A Deeper Dive Into My OCD Experience

*Trigger Warning: this post discusses difficult themes, including violence and depression. It also features profanity in places.

It has been brought to my attention that even some of the people closest to me were not aware how dark my experience with OCD truly was.

This is no fault to them, at all. I simply have a hard time putting the experience into words, especially when speaking out loud. To go about my normal days, now, I usually let the horrors from that time period live in a little box in the back of my head that I keep locked. That is my way of saying I have blocked out (in self defense) a lot of my memories from that time and I truly have to concentrate to remember what I went through.

However, it is important not to forget.

The moment I truly forget what happened to me will be the moment it gains its immense power back. So, I am writing a new post today focusing on that time. I am writing it in the hopes I will have the courage to share it with those I love, so that they will have a deeper understanding of what I went through and how deeply it changed me.

Fall 2013: The Shadow Emerges

I started my freshman year at the College of Wooster as a slightly nervous, but ultimately optimistic and hopeful, new student. I had the usual fears in my head- of not making friends, of being called quiet, of missing out on everything college is supposed to be. These fears, I now recognize, were simply symptoms of my lifelong battle with social-anxiety, not any kind of profound character flaw. But that discussion is for another post.

I was excited- my classes were new and interesting, there were tons of new people to meet (including a bunch of wise professors I could learn from), and so many new experiences to discover. For a while, the newness of everything was my primary focus. I walked around campus with an intellectual excitement buzzing in my brain and a profound confidence in my heart that everything was going to be okay.

I think the first inkling that there were darker times ahead must have appeared in those early days while going over syllabi. If you have gone to college, you’ve seen a syllabus before. It is a description of everything the course will cover, usually followed by a bunch of rules and stipulations. Every syllabus usually has a brief blurb about plagiarism - saying not to do it, and outlining the severe consequences of doing it.

Well I definitely absorbed those little blurbs, to say the least. Going about my classes was still exciting, though, especially my Ancient Greek language class. I was enjoying writing the shapes of the foreign letters and memorizing the order of the new (to me) alphabet.

Outside of the classroom, I was making friends. I was learning that it is much easier to make friends when everyone is new to each other and there are no residual labels or assumptions to contend with. I was happily chatting with the other women in my dorm, and I was speaking up to my classmates in those moments before a class began.

Everything was going well.

Then, something strange happened.

I do not remember the exact day. I do not remember the exact time. I do not even remember the exact thought. However, there was a moment in the fall of 2013 that set everything else into motion. I honestly do not remember exactly, but I think it happened in the library, while I was studying for one of my classes. My brain remembered an experience I had had in high school, connected it to those anti-plagiarism notes in the syllabi, and had a little fit.

I remember the sinking feeling of my heart falling down into my shoes. You are not fit to be here, my brain whispered. All of these fun new experiences? Well, you do not deserve them. You never should have made it this far. Remember that one time in high school? That time you made a tired mistake on a Biology paper, copy-pasting information and not editing it sufficiently enough, so that it eventually got flagged by a plagiarism detector? Well, Bethany, that was it. Your life is over. Everything you’ve ever wanted and stood for is out of your reach... Have fun in college.

I remember the panicky feeling rising within my chest all too well, as I still feel it sometimes to this day (definitely less often, though!). For some reason, these whispered words were absolutely terrifying, more so than they honestly should have been.

At that point in time I identified as a student. Everything I prided myself on, everything I thought I was, was wrapped up in my brain and my ability to pursue and retain knowledge. I loved that I was a good writer. I loved that I could analyze and gain profound insights from texts, both literary and historical. I loved the feeling when professors, people who studied these ideas for a living, told me I was smart and praised my writing ability.

So that tiny little thought, that little pinprick from my past, grew as the days went on. It was like my psyche had been struck by a slow-acting poison arrow. I started to feel lots of feelings - anxiety, panic, dread, disgust, fear, sadness- at seemingly random times throughout my days. I went in and out of varying states of denial. In my spare time, I would whip out my laptop and obsessively google the definition of “plagiarism,” in a desperate attempt to prove to myself that what I had done in high school was actually not under that particular category of intellectual transgression.

