Growing Up Compulsive -- What it’s Actually Like to Live with OCD

I was probably about seven. My mom, a British immigrant, was planning a trip for us to London to visit family. I remember, at least a good week or two before we were even booked to leave, that I was running around the apartment checking things. Checking that all the books that I wanted to bring were there - 1, 2, 3, 4 - I counted before running to check on my clothing. It was a cycle. I ran to check on the books, then the clothes, then the books again.

That is my earliest memory of dealing with my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and this is the first time writing publicly about it.

When I was eight, the seams in my panties bothered me. I felt them as I sat, as I walked. I couldn’t stand it. I could only wear one brand of underwear, Oshkosh, because they didn’t have seams. So for years, my mom would only buy my panties from that one store.

Last year, I met with a new psychiatrist to change my medication. She called this sensory processing disorder. It’s pretty common among people with OCD.

When I was in high school and at the start of college, before I was on any meds, I would compulsively check my clothing for rips and stains before throwing them into the hamper at the end of the day. If there were any, I had a sense of urgency to remove them. No matter how late at night it was, I would stand over the bathroom sink with stain remover, scrubbing, or I’d get out my little sewing kit and thread a needle.

Eventually, I started taking medication. Though I was on the wrong one for three years, it helped me so much.

I received my first Prozac prescription my first semester at college, but because the health center there prescribed it to me so quickly, so willy-nilly, I didn’t trust it. I didn’t take the medicine.

I transferred to another college: The New School. That’s when I had a particularly bad OCD episode. I obsessed over a pair of underwear that I had bought that was a size too big. I tried to shrink them, both in the dryer and by boiling them. It didn’t work. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. That’s when I decided to get help.

It was during my first semester at the New School that I went to the health center to meet with a psychiatrist. Again, they prescribed me Prozac, which is an SSRI: a type of medicine that is supposed to help the nerve cells in the brain communicate with one another, and that helps to regulate emotions.

But the medicine caused me to lose weight. I went from 100 pounds down to 93, which was super unhealthy for my tiny frame. Even my size zero jeans were too big.

So my doctor switched me to Venlafaxine, a generic version of Effexor, a SSNRI. SSNRIs are another type of drug that helps to regulate emotions. (The psychiatrist told me that people who have had bad reactions to SSRIs could do better on SSNRIs.) I was on Venlafaxine for three years.

It helped a lot… but then it reached its peak. It didn’t help me anymore.

My new psychiatrist is confused as to why old psychiatrist put me on Venlafaxine, as it’s an old drug that’s not commonly used anymore, and not as effective as other SSRIs tend to be. So she weaned me off of Venlafaxine and onto Zoloft, which I’m now on.

My mother doesn’t agree with me taking medication, because she thinks it’s bullshit, and she has never truly understood my OCD. As she has ADD, it’s like we’re total opposites sometimes. I started doing laundry for the both of us when I was about 14 because every time she did it, something would get lost or ruined. She is, however, coming around. She recognizes that I’m an adult now and that OCD is a real condition, not something to be trivialized, mocked, or sensationalized.

It is especially comforting, however, to have people in my life like my partner, who has OCD and anxiety himself. I know he understands me when I’m moody and snap, or when I fixate on something small; he gets it.

That’s why more light needs to be shed on the realities of living with this OCD. OCD is something that’s often misunderstood - it’s trivialized, like in Target’s “Obsessive Christmas Disorder” holiday sweater from last year. Other times, OCD is depicted as very specific, such as in the stereotypes of compulsive hand washers.

via Alana Horowitz Satlin - Target's "Obsessive Christmas Disorder" ugly sweater

In reality, OCD is neither trivial, nor is it just about cleanliness. It can manifest in a myriad of different ways that are specific to each individual dealing with it. It’s complicated and debilitating to live with. It’s not always apparent and some days the symptoms can be less severe than others. But that’s not a reason to discount it as a debilitating ailment or to use it as an adjective to describe your quirks.

“Ohmygod, I’m so OCD about how my hair looks.”

No, that’s not OCD.

My struggles living with this illness are not on par with the idiosyncrasies of someone never diagnosed with this condition.

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Rafaella Gunz

Rafaella is a graduate of The New School in NYC, where she majored in journalism and minored in gender studies. She's passionate about feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, combatting online harassment, and ending the stigmas surrounding mental illness and STIs. Visit her website: ellagunz.com

#OCD #mentalhealth #college #ObsessiveCompulsiveDisorder #Zoloft #Venlafaxine #ADD