As part of my recovery from OCD, depression and agoraphobia I decided that exercise classes were definitely the way to go for me. If I just spend time in the gym I feel unstructured and I just stand around, bedraggled amongst the beautiful people, doing exercises that I see other people do or pounding the treadmills until I'm slick with sweat and feeling on the road to nowhere. Then one day, while walking through a local park, I came across a club advertising a range of exciting classes to suit all ages and fitness levels, a great place in Edinburgh called North Merchiston Club. I examined the boards, filled with interesting and unusual activities and decided to go to my first exercise class in many years...
Swing Train - Aerobics and dance to Swing music
The first time I ventured into this class, I didn't really know what to expect and I didn't know anyone so was pretty anxious. I worried that I might perform the steps wrong and everyone might point and laugh or that I would fall over (Which to be honest I did at one point but that was almost a year in and is a story for another time!). Just after I entered the room I felt so anxious that I feared I might be sick. There were several women of various ages standing around with bottles of water, chattering to each other jovially. I was welcomed in by the instructor who gave me lots of information about the class and what to expect and with that we began the class. As I wear gloves virtually most of the time due to my fear of dirt and germs, I was conscious that people were curious as to why I was wearing gloves to a class in June when the weather was already clammy. To be fair, I'm sort of used to the "I wonder why she's wearing gloves" look and for the most part I tend to be as straightforward as possible and mention my OCD so I did to several of the ladies and everyone was mercifully kind. I'm so self conscious, I kept worrying my jogging trousers would fall down or I'd accidentally shout something or crash into someone. My OCD voice was screaming in my head 'Everyone thinks you're a weirdo! You've punched people in the class! Everyone hates you!' and it's unsurprisingly difficult to concentrate on what you're supposed to be doing with your limbs when your head is so noisy.
I loved the class from the very start, I've been to lots of aerobics classes over the years but Swing Train was a welcome shake up to the format. We learned routines to various classic songs such as 'Putting on the Ritz' and 'Green Onions' and, whilst it takes me a few classes to really master some of the steps, I found myself dancing around the room with the kind of confidence that I hadn't seen in myself for a long long time. I was around 16 stone when I began the class back in June 2018 and, over the weeks and months that followed, I started to see my weight lift and my confidence soar. As I dance around the hall, I feel like I'm practising for Strictly, cha cha-ing and charlestoning with all of my heart. We sometimes stand in a chorus line, each of us dancing as if we are going to be stars someday, we just need that one shot at dancing success! The ladies are warmly accepting and the instructor comprehensively goes through the moves for each dance so everyone can practise the steps before the music begins. The class has me always going back for more.
After each class, my husband would pick me up and we'd sometimes go for a walk before going home if the weather permitted. Over the past month or so I've actually been able to walk home alone as part of my therapy and while that has been difficult for me sometimes, I'm managing for now.
Once I'd become accustomed to going to classes, I decided to try out a slightly different class...
Zumba - Dancing and aerobics to some funky beats
I first tried out a Zumba Gold class as my fitness wasn't exactly perfect at that time and Zumba Gold was a toned down version of Zumba with some amazing music but with a slower pace. The instructor is a smiley, friendly lady who embodies happiness, her enthusiasm is infectious and makes you work that little bit harder as you watch her expertly perform each dance. I went to this class with a neighbour of mine so I wasn't on my own for a change. I threw myself into the class and by the end of it I was drenched in sweat but grinning from ear to ear. I don't know about anyone else but, during a Zumba class I get the most tremendous endorphin rush, a feeling of sheer ecstacy that, for a short period of time anyway, calms my OCD voice. Sadly the feeling doesn't last long as my OCD will throw something into my brain that completely distracts me from what I'm doing. For example, during one Zumba class, because I have to watch the instructor to work out what I'm supposed to do with my feet and arms, my OCD voice whispered in my ear 'The instructor thinks you're a creepy weirdo because you keep looking at her'. This threw me a bit and I started to feel horribly self conscious, I was worried what expression was on my face - was I pulling a strange face? Is my mouth lolling open and what am I doing with my eyebrows?? I became so anxious that, as I was looking at the ladies' feet in front of me when I couldn't see the instructor through the crowd, my brain kept saying 'You're looking at their feet but everyone thinks you're looking at their bums, you're a weirdo'. Even though I knew I was looking at feet, I was aware that I don't know anyone in the class and maybe they do think I'm a creepy person staring at their bums. On several occasions this fear has overwhelmed me and I've been shaking afterwards but the thing is that I love the class, I love the music and it's another chance for me to dance and throw my arms around in sheer abandon and for that reason alone, I fight my OCD every step of the way.
