Turning in a full circle was completely impossible for me. I couldn't do it. It's not that I thought something bad was going to happen if I did, it's just that I couldn't. I felt like I had to be reset, I had to turn back the other way, no matter how much of the circle I turned in. I couldn't explain it. Often I would just keep it to myself and 'reset' myself without mentioning it. Other times I would kick and scream if someone tried to turn me in a circle. I still can't explain it, I just know that now I can do it. You might say, I've come full circle.
OCD isn't just about repetitive hand washing. It is about reoccurring intrusive thoughts, a need to do things one way, the inability to do some things that may seem silly to others. It makes you stand out and it makes you shrink into the background. You can seem like an annoying person, a fussy person and a pedant, but you cannot help it.
None of my OCD issues have been so bad that my life has been terribly affected, but this doesn't make them insignificant. Many of them have come and gone at different times of my life and now are something I look back on as the old me. The first instance I can remember is when I was probably about 5 years old and I woke up in the middle of the night absolutely convinced that I had to put all of my things under my bed, I was so driven by this that I got up and did just that. I did think that something would happen if I didn't and I couldn't risk that. I don't remember any fallout or anything after that. I just remember stashing everything away, Care Bear and all.
From junior school onwards, I was unable to throw out any wrappers or waste from my packed lunch. I had to take it home to throw it away. This was some overwhelming idea that everything in there was a gift from my mam and I could not throw it away or it would be like getting rid of that gift. This was easy to keep to myself and didn't seem to be something that would bother other people.
In senior school I made myself somewhat of a target as I could not enter my science classroom without touching the sign on the door. I would wait to be last in to the room if I had to, but I had to touch the sign. Obviously, other kids noticed me doing this, and being a target for meanness anyway, they revelled in trying to stop me from being able to touch that sign. I always did.
Later in life I developed an intense reaction if I was touched softly (for instance, if someone stroked my arm) I would have to wipe it off. If I didn't, I could feel where I had been touched, it would feel horrible, I had to get rid of it. I tried to stop this by sitting on my hands, waiting as long as I could but I always gave in. This particular compulsion stayed with me the longest. I only seemed to overcome it after starting on my meds and taking steps to sort out my life. I gradually forgot about this. I don't particularly liked to be touched by people I don't know well, but I certainly don't feel the intense reaction I used to.
Not everything has gone away. What does remain is my obsessive thinking. I will dwell on something, think it over a million times, make up scenarios in my head that upset me even more. I cannot let something go once I have a thought. I try to bury it but eventually it will surface. I obsess about the tiniest of things, nuances, hidden meanings, things that may or may not have been implied, things that could happen, things that should happen, things that won't happen. This is behaviour that is ingrained in me and will be so much harder to change.
CBT taught me that I should challenge these thoughts and look at them from another perspective, which I do try to do, but it isn't often easy at 4am or when you have allowed yourself down a rabbit hole of thoughts. Though this will be the hardest to break, I know that I have been able to shake off other habits and I know that I will make progress. Maybe not fully and maybe not soon. But hopefully I will be able to turn these thoughts around. Perhaps even in a full circle.
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