Winter 2014: The Shadow Grows

Days stretched into weeks. The leaves on the trees changed colors and fell. Eventually, the air went cold. Frost emerged on the grass when I made my early morning trek to my classes.

Things got worse.

Eventually my brain forced me to accept that I had committed the cardinal intellectual sin. I had plagiarized. The next step, then, my brain whispered gleefully, was this: I needed to hide all of the evidence. If I was going to continue my life the way it was, I needed to bury my past so no one would ever know that I was actually a total fraud and liar.

I started obsessing about my phone. I did not even carry the same phone that I had received the message from my high school lab partner on two years ago, but still my brain whispered:

Text messages can be hacked. They go to big companies, big data centers. Somehow, Apple will expose you. Everyone will know, will see that message from your lab partner, the incriminating one- “I know what you did,” the message had said. Well, now everyone will know what you did.

I became totally paranoid. I stopped sending detailed text messages, restrained myself from even texting my mom details about what I was thinking in my head, especially details about anything surrounding the plagiarism event.

There was a seminar taking place at some point during the winter that focused on the safety of your data and how phone information could be leaked- how to protect yourself from this happening. This seminar was held by the Computer Science department- I have no idea how I discovered it was happening, but my one-track mind picked it out on a flier somehow. I went to the seminar armed with a notebook and pen, ready to take copious notes.

A few days later I remember breaking down in my parents’ car, asking them if my phone was leaking my texts and if everyone would be able to see them someday. I cried. I explained as best I could to the two people I trusted most that my brain was behaving strangely. I did not know exactly how to explain it to them, but it was clear that I was distressed. That was enough. My parents and I came up with a mutually agreed-upon plan- I don’t remember if it came together during that particular car breakdown, but it definitely came soon after- I would go to see a child psychiatrist.

I remember sitting in that waiting room feeling jittery. I remember holding my composition notebook close to my chest, basically hugging it, terrified of showing it to anyone- especially this licensed psychiatric professional. My brain whispered, even then:

He’ll know. He’ll read it and know. He’ll see you for who you really are- he will expose you to the whole world! Don’t show him this notebook, you need to hide it, or everything you are will be forfeit.

Once I had my audience with the psychiatrist, I reluctantly handed over the notebook. I know my hands were sweating. I looked down at the floor, sure that my whole life was about to be over in a matter of seconds.

The psychiatrist simply nodded once, twice. He looked up from my notebook, peering at me from behind his glasses:

“Yep, you have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.”

I stared at him for what felt like a full minute. What?! What does that mean? I do not even wash my hands many times in a row? What does he mean, I have OCD?

The psychiatrist went on to explain a little more about the disorder, I'm sure. But I do not remember many of his words. I was lost in my head, at this point. My thoughts were trying to make sense of this new label he had given them. Was I crazy? Was I fixable? What did this mean for my life, going forward?

The psychiatrist prescribed me some new meds to try, told me I should get a therapist, and sent us on our way. After that, we started looking for therapists. I remember a few of them, mostly the regrettably bad ones. There was one that got angry with me (I do not remember what I said to trigger this response). She looked me straight in the eyes and very aggressively said the words,

"Do you even want to get better?"

I did not go back to see her again after that.

The next therapist was a man, and I was a little less comfortable with this. I did not really love the idea of a man knowing all of the crazy details that were going on inside my brain. However, I did not want to seem prejudiced, so I saw him a few times anyways. After a discussion or two, he told me this:

"I think you actually don't have OCD. I think you have something like what my wife has."

This struck a chord in me as being wrong, even then, so I did not go back to see him again, either.

Meanwhile, outside of the therapists' offices, my brain was having a bit of a field day.

On January 1st I remember I had made a New Year's resolution to read the whole New Testament over the course of the next year. So, by this time, I had made it all the way to Matthew 12:31. That verse, however, resounded through my brain and started a whole new kind of disturbance. It reads:

"And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven." - Matthew 12:31, NIV

My brain instantly had comments:

"Wow, look at you, reading the Bible. You must be proud of yourself, being so righteous. Now, I'm sure you know, that particular passage you just read? It is 100% accurate. There is no room for interpretation. If you think something against the Holy Spirit, anything against the Holy Spirit, well absolutely you are going straight to hell. Probably immediately. Have fun reading the rest of the New Testament!"