As it always gives me such a massive high, I started to realise that I'm essentially addicted, going back every time for that feeling of happiness and, for a few moments at least, a sense of peace and tranquility from my mental health problems. I suppose when it comes down to it, it's not a bad thing to be addicted to, I've been addicted to worse things. As well as my OCD thoughts, I've found that when I'm dancing around in a class, I frequently have 'naked lunch' moments where I stop for a moment and think 'what on earth must I look like??' or I have random thoughts that creep into my brain that are completely unrelated to anything. These thoughts have ranged from 'I wonder who first thought about keying a car?', 'In TV shows, if two characters are chatting about something then they go to another location and start chatting about the same thing, what do they talk about on the journey? Do they not mention the subject until they're at the second location?' or 'Does anyone else not have much control over their three smallest toes or is it just me?'. As you can imagine, the endorphin high that clears my mind when it's conjuring up thoughts like these is somewhat a relief! No matter how brief the quiet. I continue to attend these classes and, as with Swing, my weight has dropped with every sweaty dance session I enjoy.
With my confidence boosted by dance classes, I decided to try something a little different. With my fears of harm to others, I started to think that perhaps I should look at how it feels to hit things and in this way I would know the feeling and my brain might realise that I'm not doing it to other people. With this in mind, I went onto my next class.
Kickboxing - Learning the correct techniques to kicking and punching, increase stamina and improve belief in my own strength
When I first began this class, I had in mind my goals and I needed to find out how to achieve them. My main aims were to improve my fitness, strengthen my body particularly my upper body and to use the techniques to help me gain confidence in myself and show my OCD a thing or two. Our instructor, Metin Tuncay, is a friendly, highly skilled and encouraging gentleman who knows how to get the best out of you. There are various people in the class; some want to learn the full range of kickboxing skills and gain their belts, some want to become instructors and then there are people like me who are there for the fitness aspect of the sport. For every person, our instructor tailors the class to their needs so we each get out of it what we need, it's like having a personal trainer as he walks around the class giving us tips and helping us to perfect each move.
In the first class, I didn't even know how to fully make a fist, my thumb was in entirely the wrong position and I was terribly nervous but Metin was so supportive and the other people in the class welcomed me with open arms so that helped me a great deal. In order to build strength we also perform circuits; lifting weights, sit ups, stretches etc for a minute at a time before advancing to the next station. In the original few classes I was exhausted even in the warm up but I persevered. While some of the class was circuits, there was the option to spar or to practise technique with another member of the class or to work on the punch bag. I strangely seem to have some sort of untapped rage as I am particularly fond of laying into the punch bag with great aplomb! I always thought that I was reasonably well co-ordinated limb-wise but with each technique there are several things that each part of your body should be doing and I have found that trying to punch correctly, twist my body and step forward on one foot whilst staying on my toes is a little like patting your head and rubbing your tummy! However, it is uniquely satisfying when I get it right. A gentleman in the class said "Learning to do all of the different things you do with your body in the techniques, it's like driving in a way" and I replied "Hmm, problem with that is that I can't drive!" :-)
After every class my OCD was incredibly noisy, telling me that I have harmed those in the class, but week after week these thoughts actually started to ease, knowing the feeling of punching an inanimate object has gone some way to persuading my brain that I am not a violent, fighting machine when I'm simply walking along a street. I'm not saying that the thoughts or feelings have vanished entirely but it has been of great help to me not only physically but mentally too. Also, as well as the exercise aspects, I have also been able to begin making friends again and this was something I was finding hard. Who really wants to be friends with a person who constantly worries they are harming people? Well, it turns out that people are much more understanding than I could ever have hoped, and explaining my condition has not completely put people off speaking to me so that is one less worry for me.
Each of the classes I was attending was providing me with different and very important skills and mental resilience but after years of being overweight and feeling frumpy, I decided to go to a class that might make me feel like a sexy woman again.
Burlesque Chair Dance - Learning to dance and shimmy with kind and supportive ladies
This was another class that I went to entirely alone and knowing little about what I would be doing. I knew that it would involve a chair for some routines but not much else. I went dressed as I would for other classes, a t-shirt and jogging trousers, but saw that while some were dressed in similar attire, a few of the ladies in the classes wore fishnet tights and leotards. I was so envious that I didn't have the courage to wear the same and I was again self conscious of my body. Losing weight is fantastic yes, but it does leave behind its mark, in my case I have flabby legs and stomach so thought that I would never brave sexy clothing to the class.
I introduced myself to the instructor, told her a little about myself, including my OCD then asked what I was to do. Our instructor is a confident and sassy woman, both in name and in personality, a lady who can show you how to really work your body to not only make you feel like a confident and sassy woman too, but to also strengthen muscles that you never knew you had.
