Becoming a Cross-Country OCD Fighter
This article was originally published on OCD Newsletter (Vol 30, Iss 2, International OCD Foundation). You can see the original article here. Author’s permission has been given for the article to be posted on this community.
Tears collected in my eyes the moment I woke up, blurring my already cloudy morning vision I buried my face in the cool pillow as if it were the answer to all of my problems. I felt the first tear trickle down my cheek as I lifted my head and moved my legs into a crisscross position. My clock read 7:27 am. I knew I would not need to get up for three more minutes, so I sat trembling on my bed until my mom came in to wake me.
“Good morning, sweetheart!” It’s time for your first day of school!”
Her greeting sent my body into a cry so ferocious that I could not catch my breath. I wanted to form logical sentences, or what I believed to be logical in my 6-year-old mind, but instead, ugly attempts at words came out like bursts of projectile vomit. I felt myself shivering with frustration and self-loathing.
“Josh, honey, we talked about this. You knew last night that you were going to have trouble starting the day, but you are going to be late. You don’t want to be late, right, sweetie?”
I shook my head at the idea of being late for my first day of first grade and climbed out of bed, pushing away the urge to crawl back under the covers. I had no idea at the time, but at that moment was my first experience with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), the therapeutic technique that would save my life and my family years later.
I was always the kid who struggled with transitions. I was the kid who had to be walked onto the field by my parents for soccer games. I was the kid who had to be assured at least four times that one of my parents would be on the same floor of the house as me before I could comfortably fall asleep. I was the kid who wouldn't go to friends’ houses for playdates. And I was the kid whose mom had to hold his hand as they approached school on the first day, and again on the second day, and the third day, and the day after that one and after that one, until the teachers would who start to lose their sense of understanding.
I was born in Needham Massachusetts, to caring and attentive parents. With almost 8 and 9 years between us, respectively, my older sisters Emily and Becki both adored me as well. Yet when I was 6 years old, my family moved from our hometown to Avon Connecticut. As days passed at my new school, I found it harder and harder to sleep at night. I was too nervous about having to walk into my classroom the following day. I’d lie awake in bed with my mom and dad for what felt like hours. I spent a lot of my time crying. I refused to take the bus because I thought that I wouldn't make it to school without my mom driving me. I started seeing a therapist named Dina who gave me cool toys after each session. She diagnosed me with “separation anxiety.” I would have wanted to avoid the stress - to avoid school and the bus and my after-school activities - Dina told my parents to force me through the stressors. So up until sixth grade, I pushed myself into the school building every day – sometimes with my mom, or even my mom and dad by my side – and for the most part, I passed for functioning.
When I was 11, my dad was recruited to another job and my family relocated again to Chicago, where I enrolled in a private Jewish day school. I knew almost immediately that this transition was different. Though I made friends, my new school was high-performing and stressful. I began having what I now call “dark thoughts,” or horrible images of things I feared would happen unless I took a specific action.
One “dark thought” required me to write down all of my homework in my planner several times. Then, afraid that I still wouldn't see my assignment, I would erase and rewrite, erase and rewrite, over and over until things felt “right” to me. Sometimes this obsession kept me up until 3:00 am. I’d shut my eyes, then get out of bed and rewrite something in my planner. I would get back into bed, remember another detail that I should write, and start the entire choreography all over again. I’d perform this routine night after night without anyone in my family knowing, my parents chalking up my tired eyes in the mornings to reading or playing video games too late.
Another “dark thought” involved “blanky threads” - pieces of my beloved childhood blanket that I believed held the key to my own life; if I didn't preserve the blanket, I would not be able to succeed in life, or worse: my life would end.
For winter vacation, my family went back to the East Coast to visit family, where my blanket got stuck in the zipper of my suitcase. I got it out, but a thread had fallen. I checked the zipper for more threads, but did not tell my parents about the obscene amount of checking that I was doing. When we returned, I begged my mom not to make me get out of bed for school. For the next few months I was in and out of my classes, taking only a few at a time and working with my school social worker. I met four different therapists who, like Dina, diagnosed me with separation anxiety, general anxiety, or even severe stress related to my move, but were ultimately unable to help me cope. By the summer, I wouldn't leave the house for fear that “blankey threads” clung to my body and would disappear into the outside world. This was something much more than anxiety. Crawling through the halls of my house with my nose to the ground in search of blankey threads, I could no longer hide my struggles from my parents.
Driven to seek a proper diagnosis, my mom took me to a psychiatrist at Northwestern University, where I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety and severe OCD. In June, we found Dr. Andrea, a therapist who introduced me to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and whom I think of today as my favorite person in the world. Through intense exposure therapy sessions almost every day for three months, Andrea taught me to manage and control my OCD. I became closer and closer to her each day, trusting and valuing her friendship more than I ever thought I would. By the fall, I had made it back to school where, little by little, I made several close friends, connected with my teachers, and found myself able to concentrate on schoolwork and sports. I even began to feel a glimmer of excitement to eventually be an independent high schooler. Finally, I thought, life would be a bit more normal.
So when my dad announced that spring that we were relocating back to our Massachusetts hometown for a new job he wanted to take, I thought things had gone wrong forever. “All of my hard work down the drain,” I thought to myself. “I can't survive another move. What about my friends? And worse: what about Andrea? As we prepared for the move, I feared all of my symptoms could re-emerge and I’d be dragged back to the “dark thoughts” that had once taken over my life.
Despite my panic, I prepared for the transition with Andrea prior to the move, and Skyped with her often once we arrived in Massachusetts. The new school I joined - which my sisters attended when they were younger - was a soft landing, collaborating with my parents and me from the beginning to support my transition. So as my family completed our third move in less than 10 years, something incredible - almost magical – happened: I was actually managing my OCD. Though there were certainly bumps throughout my transition, I found myself appreciating my warm and supportive teachers, even making friends and joining two sports teams. At my middle school graduation the following May, I delivered a speech despite my intense anxiety surrounding public speaking. The audience gave me a standing ovation.
I guess you could say I'm thankful for all of these experiences. If my family hadn’t moved so many times, I would’ve had to discover my OCD in another stressful situation - like college applications, my first job, or graduate school. Looking back, I know I'm lucky - I found out about my OCD young and was able to beat it. To maintain my gains, I continue to meet with a therapist in Massachusetts monthly and am fortunate to have support from my teachers and school administrators. Though I’ll never be rid of my OCD, in 2014 Andrea told me via Skype that I am 100 percent symptom free. I now have too many tools and know too much about the disorder to allow it to control my life as it once did.
OCD is still an ever-present fight, but today I know that I am a fighter. I will never give up on anything easily, as I’ve learned that perseverance is an accomplishment in its own right and is the most important tool for conquering OCD. My hope is that anyone reading this - and anyone else affected by OCD - can persevere through the disorder too, knowing in the meantime that this fight can be won.