By the time I was 15, I had developed quite severe OCD.
While it was known what it was at that time (this was1977; OCD was "discovered" by Dr. Neil Bugusian in 1963, but had been referred to even earlier by Freud), my mother was not the type of person who was interested in helping me to figure out what was happening or in finding a solution or assistance for it. She wanted me to be quiet so it would go away from her perception.
She was angered by it, resented me having it, told me she felt I thought she was "dirty" all the time, and burst into angry accusatory tears over it; acting as though I was attacking her with it. She had no idea how to deal with it. She had no idea even to attempt to learn what it might be. Let alone how to help me cope with it. Because it, like everything else in my life, was my fault. I was to blame.
[Can anybody reading this imagine how she would have treated my children's autism? The thought actually makes me feel overwhelmed and sick, it makes my legs shake and my stomach fall like a rock. It makes me dizzy, just trying to comprehend how she'd have blamed my beautiful boys for having to live differently than she envisioned her life. I had to say this bit, for I have thought it so very often, I had to write this down. And when I think about how she'd have treated my boys because they weren't living up to her expectations, my brain immediately calls her a "sick fuck." I can't help it. That's what I think when I see parents punishing children who live with autism especially. It's possible that around my experience of living with OCD, my mother really did earn the title of sick fuck. She punished me for having a biochemical neurological imbalance. Yeah. That qualifies as a sick fuck. Ignorance, especially coming from such an academic family, is absolutely no excuse. In fact, there is no excuse at all for the type of abuse she was profoundly guilty of. She was either too lazy or too scared or just didn't care enough to be bothered to have tried to find help or at least, information. I was very inconvenient for her.]
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I couldn't bear to have my mother's dirty robe touch me after I'd showered. I had terrible trouble handling the detergents and cleaners and strong smelling chemicals required by my parents to complete my chore of bathroom cleaning. I would be compelled to wash my hands multiple times until I could get rid of the smell of the chemicals. I had trouble with touching floors with my hands or bare feet. I began to wash my hands all the way up to my elbows several times a day, and I developed a rash all over my forearms from the dryness.
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[Note here, when my sister, who was a full MD at the time, saw this when I was a young adult, she laughed. She thought it was hysterical that I was washing like a surgeon. In typical Family style, it was entertainment, and the fact that I was struggling was non sequitur and ignored fully. Frankly, as a doctor, I would have thought she'd have been a bit more aware. Alas, not to be. At that time, I still didn't know what it was myself. I would find that out on my own later on. Without any of my family members helping.]
I couldn't get into my sheets without showering and if I didn't scrub myself exactly so many times in the shower, I didn't feel clean. My father would become furious about my showering too much. I finally convinced them to get a water saver, so I could stand in the shower and soap off (freezing, but at least I wasn't running water, which cost my parents money, God forbid).
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Maybe I was crazy, like Mom thought, there was something horrifically wrong with me after all, and all the ails that I had experienced in my life were because I deserved them.
The really interesting thing is I never felt OCD at all at school. On the contrary, once I was at my high school, where people were kinder and not harshly judgmental and there was fun and laughter to be had, the OCD slipped away and I didn't have to think about it. It was a pretty healing place, actually.
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But once I got home, I had to wash again. And wash and wash and wash and not touch my parents, or if I did, I had to take a wet washcloth and wipe myself down. Especially if they were wearing certain things. It was like a trigger system and I couldn't control it.
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I never made the connection. I didn't make a connection with OCD until I was in my mid 20's. At the same time I was diagnosed officially with OCD, I was also diagnosed with a form of dyslexia. Funny, that, nobody had ever noticed that my struggle was harder in order to read a complete sentence, and retain the information at the beginning of the sentence. At college it became evident to me at least because I had so much reading to do and it was painful to do it.
The solution to my form of dyslexia? A simple blue sheet of clear plastic placed over a page will make those words quiet down. I can retain information. Help with the OCD was in the form of individual (and sometimes group) therapy, and old-style antidepressants, which didn't work very well. But it was deeply gratifying sitting with others who suffered as I did, and having people who understood it rather than fearing it.
Had my parents noticed the dyslexia? Nope. Had they noticed that I struggled? Nope. Had they noticed how much I was struggling with the OCD? Only where it interfered with their comfort or convenience level. Because then they could lay it on me, guilt-free, apparently.
I cannot even begin to articulate with any accuracy the relief I felt upon learning that what I was going through had a name: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and that it was REAL and was something others felt, that I wasn't alone, and that it was potentially treatable. There aren't even any words to capture the intensity of my relief.
Solutions like a clear blue plastic sheet and actual therapy that worked simply escaped my parents entirely because they panicked at every problem. (They were partial to psychologists for analysis where I was concerned. Therapy? Pfft. That would mean something is wrong with maybe more than just me and we can't have that.)
They were remarkably inadequate at either problem solving or conflict resolution. They were simply children in adult bodies in this area (and in many others, because life is full of problems and conflict for human beings). Because they were in the bodies of adults, they assumed they were superior, and untouchable. These kinds of presumptions are a huge part of what allows abusive relationships to continue, and for our culture to never question the actions of a parent over a child.
The OCD lessened significantly once I was out of my parents' house for good. I still had trouble, but it was less. For a while at my apartment, I couldn't touch the floors at times, too, and it always got worse when I was frightened or scared or stressed about something. And it came back every time I returned to my parents' house again, big and full and very mean and loud in my head. For those who don't experience it, OCD is very brain-abrasive. A person gets tired of the endless repeating thoughts and actions. It's exhausting and takes up far too much brain processing time and physical and mental energy. It's not fun to live with. At all.
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The other time the OCD returned was post-childbirth. Both parents can suffer from post-natal OCD, and I definitely experienced a high clinical level for which I could have been hospitalized. But I was on it this time, and treated it with the help of a therapist at my hospital, using SSRIs and gentle exposure therapy, which helped quite a lot, even though it was scary.
It never would have crossed my mother's mind to think that I was suffering from a clinical disorder that could be diagnosed and offered support and help. That wasn't how she rolled. If something was wrong with me, it was all on me, and it was inconvenient and it made her angry with me and she regularly taunted me and shamed me about it.
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I still suffer from OCD, although I am not a counting person any more. I mostly suffer from washing. But I am slowly slowly recovering. The panic state is gone. The voices that tell me I need to wash, they can be overridden, and at least if they can't be, I know that it isn't my fault. I can usually talk myself down. And I have a husband who intimately understands it because his father also has it. And that's pretty sweet (not that he has it, but that they really get it).
I didn't give myself OCD. I didn't break my brain. I'm not just a paranoid freak who's alone and unsupported in the world.
I am legitimate. My symptoms are real. Millions of others suffer like I do, many much worse than I do. It's not their fault, either. Brain chemistry, like DNA, can be altered.
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I wonder, if without all the childhood trauma I was forced to go through, if I had actually had my parents real love support, if I'd ever have manifested so many physiological and neurological symptoms.
OCD we know scientifically, can be created by mercury poisoning. And I had a mouth full of mercury amalgam fillings, which, yes, have made me very sick over time. But I wonder how much is also based on the trauma I suffered as a child.
To have hoped my parents would have put 2+2 together to make 4, and figured out the mercury piece would be like hoping to go build a house on Venus. The way mother made me feel about my OCD made me want to go to Venus and bury my head in the sand there. Forever. I just seemed to be too broken for this world in her eyes.
As far as I'm concerned these days, I'm the normal one. And she can go move to Venus and stick her head in the sand.
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