We started the warm up sitting astride chairs and then moved onto the routine for the week. I never realised that you could do so many moves with merely a chair; One minute I was throwing my legs over the back of the chairs and the next I was perched atop of the cushioned seat, throwing my arms around before leaping to the floor. Our sassy instructor walked us through several of the moves, repeating each section two or three times, then we moved onto performing them together at speed and then to the music before moving to the next section of poses for the music track. Once we knew the moves for the entire track, the music would begin and we all shimmied, shoogled and stretched our limbs long, feeling like sexy dancers in the spotlight of a burlesque club. It really was a revelation to me, I suppose I didn't really know what to expect from the class, I went there wanting to gain more confidence in myself and, after several years of feeling unattractive and invisible due to my OCD and weight, I could dance with abandon as if I were truly a sexy lady. The other women in the class didn't judge me and were so very supportive that, after several weeks I decided to come to class dressed in costume. As Christmas was coming, some of the ladies would dress up as Santa, elves and even as a reindeer so I bought a Mrs Santa dress and went along to the class wearing that, I was still a little self conscious so I wore leggings underneath but it was fun to dress up for the first time in a long time. It was some weeks after this I decided to take the plunge and dress as some of the other girls in the class did...
Gaining such inspiration from the other confident and outgoing ladies and buoyed by my huge weight loss (I'd lost six stone by this point), I went online and purchased an outfit to wear for the next class. Helped by my husband, as there was no way to scoop myself into the outfit alone, I finally went to class wearing something other than my jogging trousers and large t-shirt. I stepped into class that night wearing frilly shorts, fishnet tights and a corset and I felt amazing. The ladies in the class and the instructor were so pleased for me, clapping and whooping appreciatively, I felt so brave and owning my inner sex kitten. That night I danced so happily, stretching my limbs and pointing my toes sharp, walking just that wee bit taller all because I finally felt like an attractive woman again rather than the worried, flustered mess that my OCD usually leaves me in. I still had intrusive thoughts in class and I constantly worried what everyone thought of me but this was a class where I could happily wear my gloves and no one thought anything of it. As we use props from time to time for Burlesque routines, wearing gloves doesn't make me stick out like a sore thumb so I never felt too awkward. This is a class where you can be whoever you want to be and, at least for an hour a week, I get to be a sexy, sensual woman who dances like everyone is watching :-)
At the start of 2018, I had never really thought about how I would re-enter the real world after having spent many years trapped in my own home and my own mind. I knew that at some point I would have to start interacting with people again but I didn't really know how to go about it. I'd not spent any time with friends for a long time and my only contact with the outside world was my husband, psychologist, doctor and psychiatrist. Attending regular exercise classes not only helped me with my mental therapy and physical strength but helped me to really get to know people again and how to interact with the world after so much isolation. Even though my brain still churns out ridiculous thoughts and sometimes comical scenarios, I know the world once again and, through every class I am taking another step towards being me, the old me before my mental health locked me away. I may still be the weirdo with the gloves but I have a smile on my face and more confidence in my recovery so, whatever happens next, bring it on! :-)
Sunday, 26 May 2019
Sunday, 19 May 2019
Back to Life: Recovery 101
After several years of suffering from the worst bout of OCD, Depression and Agoraphobia that I had ever endured, I was, needless to say, unconvinced that my New Year's resolutions to lose weight and work hard on my recovery would come to fruition. So many times I had embarked upon the journey to better health only for something like physical illness or extra stress to rear their ugly heads and, before I knew it, I was back hiding under my duvet struggling with panic attacks ad infinitum.
As you can imagine, while I had high hopes that this time would be burgeoning with success, I still worried that my attempts may be a little ambitious. It turns out that my husband was of a similar opinion, not that he didn't have faith in me, just that he thought that something external like the aforementioned illness and pressure would impact upon me before I had really got to grips with the tricky parts.
I began 2018 with the highest of hopes and with the one difference in my mental health toolkit - For once I didnt expect or want immediate results. I'm a kind of instant gratification sort of gal when it comes to me doing most things - particularly exercise, diet, recovery, smoking, playing games etc. What can I say, I have an addictive personality, and when I start something, I want to see results fast. In the past this had been enormously bad for my mental health when attempting recovery. If I didn't see myself improving quickly I would begin to think that it was all going to fail and I would end up back to square one. As part of my attempt to lose weight and regain control over my OCD demons, I started to accept that neither weight loss or improvement to my mental health was going to happen overnight and strangely this loosening of my expectations was to be the breakthrough that I finally needed to make leaps and bounds in my therapy.