Well, shit. Now my brain had moved on from beating up my scholarly identity and was directly attacking my spiritual identity.

I shut the Bible. The familiar chill and dread started seeping into my chest. The panic set in.

My eyebrows furrowed. I started to wonder what blasphemy against the Holy Spirit would actually be. My brain came up with an answer pretty quick.

"Fuck the Holy Spirit," my brain said.

"Ohhhh, now you've done it!" The OCD cried gleefully and immediately. "There you go! Concrete evidence, right there! You are definitely going to hell now!"

Well, that was the start of my Scrupulosity OCD. It happened right in my own living room, and I was never the same afterwards.

Scrupulosity was the start of the true depression, when I think back on it. Up until that point, I was definitely miserable. I was a bit depressed, too, I'm sure. But the really deep, dark, abyssal pit really opened up and swallowed me whole once my brain had decided I was going to hell for sure.

My response was to try and do what I knew to do, having been brought up as a devout Christian.

I prayed. I prayed fervently.

The OCD loved that.

What is a prayer but a string of words in your head? OCD got to twist those words and tangle them so profoundly that they ended up endlessly tormenting me instead of connecting me to God.

"Dear Devil- wait, no, God-" is one rather tame example that I feel I can share without totally traumatizing too many of you. It is one of many. OCD planted many of these, most of them much worse. These downright horrifying butchered prayers stuck in my brain like giant jagged splinters.

I wilted. The heavy toll of all of these horrifying thoughts weighed on me like a giant anchor, and my whole demeanor changed. I stopped smiling. I stopped doing my homework. I remember one day sagging into the couch in front of the tv, not really seeing whatever show was playing, while my mom brought me a strawberry smoothie.

Aside from me, I believe my mom was one of the people that was hit the hardest by all of this. I confided more of my intrusive thoughts to her than I did to anyone else. She knew more than anyone what I was going through, and yet she was unable to stop it. I know that that was an absolutely horrendous experience for her, and sometimes I wish I could remove it altogether from her psyche.

At the same time, I probably would not have made it through this whole experience if I had been completely on my own. For one thing, my mom is the one who eventually got me in to see the OCD specialist who would go on to teach me how to overcome all of the insanity. For another, I needed her. I needed her to tell me that my brain was lying to me. Eventually, it grew to the point where I felt I had to run my thoughts past her, because her beautiful brain was wholly unaffected, at least in a strictly literal sense, by this horrible monstruous entity that was plaguing mine.

I saw one therapist, before the one I mentioned above, for a little while, who did help me a lot. She was an OCD specialist, as well. Most of her expertise was surrounding childhood-onset OCD, however, and so it ended up not being the best fit for forever, as I was going on my 20s. Yet, she was kind and gentle and caring, and made me feel like everything was going to be okay. In our first session together, she brought out a little white floof of a puppy. Immediately, the dark cloud hanging over me was beaten backwards for a moment and a little puddle of light held it back.

In the meantime I was still doing college.

I was still struggling to complete assignments that felt utterly pointless. I was trying to write inspiring stories for my creative writing class while feeling hopeless. That particular professor ended up changing the entire direction of my college career, and not in a good way. He singled out a short story I had written and explained to the class why it was a bad choice, as a writer, to write from perspectives other than your own. The way he phrased the whole lesson made me feel like I had done something terrible, had appropriated a whole culture, basically, and I ran from the room in tears to my favorite professor's office.

That was the moment I literally ran from the English Department to the Classical Studies Department. I sobbed in front of my professor, telling her exactly what had happened and why I was so upset. She stared at me in horror, and then said something I will never forget:

"Do you... do you want a starburst?"

It was in that moment that I switched majors. Compassion, it turns out, made that decision for me. My professor had shown me compassion, and it was all I needed to change course. I filled out the necessary paperwork, dropped the creative writing class, and started a new one-on-one research class with the Ancient Greek language professor.

Sometimes, I regret that decision. When I think about the trajectory of my life, I imagine that an English degree would have helped me maybe a teeny bit more in my creative writing journey. At the same time, I do not regret it at all. I was honestly so inspired by my ancient Greek classes, my professor, and the time period in general. I ended up actually going to Greece with this professor, and a whole class of adventurous fellow students, to learn about the study of Ancient Greek medicine. This trip, which I am incredibly thankful to my parents for funding (it was a generous Christmas gift), gave me a much needed respite from the OCD.

