Main >> Personal Interests >> My Profiles

 
My OCD Life

My OCD Life

Me Without OCD

I am a 19 year old student from England, studying to become a primary school teacher. I have a wonderful boyfriend who I have been with for a year and who I now live with. All of these good things are being ruined though, by my OCD illness.

Me With OCD

I have had OCD at least 5 years that I can remember. I had no idea why I was the way I was and what was wrong with me until I started to look on the web and was relieved to find that there were other people like me out there. I suffer from what is normally classified as 'contamination OCD'. I am fearful of touching anything, and I mean ANYTHING!
I used to have certain people and objects that for some reason I would associate with being 'dirty' eg the floor, feet etc. Someone might touch their foot and then touch something else and then something else ... contaminating everything. It has now spiralled out of control and has got to a point where I am incapable of touching anything without cleaning it and myself before, after, during etc. I end up washing my hands 100s of times a day. The illness rules and ruins my life. Every time I move I have to think about it and there's nothing I can do about it. I can't pick anything up, hug my friends or boyfriend, open doors, do my uni work, cook ... I can't do anything because everything is dirty. I have to sit touching nothing with my hands up my sleeves to 'protect' myself. Why don't I just stop doing it? Because I can't. My brain tells me to do it, even though I know it doesnt make sense and things aren't dirty and that my life would be so much easier and better without it. But I have to do it, the mind rules the body and the heart gets broken.

The Next Step

Because things have got so much worse in the past year I know I have to do something about this illness. It has taken my whole life into it's control and I want it back. I didn't ask for this. I'm now at one of my hardest stages in this illness so far. I know I have to get treatment. I have read a lot about medication and behavioural therapy and I know I need these to start to get through this but it's such an impossibly hard step to take. I feel embarrased about telling a stranger about my OCD, although I know I shouldn't. But how can I tell someone I've never met about my inner most feelings and problems, it took me long enough to talk to my boyfriend about it properly. But I know I have to talk to a professonal about it. I know I have to. It's just one step to get the ball rolling, problem is it's such a giant sized step.


page created with 1-2-3 Publish