At the start of 2018 I was 17 and a half stone (approx 245 pounds/111kg), Size 26 and my agoraphobia was due to the panic attacks from my OCD thoughts. As well as being terrified of germs, dirt and chemicals and therefore having to wear gloves all the time, my OCD 'voice' in my head kept telling me that I was punching people in the street/pushing people in the canal/shouting at people on buses whereas I know for a fact that I would never do anything to deliberately harm a human or animal. For the uninitiated to my condition - OCD isn't what you think it is, people say things like "I'm a bit OCD about..." or "Well, at least if you have OCD then your house must be tidy!" when they have a misunderstanding how OCD really works. For those of you that already know (probably because you've seen me or heard me describing it to someone, maybe even several times, feel free to skip this bit. I won't be offended, or I might go on a tangent about something interesting and you'll miss that but let's face it, I'm not the most interesting of folk so you're more or less fine to skip to the next paragraph :-)
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Well, the one after this one that is. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a series of intrusive thoughts that a sufferer is plagued with for the majority of their waking life, and sleeping life if you're me as I frequently have the thoughts in my dreams too and dream I'm completing rituals to try and counteract said thoughts. These thoughts can be about anything that you're particularly afraid of - germs, lack of symmetry, harm to yourself or others etc. In my case, I worry about harm coming to people, as OCD tends to pick on the things you are most afraid of, most of my 'OCD thoughts' are based on that. I can't speak for everyone's unique experiences but hopefully my case will help you understand a little of how it feels. Most people, as I found out several years ago, have intrusive thoughts. I would love to know the frequency of the rogue thoughts that go through people's minds as they go about their day. Things such as when parked at a set of traffic lights someone might think "I could just accelerate now and knock those people over" or they might think "That person looks annoying, I could punch them in the face" and the majority of the time they'll probably think "hmm, that was a weird thought. Oh well" and that will be that. In my case, and thousands of others of poor souls struggling with OCD, I may have the thought "I could punch that person in the face" and instead of dismissing it I attach a huge amount of significance to the thought leading to "You had that thought because you're an evil person. Why would you have such a wicked thought otherwise?" progressing to "You didn't just think that you punched them - you did punch them". It is at this point that I look at the person I have worried about punching and my brain sees the person with bruises all over their face, even though logically I know it's in my imagination and that the person looks fine.
This is where my brain needs a quick explanation - I don't know how other brains work, I can only go by what I'm told by other people and my brain seems to do something that few other people seem to be able to fathom - sadly this is not a compliment. All the time, I have three separate thought trains running through my head. Train 1 is my OCD irrational thoughts train e.g. 'You have definitely punched that person', 'You left the gas on', 'You didn't lock the door, burgulars are going to walk in and steal your stuff'. Train 2 is probably what remains of me after years of being battered down by Train 1, this is the more logical and rational train e.g. 'You didn't punch that person, you would never harm anyone', 'You definitely did turn the gas off', 'You did lock the door'. Trains 1 and 2 pass each other regularly, yelling expletives at each other from the train windows in a bid to outfox each other. Train 3 is a bit more mundane but ultimately helps me to function e.g. 'I must remember to get xyz from the shops', 'In TV programmes, when people talk about a subject in a particular place then we see them resume their conversation in another location, miles away, what do they talk about in the interim?' or 'Why do the English say 'leftenant' and Americans say 'Lieutenant'?' etc. I am particularly fond of Train 3 as I have the most fun with it, except when it won't tell me an actor's name or it remembers the music to a kid's TV show like 'The Get Along Gang' and decides to ride around the theoretical track singing it on loop for five hours. Then, well then Train 3 becomes an enormous pain in the arse - sorry for the language but it really does. Anyway, when Train 1 and 2 are fighting each other, and lets face it, this is most of my day and night, I need to do something to molify my aching brain. This naturally leads to yes, you've guessed it, the Compulsive side of the equation. If I think I've left a door unlocked or punched a person, I might try and check to make sure. At first this does something to assuage the fear but then Train 1 yells "Nope, the door is definitely unlocked/You've definitely punched the person!" and as much as I check and try to convince myself that I am not a wicked and evil person, nothing helps. In the case of germs or dirt Train 1 yells "Your hands are crawling with germs and poisons, you're going to die" and the ritual in this case would be to wash my hands but the thoughts keep coming, my imagination joins in the torture and makes me see crawling, festering insects and unspeakably horrific creatures crawling over my now soaking flesh so I wash my hands, again and again, yet the thoughts don't leave me alone until I'm constantly performing rituals; sobbing and shaking with the sheer exhausting undertaking of the task until I have a panic attack. This, my dear friends, is my life with OCD.
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Welcome back to those of you who skipped my possibly overlong explanation of OCD. For those who joined me on the above journey, sorry if I've traumatised you but I did set out to be as honest and as clear as I can be and it's not a pleasant mental health condition to have so it's somewhat difficult to sugarcoat it. My apologies dear reader.
Anyway, returning to 2018, I was cautiously optimistic that, if I were to take small steps in both weight loss and my therapy and as long as I was equipped to identify which things were likely to derail me and cause relapse, I would have a chance at success. At the time, January 2018, I could barely walk 100 metres before having to sit down and I could only leave the flat and walk around outside when accompanied by my husband as alone I would have a panic attack in minutes and that is what kept me metaphorically chained up in agoraphobia. Again, as a brief aside, Agoraphobia is not necessarily a fear of open spaces - it's a fear of being in crowded spaces, leaving your home and not feeling able to escape to safety. Because my brain taunted me anytime I walked near anyone, it was unsurprisingly difficult to walk places, take buses etc. so I had become a recluse save for conversations on Facebook and seeing my husband.
I could do things like go to the park with my husband and, while it was incredibly difficult both physically due to my weight and back problems and mentally because of my OCD, we started taking small walks several times a week. This seemed to help my stamina and we could try Exposure Response Prevention a little whilst out and about. I found that, the more walks we did, the further I could go before needing to sit down, my back was (and sadly still is) excruciatingly painful but I managed.
