When it comes to battling OCD, it really is immensely
helpful to have someone around you that can support you through the difficult
times. For me, I have my husband who for the purposes of vague anonymity I will
just call G (although anyone who knows me knows who my husband is but the
internet is a big place so I’m being as discreet as possible).
G has been a
true star right from day one. Just before he and I got together he knew that I
was struggling with life and as I came to the realisation that I had some deep
rooted problems mentally, G gently supported me all the way. He encouraged me
to go to the doctor and really open up with what was wrong. I went alone to the
appointment as I felt it was something I had to do by myself but when the
doctor referred me to a psychiatrist, G was with me for every appointment where
he was a necessary presence. We learned together about how my brain was filled
with two forces tearing me apart – Brian and Fred remember? Constantly battling
for supremacy of volume to keep me safe but not allowing me to take risks.
G stood back and allowed me to make decisions on medication,
or rather refusing to take them at first, and he respected my decisions. He
gave me his opinion, even if he didn’t agree with my decisions and he was there
for me when I finally gave in and took the medications prescribed by the
psychiatrist. He patiently fed the tablets to me when I couldn’t even read the
packets due to the anxiety. To be honest, I’m really glad that he isn’t a
manipulative sociopath or I would be in real trouble!
G encouraged me to go for therapeutic walks or to meet up
with my friends if I was up to it and all the way he helped where possible.
However, when loved ones, family etc get into the habit of
dealing with your OCD, something quite unexpected happens. Often you can start
relying on the person too much and after a few years, this started to happen to
me. You get into a vicious circle where you may feel unable to cope with
certain tasks so your partner/friend/family member etc does it for you, to save
time perhaps or because you have had a panic attack. The problem is that the
next time you come to do the same task, it can feel easier to let your carer do
it for you again and again and again. For example, if you find it difficult to do the laundry it may
feel easier to let your carer do it, but if they do it for you regularly you
come to rely upon them. This feeling of reliance, while comforting, will
invariably lead to you feeling vulnerable or that you have little control over
things and this can lead to depression. Then when you come to do the task
again, it has been so long that the fear rises again and you may feel that you
can’t do it which raises your anxiety levels and makes you feel more vulnerable
and depressed and so the cycle continues.
If you allow your carer to do things for you, you may also unknowingly
start to impress your rituals on your carer then you pull them into the loop
which in the long run will lead to further complications. Believe me, I’ve been
there. G is so kind and obviously doesn’t want to see me in acute distress so
he often does things for me which is incredibly caring but tough love is often
necessary to help me with my therapy.
As well as my medication, I undergo Cognitive Behavioural
Therapy on a regular basis. This has been a mixture of talking through my
various rituals and finding ways to tackle them. I have a truly wonderful
psychologist who has helped me immensely, strangely by being quite strict!
Part of my therapy is something called Exposure Response
Prevention. This is fairly horrid but actually very effective. Say for example
you worry that you haven’t locked the door when you go out. The therapy for
this, in my case, is simply (well, I say simply but as you can imagine it can
be ridiculously hard) to walk out of the house, lock the door and walk away
from the door without checking. At this point my psychologist usually has to
practically pull me me away from the door and away from my home as I find it
immensely stressful. By this point I can often be hysterical, panicking,
feeling sick and generally concerned that I’m going to die horribly on the
spot. It sounds horrendous I know but it actually does work.
On meeting another psychologist over the years he removed
his shoe and said that if I licked my hand (which I was terrified of doing at
the time, even if washed. I was eating things like crisps with a fork from a
plate) he would in return lick his shoe to prove to me that things are very
rarely as dirty as I think they are. With a great deal of reluctance and tears
I eventually managed to lick my hand and he, as promised, licked his shoe to
show me that he was willing to do anything he would ask me to do. He was fine despite
claiming that he had walked through some really manky areas on the way to work!
Having a supportive carer is very important but what is more
important is their willingness to stay strong and not give reassurance, even
when I’m sobbing my heart out and begging for reassurance and that is an
extremely hard thing for someone who loves you to do. G does try to be strict
but at the end of the day he can see how terrified I am and how much distress
I’m in and it can often be too much for him to bear. It is a hard task for
anyone but one which must be undertaken if you want to see improvement.
It’s terrible in a way, I find myself begging “Please. Did I
lock the door? Please?” but the problem is that even if G reassures me, it is
never enough. It doesn’t feel right, I feel like he is confused and perhaps
didn’t see me lock the door properly. Maybe he is wrong? What if? What if? So I
ask for reassurance again but even if he replies again patiently that the door
is locked, I’ll still feel like I need to ask him again and again and again
until it feels ‘right’. But of course it never is.
As you can imagine, my dear husband deserves a medal as, at
my worst stages, I was like that about everything. Everything even in our home
felt dirty and the space in which I felt safe became smaller and smaller until
the bed was the only place I felt even remotely safe. It can be incredibly hard
to cope through periods of illness like that and my lovely G did so because he
knew that I am a fighter, that I love him and would do my best to cope during
the intense therapy so that we can have a life together. A proper life, not
just a life that revolves around my rituals.
Apparently it is entirely common for a
relative/friend/partner to get somehow involved in the rituals as it is easier
and less time consuming but it is a cycle that must be broken to gain back any
semblance of life.
The most important step is to realise that you are in the
cycle in order to try and break it to improve. G finds tough love hard but he
knows that he’s doing the best for me and I want to be back to my usual feisty
self.
Support is vital during the suffering in OCD but try and
make sure that whoever is supporting you isn’t helping you too much as this can
cause issues too. You can fight back against the intrusive thoughts and I know
how easy it can be to rely on someone too much but remember that the way to get
better is to be strong, even when you feel you can’t be.
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