and your mood. You don't notice of course, until somebody else does or you do something over and over again too many times. Sometimes it comes fast. Sometimes slow.

One day you think to yourself, I didn't touch that right. I need to touch that again. So you do, and continue on with life. Soon you touch it again, you have to touch it once more. And then again and again. And then again, once more, no that wasn't right touch it again and again and again. That's when you relize that there is something wrong.

You start to notice. I didn't step on that right. I touched it with my left and not my right. I need to wash my hands again, but with a different soap because this one is too dirty. No, I didn't walk into this room right. No, I looked at the clock wrong. No, I need to touch that again. Wait, I felt it with my right not my left. No, I need to think that way. No, I need to move this way......

It becomes repition. A pattern. You have to follow that pattern everyday of every minute of your life. And soon you start to think that you are going crazy. That you and only you has this problem. And if you share this with anyone, they will think you're crazy too.

Days turn into months. Months turn into years. Years become a lifetime. And in that lifetime, you are a prisoner in your own head. You constantly stick to your routine and if you stray, God forebid something will go wrong. Someone will die, someone will get hurt. But still, no matter how long it drives you to the brink of insanity, you have to keep doing it.

Living With It

I have been living with OCD for God knows how long. Since I was little? Possible. But I do know that it became stronger at age 13, when my depression hit. I continued to do my insane rountines without knowledge. I probably figred everyone did it. Touch things certain ways, looked at things certain ways. Though that if you didn't do it, someone would die. But soon I started to relize that it wasn't normal. People didn't do these things. I started to think I was going crazy, so I told no one.

Years went on. I watched the clock at certain times and looked away went it was right. I had to sleep this way. I had to take a shower this way. I had to eat this way. I had to watch TV this way. I had to look at certain things all day long. Every second I had to looks at lines and corners. I didn't like certain numbers. I had to look at certain words and then turn away. I made sounds. I used my throat. I used my fingers. I used my eyes. I used my neck and my head.

But finally, after what was four years of torture inside my own head, I had a breakdown. I knelt and confessed about my compulsion. I expressed my symptoms......And found I wasn't alone.

What I found made me meloncholy. I didn't know whether to be happy or frightened. I saw not only I had this, but a whole world. People just like me, creating imaginary rituals. But to us, they were far from fiction. After searching for a while, I found that I had OCD. There was a word for it. My condition, I could now call it something. Something I can put all the blame on. But that didn't last long, because I was the one to blame. I created this masterpiece of symptoms in my own head. I developed them. I was the creator.

Facts of Fiction

I am not sure how many people have OCD, but I know there is enough. I I don't think people will ever know, because we hide it well. I've come to relize that us OCDers have lived with it for so long, that we can disguise it from public view. We can even disguise it from our close ones. Living with it each day, we have our tricks. And we've gotten good at it.

It's almost impossible to share comparesine to alcohol, but it shows. Alcoholics can hide the bottle. If they need to hide ther addiction from a loved one, they can. Just like us. We can hide our ticks in public. Our biggest problem is doing things over and over again. And we have learned to do it in public without anyone noticing. We may seem normal at glance, but see inside, and our brain is screaming. We can survive outside for a while. But we feel calm and less anxious when we are in our enviorment.

O, but don't think we can relax in our enviornment. Our relaxing is stressing. Taking hours to do one simple thing. Even though we spend all day doing OCD, it is still uncomfortable. When we finish, we feel accomplished and less anxious and feel that everything is all better. Nothing bad will happen. Because I didn't look at odd numbers.

But that feeling doesn't last. Because soon, we are right back to doing what we do best.

I have lived with OCD for as long as I can remember. And I still live with it today. I have many compulsions and sometimes I drop a ritual and pick up a new one. Still, it never goes away. Sometimes I can't handle it and feel like not doing it anymore. But if I don't, I know something will happen, so I continue in my own imprisonment.

It is severe and effects me daily. Everything I do, see, and touch, I have to think about it. Do I do the OCD? Will It help? If I do it this way, will everything be better. I constantly stop and think. I have to judge, if I fold it this way, will my day go great? If I wear this belt, will it be a horrible day? Remember, was yesterday an ok day?....Then maybe I should touch this again. It takes me awhile to finish a task and head out the door. I constantly do things over and over again to make sure I am safe from all sides and that I did it right so that nothing bad will happen.

I have no intention of stopping unfortunatly. I am scared of the future. I don't know how long this will go on for. A few more years? Will I have OCD all through my senior year? It is a living hell, and I created this.