When it came to diet, I'll be honest, I was eating such large portions that it was monumentally difficult to cut down at first. I was only eating three meals a day, no snacks, but I was eating several thousands of calories and vast quantities of fat in things such as cheese, ice cream, mayonnaise and so forth. It was stupendously hard to be sat eating a small amount of pasta and watch my husband scoff whole pizzas and biscuits but I think that in a way it helped me too. I have logged my food in a diary app for several years so I used that to work out what I could have that would be around 1200 to 1400 calories a day and, while that's not what I started out at at first, I soon found that 1200 to 1400 calories was enough to see the weight begin to drop. I chose healthier options like lower fat cheese and I cut out as much sugar as I could bear - I have a ridiculously sweet tooth so this was no easy feat I assure you. My dentist was overwhelmed by the change in my teeth and gums, especially as my usual diet had included sugary fizzy drinks, sweets and cake...mmmm delicious cake...
I digress. With the diet under a modicum of control, I began to attempt exercise in the flat. My treadmill can't have been exactly glorious for my neighbours in the flat beneath but I began briskly walking on it once a day for ten minutes, then 15 minutes then little by little I could walk for an hour on the treadmill and not be ludicrously knackered. The weight started to slide off, the scales began yielding and my clothing felt looser. Whatsmore, as my stamina grew and my waistline shrank, my spirits seemed to lift a little and my mind trains were being slightly less abusive to one another. After months of not being able to brush my teeth due to the repetitive handwashing afterwards and checking during, suddenly it was taking half an hour to brush my teeth instead of the usual hour. My ritualistic showers crept down from three hours of boiling under hot water while crying and washing my hair and body over and over again to a still unwieldly but improved one hour. Exercise began to give me deliciously thrilling endorphin highs and seeing my Fitbit register that I had undertaken 5000 steps with a display of pixelated fireworks would jolt my dopamine sky high, well, for a minute or two anyway.
It seemed that my mental and physical health were improving and that the two were intertwined in a way that I admittedly hadn't forseen. I heard people say that exercise was good for you but I usually thought "It's usually a thin and attractive person telling me that and I'm neither so it probably won't work for me". All those people who say "No pain, no gain" aren't all just trying to get me to torture myself with 50 sit ups, it really is true. It was something of a revelation to be honest, despite having lost weight in the past and knowing that exercise makes you feel good, I just thought that eating a huge chocolate cake makes you feel even better.
I started going out alone; very briefly at first, just 5 minutes to the bottom of the stairs in our building and standing outside. Then I would walk up the road a little next time. Then around the block a few times after that. I improved so much by around May 2018 that I could walk to the park up the road from my flat and back - alone. I'm not going to say it was all plain sailing as it wasn't. I had panic attacks, I had blips but I always made sure that no matter what happened, I would try again the next day.
It wasn't easy, it was a phenomenal struggle but,as they say, nothing good ever comes easy and over the months that passed my weight dropped, pleasingly quickly at first then I would plateau at various points whereupon I would eat more than usual for a day or two - just 1800 to 2000 calories - then resume my low calorie diet and that seemed to kick my body out of starvation mode and back onto weightloss. I went from size 26, having to buy my clothes online as I could seldom find anything suitable in stores, and that's not easy with OCD when you can't touch things that come through the post, to a size 20 then to a size 18 and over the full 17 months to a size 12, which is what I am today.
I began to go to exercise classes, something unthinkable without my husband being nearby, in June 2018 and for the first few classes I was terrified as I didn't know anyone and my intrusive thoughts would make me feel massively self conscious. My husband would pick me up from the classes and thankfully, as the club I attended classes at was a few streets away from my home, it was easy for my husband to come to my aid if I had a panic attack. Mercifully I never needed to call him and he would come to pick me up after class so that was a weight off my mind. I started going to several different exercise classes at the same place, each class giving me more confidence and great satisfaction.
Through a healthy minds scheme I was assigned a befriender to take me for walks to various places, as well as the walks and therapy with my psychologist, and get me out of the house more frequently. It was hard for me to go out on a regular basis if I didn't have a plan in mind of where to go and I was still struggling to go long distances without my husband. My befriender, a lovely lady, met with me regularly in a local cafe and took me for longer and longer walks, slowly meeting me further and further from my home to improve my confidence. I even got on my first bus alone in years after a walk with her. Then, I also ticked another milestone off my list - I managed to go shopping alone and was able to use the items I had purchased afterwards. You see, for years my husband had to do the shopping alone as I could barely touch anything. When I was shopping with him I would need him to pick items from the back of the shelves and I couldn't look at what he chose otherwise I would feel it to be contaminated in some way. I would also frequently worry that people had poisoned items in our basket and would have to worriedly ask him to put the items back and select another from the shelf. All in all, shopping with me was so stressful for us both that it was decided that he should do it and that was how it was for years.The first time I went shopping alone, I had just got on the bus after a walk with my befriender and I made the unusually brave decision to go to a supermarket near my home. I didn't tell my befriender as I didn't want her or my own mind to talk me out of it. I walked to the shop shaking and the persistant nagging feeling that I was going to have a massive meltdown mid-shop was making me feel nauseated but I pressed on regardless. In short, it took about two hours and a bit of rearranging and guarding my trolley but I managed. Not only managed but did pretty well considering the trainwreck that was my brain that day. I continued to do it, buying at least one thing whenever I went for a walk and that helped immensely. Now, after about 8 months, I can do the shopping with the minimum of fuss, and when I say that what I really mean is the minimum of fuss for me while I still have to do my small rituals. It's not a perfect system but I cope, by and large.