For some reason, traveling had the amazing superpower of being able to drastically shrink the OCD. I think a big portion of it was the excitement. I was so excited to be surrounded by everything I had been reading about in my classes, I think I forgot to have intrusive thoughts. I realize that this sounds crazy- how could you forget something that you now know your brain is actually hard-wired to do? I have no idea, but it happened again when I studied abroad for a semester in Ireland. While not a miracle cure, as the OCD came right back when I returned home, it definitely gave me a tiny bit of much-needed relief.

2016 - 2020: Fighting Back

Eventually, I met the therapist who would give me the mental tools I desperately needed to fight back. I do not remember exactly what year it was that I started seeing her, but I know it was after the two study abroad trips, at some point.

I remember sitting in this waiting room, too. Yet another waiting room, I thought. I held my hands in my lap and waited, glancing at the serene decor and listening to the peaceful classical music.

When this therapist walked into the room, it was with an aura of confidence I had never encountered before- and have never encountered since. I was too deeply sunk into my depression to recognize it at the time, but this was the kind of confidence that only comes with a deep and full knowing of exactly who one is, on every level, from body to soul.

I resisted the process, at first.

I spoke angry words, cried angry tears, and rejected any words from this therapist that seemed to suggest that there was a path to getting better. I simply did not believe it, and I was not interested in false hope.

She was incredibly patient with me. Realizing that this was something of a last chance, of sorts, I reluctantly went through the motions of doing the activities she assigned to me. I filled out answers to the questions, I made the hierarchy of my fears. I listened patiently as she explained the OCD cycle in detail and drew it on the whiteboard. Slowly, a shift occurred. I started to trust this person, this image of confidence, with a lot of my worst, ugliest fears. As a result, something eventually appeared in one of those sessions, something very small. And, despite its small stature and quiet voice, one day it actually started to talk back to the OCD.

That tiny, squeaky, timid voice was hope.

I started to do the exercises with more interest, thinking harder on my responses to them and paying more attention to the results. Somehow, this crazy strategy of ignoring the intrusive thoughts, telling them to fuck right off, was actually working. Somehow, if I did not engage with them, if I simply said "Yes, and your point is...?" their power faded significantly and they went from huge shadowy death monsters to tiny little gremlins (the way they were before being fed after midnight).

Color slowly started returning to my life. The tiny, squeaky, hopeful voice grew bigger, stronger, and more creative. I did not have to hold my hands tight against my sides anymore, as the formerly-pervasive fear that I might assault someone on accident just by walking by was fading. I could smile, again. I went to the movies with my college friends, again. I spent far fewer days on the couch staring dead-eyed at the tv. I was starting to feel like myself, again.

This process was slow and gradual. There were many set-backs, many moments of defeat. And yet, looking back on it, that is how it was supposed to be. I needed those hard-won victories, needed the careful pride that came along with an unexpected win.

Life continued. I graduated from college with a 3.9 GPA. I searched for jobs, thought about my future. All the while OCD was shrinking, melting into the background. It left behind deep emotional scars, but that was all they were, now- scars. I was no longer actively terrified for my life or for my soul. I thanked my therapist profusely for giving me my life back, attended the OCD-walks she set up, and tried my absolute best to communicate about my experience to others.

I realize, now, that I fell short on that front- at least in some respects. That is why I wrote this post today. It is my way of re-living and re-sharing the gritty details of my mental health journey. Maybe I will be able to go even deeper some day in the future, write a memoir, share the story more widely. That is a beautiful goal that lives within me. And yet, for now, this is good enough. I have been writing nonstop for four hours now, digging into my past in an attempt to create something that I can share so that people will maybe be able to better understand. I want to share this experience with others, I want them to know. I want other neurodivergent people to be able to know, as well. I want them to feel seen and heard, and more than anything, I want them to realize that they can do it. Whatever it is for them, they can. They can survive. They can flourish. They can overcome.

Thank you for sharing this journey with me, barn witches. And, please never forget, not for one moment, that you do matter. This world needs you. You are enough.