My story and trying to find someone to relate to

My therapist really wanted me to join an online support group for people who suffer with ocd. I have had symptoms for years but i yet to come to terms of saying "I have OCD". Whenever I bring it up to my therapist or doctor i just call it Mental illness. I cant seem to call it what it is. My doctors have diagnosed me when i was 15, i now am 21. I have all the signs of the illness but cant seem to admit it. One main reason is the fact that all these people in the world say they have this illness, the term "ocd" has become saturated with jokes and people using it to describe cleaning or something. I guess i should talk about my illness more.

I was first diagnosed what my doctors would call "OCD and Depression" when i was the age of 15, so 2008 the summer to be exact. I have had the symptoms before that, it was something i would hide from people and not tell my family (even though they could tell). I always put on a smile and faced the world, i always looked happy and as if nothing was wrong. That may have been a problem since i bottled up my emotions for years and tried to act like an adult was i was young. I was aware of issues in the family such as money since i grew up in lower middle class. I knew when my parents fought and argued. I watched and listened always trying to be an adult no matter what. sometimes i wonder about how much of my childhood i spent doing this. So in the summer of 2008 I was officially diagnosed with a mental illness, after nights of no sleep and terrible feelings and thoughts. I began treatment for them first by seeing a doctor to prescribe meds and then my therapist ( which we will label as therapist #1). so after the summer of feeling awful came my sophomore year of high school and I continued to plummet. I was always late to school because of rituals, I couldn't sleep, it was hard to focus at school when my mind was always going. I began to try and seek help from the school counselor which was to no luck. She didnt act as if she cared at all about me or my illness, even make jokes about how she ate m&ms in a certain order so she had ocd. My close group of friends where there, what i had thought. The spring of 2009 i decided to seek help from my friends, but that was a huge mistake. They stop speaking to me and avoided me at school. They never gave me a reason for it and still to this day i don't know why. Its hard for me to talk to people about it now in fear that they will leave me too. Sometimes i feel as if my family is the only people there for me (I know this isnt true for everyone). Even though my dad suffers from bi-polar and is always calling me names from my illness. My mom has depression, with a history of it in her family. I have an older sister as well as a younger sister.

So coming on to summer of 2009 it was to continue to get worse. therapist #1 wasnt haelping me as much as i thought when i look back now. I told my parent i dont know how school was going to work that coming year. So after much debate i decided to finish high school trough home schooling. I went with a school called "American School". So i ended up finishing a little bit early because of that. I continued to get worse but still put on a brave face not trying to worry anyone with my thoughts. So the summer of 2010 i decided i need to try to get out of the house more since i was spending most of my time sleeping or staying up all night on the computer. I decided to get a Job, I know what you may be thinking about why would i put another stress on myself with my already stressful life. I thought in someway it would distract me, so from august of 2010 i began to work fast food full time. I was great at it (it wasn't that hard) I did so well that before my 18 birthday i was offered a position as a supervisor, which i took without thinking twice (i don't know why i didn't think this over more). But like i keep saying i continued to get worse, rituals were appearing at work but i hid them best i could. eventually in October of 2011 i deiced to look for a different job, a friend i had met through working told me to come get a job at WalMart (huge mistake). So on November 11,2011 i began a job at walmart that didn't last long. I came on as a third shift stocker, so my sleep schedule now was swapped (increased more depression in me) so it came to june of 2012 after a night of working and having all these thoughts of suicide i went what i thought would be a temporary leave to try to get my medicine changed and back into my right mind. I went out of town to visit family for a week. I came back even worse even planning out suicide and knowing it would be my last time seeing my family. Therapist #1 noticed right away and i was sent right to the hospital and committed to the pysch ward. It was there that I spent ten days June 10, 2012 to June 20, 2012. I left the hospital with new meds and now i was to have to take daily group therapy Monday thru Friday from 9am to 3pm. I spent July through the beginning of September there. I then got enough confidence to try to get back in the work field. Walmart didn't have a day time position open so i had to look for a new place. I put in many Apps and i received many calls i choose to work at Best Buy. I learned everything quickly and now i had all this stress of having to meet quotas all the time. I was the top seller in the store many times, but i was extremely stressed, getting worse by the week, not wanting to let my boss and coworkers down i just pushed through. I took on a full time postion and was spending 40+ hours there a week. They always wanted me to stay later so i was spending a long time there everyday i worked, i began to develop rituals there as well, so imagine clocking out of working but being at the store almost an extra hour for rituals. My General manager noticed and began to talk to me. I was surprised to find out that he suffered from OCD (i didn't believe at first until i saw him doing rituals at work as well). I thought since he can do it i need to push through it and be more strong. So spring of 2013 came I was in a terrible place i had just lost both my Grandfathers and my rituals were at max (i couldn't drive my car since i would be late for work with all my rituals with my car). So I started to get panic attacks at work, i gess thats what they were, i looked up what they were since i thought i was losing my mind completly. by the time summer came I was a mess. therapist #1 didnt know what to do and now she wanted me to find another therapist. I begin to think about suicde again and of course that got me sent back to the hospital . so two summers in a row where i was in the psych ward (i was afraid this was going to happen every summer). Now this time though have tried so many meds (I don't now how many but like all the anti anxiety ones and just a bunch of combos). They put what the doctor at the hospital called "the final Four" he also wanted me to find a new therapist and he didn't think i should go back to work. I felt awful for abandoning best buy like that, I still cant walk into best buy to this day its been a year since then. also while i was there the doctor brought up Deep brain stimulation or DBS for short if you are not familiar with this its a brain sugrey where they put a pacemaker like item in your brain its used to treat Parkinsons disease. He told me that i need a new therapist and to do these new meds and if it didn't work my only option would be dbs to get better. Well I left there so confused by all of this but I searched for a new therapist we will call this therapist #2, i met him and was a bit hopeful that he may help, after about 20 sessions with him, he pretty much gave up on me. Now im not being extreme saying that he said to me there was nothing he could do to help me and that thee was no point in seeing him, even though i tried everything he threw at me. even trying to live a day as someone without ocd. So therapist #2 didnt last that long, and now i needed a new therapist. so i met my new therapist, now we can call her therapist #3, she is the current one i have. we dont bring up DBS since i feel like i cant battle this out and i don't want to give up. I wont lie and say that i dont wake up each day wish it was gone that mental illness didn't exist. I hate thinking about the future or the next day, because living my life like this SUCKS!!!!! I am trapped in my head most of the day, i see my therapist once a week, sometimes i wonder if thats enough or if i need to be committed to a full time pysch ward.