Realistically, there are still more things that I can't do than those that I can but I try not to put too much pressure on myself to achieve too much as, well, that way madness lies, literally for me.
When I look back on my progress these past seventeen months, it would be easy to focus more on the things I cannot yet do alone but from where I started in 2018, I'm so far from the panic stricken, nervous, overweight, unfit person that I was. The best thing I ever did was to do things slowly, carefully and thankfully I have a wonderful husband who not only supported me throughout my journey of recovery but who didn't put pressure on me to do too much too soon. I may not be completely better, I may never be, but at some points in my life I have been as high functioning as I'm ever likely to be and I've been there before and I will be again. I'm cautiously optimistic, despite a few blips the past few months, and as far as I can see, that's as good as it gets for now. And that's just fine by me.
As you can imagine, while I had high hopes that this time would be burgeoning with success, I still worried that my attempts may be a little ambitious. It turns out that my husband was of a similar opinion, not that he didn't have faith in me, just that he thought that something external like the aforementioned illness and pressure would impact upon me before I had really got to grips with the tricky parts.
I began 2018 with the highest of hopes and with the one difference in my mental health toolkit - For once I didnt expect or want immediate results. I'm a kind of instant gratification sort of gal when it comes to me doing most things - particularly exercise, diet, recovery, smoking, playing games etc. What can I say, I have an addictive personality, and when I start something, I want to see results fast. In the past this had been enormously bad for my mental health when attempting recovery. If I didn't see myself improving quickly I would begin to think that it was all going to fail and I would end up back to square one. As part of my attempt to lose weight and regain control over my OCD demons, I started to accept that neither weight loss or improvement to my mental health was going to happen overnight and strangely this loosening of my expectations was to be the breakthrough that I finally needed to make leaps and bounds in my therapy.
At the start of 2018 I was 17 and a half stone (approx 245 pounds/111kg), Size 26 and my agoraphobia was due to the panic attacks from my OCD thoughts. As well as being terrified of germs, dirt and chemicals and therefore having to wear gloves all the time, my OCD 'voice' in my head kept telling me that I was punching people in the street/pushing people in the canal/shouting at people on buses whereas I know for a fact that I would never do anything to deliberately harm a human or animal. For the uninitiated to my condition - OCD isn't what you think it is, people say things like "I'm a bit OCD about..." or "Well, at least if you have OCD then your house must be tidy!" when they have a misunderstanding how OCD really works. For those of you that already know (probably because you've seen me or heard me describing it to someone, maybe even several times, feel free to skip this bit. I won't be offended, or I might go on a tangent about something interesting and you'll miss that but let's face it, I'm not the most interesting of folk so you're more or less fine to skip to the next paragraph :-)
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Well, the one after this one that is. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a series of intrusive thoughts that a sufferer is plagued with for the majority of their waking life, and sleeping life if you're me as I frequently have the thoughts in my dreams too and dream I'm completing rituals to try and counteract said thoughts. These thoughts can be about anything that you're particularly afraid of - germs, lack of symmetry, harm to yourself or others etc. In my case, I worry about harm coming to people, as OCD tends to pick on the things you are most afraid of, most of my 'OCD thoughts' are based on that. I can't speak for everyone's unique experiences but hopefully my case will help you understand a little of how it feels. Most people, as I found out several years ago, have intrusive thoughts. I would love to know the frequency of the rogue thoughts that go through people's minds as they go about their day. Things such as when parked at a set of traffic lights someone might think "I could just accelerate now and knock those people over" or they might think "That person looks annoying, I could punch them in the face" and the majority of the time they'll probably think "hmm, that was a weird thought. Oh well" and that will be that. In my case, and thousands of others of poor souls struggling with OCD, I may have the thought "I could punch that person in the face" and instead of dismissing it I attach a huge amount of significance to the thought leading to "You had that thought because you're an evil person. Why would you have such a wicked thought otherwise?" progressing to "You didn't just think that you punched them - you did punch them". It is at this point that I look at the person I have worried about punching and my brain sees the person with bruises all over their face, even though logically I know it's in my imagination and that the person looks fine.
