OCD and ME

It was one of those moments when I knew I wasn't alone in my anxiety. I was at an OCD conference and the speaker had just described something I'd experienced for years. I just never had a name for it -- and frankly, wouldn't even have known how to describe it in the first place. But he knew what it was -- "memory hoarding." As it's explained in an article from the OCD Center of Los Angeles , memory hoarding is "a mental compulsion to over-attend to the details of an event, person, or object in an attempt to mentally store it for safekeeping. ... People with memory hoarding OCD exhibit two major errors in information processing. The first error is the distorted belief that they will need this memory someday, and that it would be catastrophic if the memory weren’t 100% accurate. Second, people with memory hoarding also have the distorted belief that memories can be treated the same way as inanimate objects." (Essentially, as I understand ...

Working most of my adult life in a newsroom, it makes sense that I would hear a lot of fingers tapping away at keyboards. When I started, I enjoyed the sound -- it was the sound of important work getting done. Then one day the click, click, clicking of a room full of fingers on keyboards sounded much louder than usual. It was all I could hear. Suddenly, a sound that I had come to look forward to hearing was making my skin crawl. What was happening? A little research and I found that what was happening probably falls into the category of misophonia, a heightened sensitivity to certain sounds that has been linked to OCD and other forms of anxiety. Give me a barking dog any day. But someone chewing food? It unnerves me. Want to crack your knuckles? Go for it, I'll do it too. But a lip-smacking sound -- even a very quiet one -- can cause my anxiety to skyrocket. None of this makes much sense to me. And I certainly would never ask someone not to chew food. It's...

Maybe this happens to everyone who tries blogging about OCD or other forms of anxiety -- though it was a surprise to me -- but a month or so in and I'm realizing that writing about my OCD experiences is a form of exposure therapy. I have lots of stories to tell and I can't wait to share them. If I had my way, I'd think them and they would appear on the page -- I want to tell them that quickly. But at the same time, I've noticed that the more stories I share, the more my OCD acts up. Putting these challenges into words that I read over and over before hitting "publish," is bringing things to the surface. I've got to think that's a good thing. Frankly, I had a therapist who told me to record myself telling an OCD "worst-case" scenario and play it over and over and over again until I became desensitized to it. (It was a hospital-ambulance scenario and within a week I actually lived it in reality -- more on that in an upcoming post.) An...

In a recent post, I suggested that, as much as I fight the idea, I could be holding on to OCD rather than letting it go. That it's a safety net. I made the argument that having OCD around gives me something to blame if things go wrong. But I think I missed the point. The more I consider it, the more I feel that if I am clinging to OCD it's because the compulsive rituals give my brain a sense that I have control over things. Oh sure, in my clear mind I know touching something a certain number of times or counting to a number that feels "good" isn't going to keep every driver I see on the road from getting into an accident, but my OCD brain doesn't acknowledge that. So the OCD repetitions give me a sense that I can have a say in how things turn out in a world that, in reality, is extremely random. As psychologically painful as OCD is, the concept that I can control things just by doing some rituals offsets that -- at least in my OCD mind. Letting g...

Typical OCD moment for me: I feel a piece of popcorn stuck to the back of a tooth I can barely reach with my tongue and I freak out. My mind spins rapidly and I obsess over tying to get the popcorn out. I keep trying to dislodge it with my tongue even though I know the more I contort my face, the more likely my jaw will start hurting. Even when it does start hurting, I keep doing it. Then OCD's voice gains strength "Remember that guy you used to work with who said he got a piece of popcorn stuck in his teeth one day and needed root canal the next? He said he was kidding, but you doubt it, don't you. It could happen." "Are you going to make an appointment with the dentist just to get food unstuck? How embarrassing." "If you don't get it out, it could cause an infection. Then you might need surgery." "You shouldn't have eaten the popcorn in the first place. This is your fault." Meanwhile, I have a searing pain in my ...

In line with my Jewish faith, I light memorial candles on the anniversary of the deaths of mother and father. It's when I started observing this tradition that I began to sense I had potential to be a hoarder. Each candle comes in a glass container and is intended to burn for about 24 hours. You don't blow them out -- you let them burn -- and when they're done, you presumably discard the container. Except I couldn't discard the container. My mother died first and my OCD was fierce when it came time to throw away the used glass: "How could you throw that away -- it's a connection to your mother. How disrespectful can you be? Don't you love her anymore?" So I didn't throw the candle away the first year, or the second, or the first seven anniversaries. I mentioned this to my OCD therapist and she put it simply?: "So do you think you can just keep them forever?" It was a good question. Already they were taking up some space an...