So my therapist wanted me to reach out and "relate with someone saying it might help me accept that i have an illness". She made me write in big letters on her dry erase board saying " I HAVE OCD" it didnt feel real to me, its a label sometimes but truth is im just insane.

To combat my illness for the past ten months i have been trying to exercise more and eat healthier. I wont lie and say everyday is the same there are days where I feel completely lost and sleep all day and days where i think it would be easier to end my life, i know suicide isnt the answer to anything, and its just a cop out of suffering, but i dont know what else there is some days. I don't want to live like this anymore im tierd of this "obsessions" and "compulsions". I cant look forward to anything since i know all these rituals will get in the way. I cant enjoy anything anymore.

I know throughout this i used the "ocd" and "rituals" to describe what i do and it will make you think "hey how can he say those terms if he doesn't accept it?" like i said i see them as labels or ways of pointing out my odd behaviors or that im insane. I know part of me wants to just give up but im here posting so i must want to get help.

I know that's a lot to read but thanks for reading and if you didn't, I understand that's a lot to read!

if you have any questions, i will answer and respond best i feel comfortable.

Hi Beatles -

I'm sorry for al of this suffering you are going through, and have gone through. Although we don't have as many people who suffer from compulsions here, I am certainly one of them. Like you, I would be late for certain events because of all of my rituals.

For years I went without a diagnosis, because I didn't tell my pDoc about it (I also suffer Bipolar Disorder). When I finally did tell her about my symptoms, she knew what I was suffering from and called it OCD (this was a long time ago). After that I went on meds and things got much better.

You say you haven't accepted the disorder, but you talk about it in terms that seems like you have accepted it. Can you talk about how you HAVEN'T accepted it?

Accepting that I had an illness never bothered me except in the very beginning, when I was 18. No one wants to know they have crossed a line from which they can never come back. But it doesn't really matter, because it is more about the symptoms and not the label.

Also, it seems you have tried many different kinds of medication. Were you taking them for anxiety AND depression? It seems like the depression is pretty bad. Also, do you often stay on the meds? Some people stop taking them, especially when they are doing better - and then things get worse.

Otter.

Otter wrote:Hi Beatles -

I'm sorry for al of this suffering you are going through, and have gone through. Although we don't have as many people who suffer from compulsions here, I am certainly one of them. Like you, I would be late for certain events because of all of my rituals.

For years I went without a diagnosis, because I didn't tell my pDoc about it (I also suffer Bipolar Disorder). When I finally did tell her about my symptoms, she knew what I was suffering from and called it OCD (this was a long time ago). After that I went on meds and things got much better.

You say you haven't accepted the disorder, but you talk about it in terms that seems like you have accepted it. Can you talk about how you HAVEN'T accepted it?

Accepting that I had an illness never bothered me except in the very beginning, when I was 18. No one wants to know they have crossed a line from which they can never come back. But it doesn't really matter, because it is more about the symptoms and not the label.