This is where my brain needs a quick explanation - I don't know how other brains work, I can only go by what I'm told by other people and my brain seems to do something that few other people seem to be able to fathom - sadly this is not a compliment. All the time, I have three separate thought trains running through my head. Train 1 is my OCD irrational thoughts train e.g. 'You have definitely punched that person', 'You left the gas on', 'You didn't lock the door, burgulars are going to walk in and steal your stuff'. Train 2 is probably what remains of me after years of being battered down by Train 1, this is the more logical and rational train e.g. 'You didn't punch that person, you would never harm anyone', 'You definitely did turn the gas off', 'You did lock the door'. Trains 1 and 2 pass each other regularly, yelling expletives at each other from the train windows in a bid to outfox each other. Train 3 is a bit more mundane but ultimately helps me to function e.g. 'I must remember to get xyz from the shops', 'In TV programmes, when people talk about a subject in a particular place then we see them resume their conversation in another location, miles away, what do they talk about in the interim?' or 'Why do the English say 'leftenant' and Americans say 'Lieutenant'?' etc. I am particularly fond of Train 3 as I have the most fun with it, except when it won't tell me an actor's name or it remembers the music to a kid's TV show like 'The Get Along Gang' and decides to ride around the theoretical track singing it on loop for five hours. Then, well then Train 3 becomes an enormous pain in the arse - sorry for the language but it really does. Anyway, when Train 1 and 2 are fighting each other, and lets face it, this is most of my day and night, I need to do something to molify my aching brain. This naturally leads to yes, you've guessed it, the Compulsive side of the equation. If I think I've left a door unlocked or punched a person, I might try and check to make sure. At first this does something to assuage the fear but then Train 1 yells "Nope, the door is definitely unlocked/You've definitely punched the person!" and as much as I check and try to convince myself that I am not a wicked and evil person, nothing helps. In the case of germs or dirt Train 1 yells "Your hands are crawling with germs and poisons, you're going to die" and the ritual in this case would be to wash my hands but the thoughts keep coming, my imagination joins in the torture and makes me see crawling, festering insects and unspeakably horrific creatures crawling over my now soaking flesh so I wash my hands, again and again, yet the thoughts don't leave me alone until I'm constantly performing rituals; sobbing and shaking with the sheer exhausting undertaking of the task until I have a panic attack. This, my dear friends, is my life with OCD.
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Welcome back to those of you who skipped my possibly overlong explanation of OCD. For those who joined me on the above journey, sorry if I've traumatised you but I did set out to be as honest and as clear as I can be and it's not a pleasant mental health condition to have so it's somewhat difficult to sugarcoat it. My apologies dear reader.
Anyway, returning to 2018, I was cautiously optimistic that, if I were to take small steps in both weight loss and my therapy and as long as I was equipped to identify which things were likely to derail me and cause relapse, I would have a chance at success. At the time, January 2018, I could barely walk 100 metres before having to sit down and I could only leave the flat and walk around outside when accompanied by my husband as alone I would have a panic attack in minutes and that is what kept me metaphorically chained up in agoraphobia. Again, as a brief aside, Agoraphobia is not necessarily a fear of open spaces - it's a fear of being in crowded spaces, leaving your home and not feeling able to escape to safety. Because my brain taunted me anytime I walked near anyone, it was unsurprisingly difficult to walk places, take buses etc. so I had become a recluse save for conversations on Facebook and seeing my husband.
I could do things like go to the park with my husband and, while it was incredibly difficult both physically due to my weight and back problems and mentally because of my OCD, we started taking small walks several times a week. This seemed to help my stamina and we could try Exposure Response Prevention a little whilst out and about. I found that, the more walks we did, the further I could go before needing to sit down, my back was (and sadly still is) excruciatingly painful but I managed.
When it came to diet, I'll be honest, I was eating such large portions that it was monumentally difficult to cut down at first. I was only eating three meals a day, no snacks, but I was eating several thousands of calories and vast quantities of fat in things such as cheese, ice cream, mayonnaise and so forth. It was stupendously hard to be sat eating a small amount of pasta and watch my husband scoff whole pizzas and biscuits but I think that in a way it helped me too. I have logged my food in a diary app for several years so I used that to work out what I could have that would be around 1200 to 1400 calories a day and, while that's not what I started out at at first, I soon found that 1200 to 1400 calories was enough to see the weight begin to drop. I chose healthier options like lower fat cheese and I cut out as much sugar as I could bear - I have a ridiculously sweet tooth so this was no easy feat I assure you. My dentist was overwhelmed by the change in my teeth and gums, especially as my usual diet had included sugary fizzy drinks, sweets and cake...mmmm delicious cake...