My panic over forgetting names started with the '60s pop singer Trini Lopez. For some reason, I find that pretty funny. I liked his rendition of "If I Had a Hammer" but it wasn't like I was a starstruck fan. It happened sometime in the late-70s/early-'80s, I'd say. I was listening to a compilation album with a song of his on it and I suddenly couldn't think of his name. It freaked me out. I'm not sure why -- I was still a kid, so I wasn't thinking dementia -- but it just terrified me that I knew his name one minute, then couldn't recall it the next. So from time to time, for years after -- and, frankly, even today on occasion -- I feel the need to recall his name. Just so I know it's there, I guess, safe and sound in my brain. This sounds like OCD to me. It's not just Trini Lopez, though. Same thing happens with others -- especially with the actor Dennis Quaid. Again, I like his work, I just wouldn't say he's my favori...

This may sound odd, but sometimes I wonder if I'm capable of functioning without OCD. It's been a part of my life for so long it's hard to imagine what it would be like to go through my day without repetitive thoughts, counting, a fear of certain thoughts. OCD can be excruciating. The effort it takes to do the mental repetitions and the simultaneous effort it takes not to let anyone know I'm doing them is exhausting. So is it even conceivable that I'd be lost without OCD? Maybe I think that with obsessive compulsive disorder I always have something to blame if things go poorly. But if OCD were suddenly out of the picture, everything would be my fault. There'd be nothing to blame. Is it possible OCD has become a safety net that I can't let go of? It's hard for me to believe that I'm clinging to OCD. So I fight back at the thought -- and maybe the thought, itself, is an OCD thought to begin with. One thing is pretty certain: I would sure ...

About 10 years ago, I began noticing that I study people I consider "normal" to see how they react in certain situations. Like a researcher studying the ways of animals in the wild. How do people who don't have OCD act, compared to how I present myself? How does my brother greet someone he's meeting for the first time? Seems like he's really listening when the person tells my brother his name, as opposed to what I tend to do -- think about how the first thing out of my mouth could offend the person. I'm often more focused on what I'm saying, in an effort to get it just right . Those first words out of my mouth sometimes seem like I'm walking on a high wire. How does my girlfriend walk past a mirror? She stops and looks, as opposed to what I do -- which is do all I can to avoid seeing my reflection. I've never been diagnosed with body dysmorphic disorder but I think there's a 90 percent chance I have some degree of it. I can't stand my ap...

Every Sunday night I feel compelled to check my work email to see what came in over the weekend. It's not that I'm required to, nor do I even need to, it's that I have a great fear of things going on that I am not aware of. It's OCD telling me, "You'd better check to see if your co-workers have been trying to reach you. Maybe you're missing something important. This could when they figure out you're no good at what you do. Check the email. Check it. Check it." Never mind that anyone who needs me can reach me by cell -- everyone has my number and I always have my phone. It's hard to describe the feeling of anxiety that comes over me. I tell myself not to check my email, but 99 percent of the time, it's less painful to essentially start my work week on Sunday night, than it is to ruminate on what might be going on without me knowing. For the first time, tonight, as I was checking my work email I saw a connection with something I used ...

I wrote previously about my OCD brain convincing me there are "good" numbers (9, 10, 17, 18, for instance) and "bad" numbers (4, 6, 8, 13, 14 and more). Similarly, OCD tells me there are good and bad letters. In the case of letters, it makes a little more sense. G and Y are good (G is the first letter in God, Y the first letter in Yahweh -- the Hebrew name for God -- so there's some logic to that). T is good (lowercase t is like the Christian cross, so again, it makes some sense). But OCD doesn't stop there: D is bad (devil starts with d, though it's sometimes good because God ends with d). H is bad (it's the first letter in hell, but then, it's also good, because it's the first letter in heaven). How I feel about these letters at any given moment, I suppose depends on how I'm doing in general. I don't really know why my perception changes. When I hand write "good" letters, OCD tells me they need to slant up and to the...