Also, it seems you have tried many different kinds of medication. Were you taking them for anxiety AND depression? It seems like the depression is pretty bad. Also, do you often stay on the meds? Some people stop taking them, especially when they are doing better - and then things get worse.

Otter.

Thanks for the reply Otter

I always thought i accepted it or just knew i had it and I couldn't stop that. Though recently i was talking to my therapist and she noticed things i said about the illness, I'm not sure what she saw or heard me say/do? She said much like grieving there are usually the five steps, she thinks i don't show anger for my illness but instead pour it back at myself in the form of depression. I have always thought of myself as not an angry person. My father has bi polar so when i think of anger i think of what he is like when he doesn't take his medication. I'm afraid of being a monster or at least appearing like one. I also dont have the best of relationship with him, since he makes fun of my illness when ever he can and growing up seeing the image of him angry was my view on mental illness. I have hard times talking about it to anyone including my therapist, which i think is common, i think one of the main reasons i don't seem like i have accepted it is because of how the world looks at mental illness. I talked about how everyone says "they are OCD" for small things. It makes me furious when i hear that. I have a lot of guilt as well for putting this on my family, so i pretend as if i don't have it, even if it shows all day I don't talk about it and neither does most of my family. I always liked that since it didn't put this pressure on me to explain why i would walk through the doors multiple times and etc. Again my therapist is worried about that my family isn't helping me to get better since everyone ignores it. Back to the guilt, i feel that way a lot mostly because I do things that get in the way of them do what they want to do. I know what i do isnt "normal" but am i really afraid of saying "I have OCD", i don't know really. How can i be serious about my illness when the world looks at it and other illnesses as a joke. Like the nurses at the hospital said to me "just stop doing it!", if it was that easy do you think i would be here. My point being even they don't take it serious and they see the full view of "mental illness".

So for medication I have been on many kinds they are used to treat my depression and my anxiety(ocd). I cant remember all i have been on but if you named many SSRI i could say yes on quite a few. I never miss a day, i used to be bad at remember them but i never forget now, mostly because i made it part of my routine before bed. My current mix is
60mg prozac once a day
100mg seroquel before bed
50mg anafranil before bed
1 mg klonopin as needed

it has been a year on those current meds, i feel anxious and depressed a lot so i don't know how well they are working, im just afraid if i stop them i will get worse or if they get increased the side effect will be more extreme. I already feel drowsy all day, combined with the depressed and anxious state i am already in all day. I also feel rushed when i see my doctor since they only schedule 15 minutes for you, but when i see her i will try to get in as much as i can.

thanks for the replies I for got i was on a site with people who understand, i haven't really had much of that before.

I was wondering if there was another website or forum where it would be better to post. I appreciate the help but I notice very few people reply to post most of it is people posting. I just need to reach out to people, my depression is kicking me in the face everyday and now today i have been worried because i have been shaking. Im afraid that my medicine is doing something to me, would it be better to stop taking it? i was told by a therapist once "why take medicine it obviously doesn't help" and before you say he is wrong think of this, he is a local award winning therapist, my opinion was that he was awful.

thanks for reading

I think this is a great place for OCD people. I really do. I have a forums too, but it's not as active: http://pureoforums.org/

If the meds help they help, if they don't, ask for different meds. A lot of psych pills end up being placebos.

The Stuck In A Doorway forums are more active, and have a lot more knowledge and understanding of OCD. However, they are down at the moment due to technical difficulties and I believe the webmaster is fixing it. Keep an eye out for when the site is live again.

Hi Beatles,

Thanks for your in-depth explanation of your condition. I understand your reluctance to accept the "label" of OCD, I have felt my whole life that A) for some reason I was not good enough to have the label, or B) I was just kidding myself and was normal because everyone else thought I was. But I have embraced OCD for ME and only me. I don't compare myself to others who do or don't have this condition. I don't have handwashing rituals which is what most people associate this with, my rituals are odd, I always hid them, and by the way I have gotten some relief in explaining them to my wife and kids. Yes they think I am weird but they still love me.

Accepting OCD helps me understand my behavior and helps me realize that I am not an idiot or a weirdo. I can go "Aha! That is why I am doing that." I think the most important thing about this, and it is what concerns me about your story, is to normalize it somehow. Just as a deaf person would learn to live with that condition, we have to learn to live and function with this one.

Try to find things that work and stick with them. Try to make progress and don't allow yourself or others to blow things up all the time.

You are young. Please be patient with yourself and love the person you are. Know that for whatever reason you have this and must learn to function as well as you can with it. Every condition like this has a good side and a bad. You may be able to find ways that this makes you a better person- music, math, or other things, I think OCD people learn to function well in organized climates and with organized things. I realized that everything in the universe is organized and mathematic. It helped me to understand my existence in a strange way.

Be good to yourself.