I digress. With the diet under a modicum of control, I began to attempt exercise in the flat. My treadmill can't have been exactly glorious for my neighbours in the flat beneath but I began briskly walking on it once a day for ten minutes, then 15 minutes then little by little I could walk for an hour on the treadmill and not be ludicrously knackered. The weight started to slide off, the scales began yielding and my clothing felt looser. Whatsmore, as my stamina grew and my waistline shrank, my spirits seemed to lift a little and my mind trains were being slightly less abusive to one another. After months of not being able to brush my teeth due to the repetitive handwashing afterwards and checking during, suddenly it was taking half an hour to brush my teeth instead of the usual hour. My ritualistic showers crept down from three hours of boiling under hot water while crying and washing my hair and body over and over again to a still unwieldly but improved one hour. Exercise began to give me deliciously thrilling endorphin highs and seeing my Fitbit register that I had undertaken 5000 steps with a display of pixelated fireworks would jolt my dopamine sky high, well, for a minute or two anyway.
It seemed that my mental and physical health were improving and that the two were intertwined in a way that I admittedly hadn't forseen. I heard people say that exercise was good for you but I usually thought "It's usually a thin and attractive person telling me that and I'm neither so it probably won't work for me". All those people who say "No pain, no gain" aren't all just trying to get me to torture myself with 50 sit ups, it really is true. It was something of a revelation to be honest, despite having lost weight in the past and knowing that exercise makes you feel good, I just thought that eating a huge chocolate cake makes you feel even better.
I started going out alone; very briefly at first, just 5 minutes to the bottom of the stairs in our building and standing outside. Then I would walk up the road a little next time. Then around the block a few times after that. I improved so much by around May 2018 that I could walk to the park up the road from my flat and back - alone. I'm not going to say it was all plain sailing as it wasn't. I had panic attacks, I had blips but I always made sure that no matter what happened, I would try again the next day.
It wasn't easy, it was a phenomenal struggle but,as they say, nothing good ever comes easy and over the months that passed my weight dropped, pleasingly quickly at first then I would plateau at various points whereupon I would eat more than usual for a day or two - just 1800 to 2000 calories - then resume my low calorie diet and that seemed to kick my body out of starvation mode and back onto weightloss. I went from size 26, having to buy my clothes online as I could seldom find anything suitable in stores, and that's not easy with OCD when you can't touch things that come through the post, to a size 20 then to a size 18 and over the full 17 months to a size 12, which is what I am today.
I began to go to exercise classes, something unthinkable without my husband being nearby, in June 2018 and for the first few classes I was terrified as I didn't know anyone and my intrusive thoughts would make me feel massively self conscious. My husband would pick me up from the classes and thankfully, as the club I attended classes at was a few streets away from my home, it was easy for my husband to come to my aid if I had a panic attack. Mercifully I never needed to call him and he would come to pick me up after class so that was a weight off my mind. I started going to several different exercise classes at the same place, each class giving me more confidence and great satisfaction.
Through a healthy minds scheme I was assigned a befriender to take me for walks to various places, as well as the walks and therapy with my psychologist, and get me out of the house more frequently. It was hard for me to go out on a regular basis if I didn't have a plan in mind of where to go and I was still struggling to go long distances without my husband. My befriender, a lovely lady, met with me regularly in a local cafe and took me for longer and longer walks, slowly meeting me further and further from my home to improve my confidence. I even got on my first bus alone in years after a walk with her. Then, I also ticked another milestone off my list - I managed to go shopping alone and was able to use the items I had purchased afterwards. You see, for years my husband had to do the shopping alone as I could barely touch anything. When I was shopping with him I would need him to pick items from the back of the shelves and I couldn't look at what he chose otherwise I would feel it to be contaminated in some way. I would also frequently worry that people had poisoned items in our basket and would have to worriedly ask him to put the items back and select another from the shelf. All in all, shopping with me was so stressful for us both that it was decided that he should do it and that was how it was for years.The first time I went shopping alone, I had just got on the bus after a walk with my befriender and I made the unusually brave decision to go to a supermarket near my home. I didn't tell my befriender as I didn't want her or my own mind to talk me out of it. I walked to the shop shaking and the persistant nagging feeling that I was going to have a massive meltdown mid-shop was making me feel nauseated but I pressed on regardless. In short, it took about two hours and a bit of rearranging and guarding my trolley but I managed. Not only managed but did pretty well considering the trainwreck that was my brain that day. I continued to do it, buying at least one thing whenever I went for a walk and that helped immensely. Now, after about 8 months, I can do the shopping with the minimum of fuss, and when I say that what I really mean is the minimum of fuss for me while I still have to do my small rituals. It's not a perfect system but I cope, by and large.
Realistically, there are still more things that I can't do than those that I can but I try not to put too much pressure on myself to achieve too much as, well, that way madness lies, literally for me.
When I look back on my progress these past seventeen months, it would be easy to focus more on the things I cannot yet do alone but from where I started in 2018, I'm so far from the panic stricken, nervous, overweight, unfit person that I was. The best thing I ever did was to do things slowly, carefully and thankfully I have a wonderful husband who not only supported me throughout my journey of recovery but who didn't put pressure on me to do too much too soon. I may not be completely better, I may never be, but at some points in my life I have been as high functioning as I'm ever likely to be and I've been there before and I will be again. I'm cautiously optimistic, despite a few blips the past few months, and as far as I can see, that's as good as it gets for now. And that's just fine by me.
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