It's fascinating to me to reflect back on old "OCD" memories and be able to compare and contrast how they affected me when I was extraordinarily ill, versus how they affect me now. These same memories that used to preoccupy my entire day and cause me an indescribable amount of distress, uncertainty, anxiety, guilt, and shame, are now nothing more than benign memories. These memories no longer evoke any undesirable emotion. I no longer feel the need to ruminate about them and replay them in my mind so that I can be certain that I didn't do anything reprehensible.
To illustrate what I am talking about, I'd like to share an example of a memory that unfortunately nearly drove me to suicide when my OCD symptoms were at their apogee. Thankfully, this story is now simply a memory of a time that I was really suffering. I suffered from the POCD subtype, so I understand that this story might be alarming for non-OCD sufferers or individuals who don't understand the condition. For those who may come across this passage that don't have OCD or don't know much about this condition, be assured that I didn't do what I feared I did in the following story.
At the time, I was a Mormon (LDS) missionary serving a proselyting mission in Mexico, Veracruz. As missionaries, our primary mode of transportation was our feet. My companion and I were walking by the house of an individual who was interested in joining the Mormon (LDS) church. His 9 year old daughter was already a member. We interacted with this individual frequently. As we were walking by his house, I looked over to check to see if this individual was outside his home so I could wave to him. As I turned, I noticed his daughter who was sitting on the steps in front of the gate to their house. She was wearing a skirt sitting with her legs spread wide open. After waving to the daughter I turned back and immediately was bombarded with a question that I now know I should not have answered. "Did you just look down that little girls skirt?" "No of course not, I wouldn't do that. I was just looking over there to wave to our investigator." "Are you sure? Wait, did you tilt your head to get an angle so you could see down her skirt?" "WHAT? No, of course not! I'm not attracted to children, I wouldn't even do that to an adult female that I was attracted to! I'm not a pervert!" "Wait, why are you even questioning if you looked down that little girls skirt? You would know if you did or did not look down this little girls skirt so the fact that you are even questioning if you looked down her skirt means that you did and you're just in denial, you disgusting pervert."
My mind went back and forth in this manner as if it consisted of two opposing sides, a relentless prosecutor and a desperate defense attorney. The defense attorney side of my mind had to gather evidence in favor of me not looking down the girls skirt and had to respond to the brutal accusations and questions that the prosecuting side of my mind was asserting. I probably replayed the memory of me walking down the street and looking over at my investigator's home more than a thousand times. I had to be sure that I hadn't done something unthinkable and unforgivable. If I had done what my OCD was making me worry that I did, how could I live with myself? Not being able to be absolutely certain that I did not look down that girl's skirt was killing me inside. I was completely uninterested in continuing to live if I indeed had done what my OCD was having me believe I did and I did not want to live with the pathological uncertainty that I was experiencing.
It was during this time in my life when I most seriously considered suicide. It seemed like the only solution to the intense suffering I was feeling. Fortunately, I was able to conjure up thoughts of my mother (who I wasn't able to speak with) and how me killing myself would devastate her beyond comprehension. I couldn't do that to her. I was willing to suffer for the sake of my mother. Additionally, the possibility that I might help someone down the road who was struggling with whatever I was struggling with,(I did not know I had OCD at the time) helped me persevere through what will probably be the most difficult period of my life. I am happy to say that I have fully recovered from OCD and am in school to be a therapist with the intent to help others recover from OCD.
As you may have gathered from reading the beginning of this passage, this memory no longer causes me uncertainty and I no longer worry that I might have done something horrible. In fact, I rarely even think about this old memory. It is fascinating to contemplate how a memory that used to cause me such anguish now is all but a lost memory. I don't understand exactly how an emotion provoking memory transforms into a non-emotion provoking memory, but I think I understand the actions that one can take to facilitate this process.
In my experience, the more consistent you are able to leave a memory alone by refraining from ruminating and replaying the memory over and over in order to achieve certainty and reassure yourself, the easier it becomes to live with the uncertainty and the more you feel that you most likely did not do anything bad. Resisting the urge to answer the "what if" and "are you sure" questions that the disease of OCD throws at you is the key to overcoming these instances when OCD is causing you to worry you may have done something reprehensible. Eventually, as time goes on and you spend less and less time compulsively ruminating, these memories eventually become lost and forgotten, or turn into the type of memory I described above, a benign memory.