my mental illness

lately i've received an overwhelming number of kind words from all of you dear readers.  i'm so humbled and grateful for your support, but i have been feeling more and more convicted to be honest about the fact that my life is not the picture-perfect depiction that it seems in this blog.  sure, my blog is full of my favorite things, people and memories.  i love having a blog that reminds me of all the good in my life and can serve as my happy place. but i've been feeling that my blog life and my real life are becoming increasingly disconnected.  in my blogging world i've kept the lid tight on one of the toughest things i struggle with in my real life, and to continue to keep quiet about something that i daily wrestle with is making me feel like a big fat lier. 

a couple days ago i got to chat with lynn from the actor's diet.  what i love most about lynn's blog is her honesty about her relationship and struggles with food.  i've been thinking a lot about how i want my blog to also be a place where i can be honest about how hard life is sometimes.  it's not all cupcakes and pretty dresses.  life is TOUGH.  but we find ways to cope, to pull through, and to even rise above.  i want my blog to show each piece of this journey.  

so, the real truth about my life is that i have clinical OCD.  usually when i tell people this they respond with "oh, i have some of that too..." and then they proceed to tell me that they like their pillows stacked a certain way or they like their kitchen sink to sparkle.  THIS IS NOT OCD, this is completely normal {and it is highly disrespectful to respond that way to someone who actually struggles with OCD. the best thing you can do is just listen and empathize}.    

what is OCD?  in the simplest terms, it involves an extra pathway between two parts of my brain that shouldn't be there.  that means, my brain and body see certain things, that are not at all dangerous, as being incredibly threatening.  OCD means that when i drop my scarf on my living room floor {which in my mind is a dirty, dangerous place} it suddenly feels as though my puppy is trapped in a burning building and i'm forced to watch.  i wish this were an exaggeration, but sadly, it is not.  i often feel like there is a Sane Me being held captive by my own brain who tortures me with feelings of being in extreme danger.  most of you watch glee and are familiar with the way emma handles the world around her.  it seems cute and funny in the show, but that's what life is really like for me.  and it sucks!

OCD is incredibly irrational.  when i experience these "danger" feelings and burst out crying, or begin a panic attack, i KNOW without a doubt that the feelings are unwarranted.  i know there's no need to fear a scarf falling on my floor, i know that it's all in my head.  but it's incredibly difficult to ignore these thoughts when your body is reacting so strongly.  OCD is also incredibly unpredictable.  there are certain things that are actually dirty and gross that don't bother me at all.  when i work with dirty little kids in therapy, i don't think about the germs, and i probably clean my shower twice a year.  those things just don't bother me.  yeah, i don't get it either, but that's just the way OCD works.

it's easy for me to hide my OCD when i'm out with friends.  i've learned to cope pretty well so that people out in the world don't notice too easily.  but at home it's a very different story.  until last august, i had lived alone for 10 years.  it was awesome to have my own apartment where i could live however i needed to.  but now that i'm living with the mister, it's hard to keep things "safe."  also, having another person who is living totally normally in my home, sure makes the things i do to avoid germs that much more painfully obvious.

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recently, i was given the stylish blogger award by a couple sweet ladies, alli and kaylia.  since i had already done one of these including fun facts not too long ago, i thought i would use this opportunity to share 7 facts about my struggles with OCD {although, believe me, there are far more than 7}:

1. for me, it mostly revolves around germs {although i have a few non-germ compulsions}.  there is no logical fear of getting sick or dying, there is no "what happens if i catch germs."  the germs themselves are the horrible, awful, terrifying things that send me into a panic if i'm near them.  and it's not that i'm afraid of only dirty things.  i get incredibly anxious about things that my mind deems dirty.  so even though a pair of shoes are brand new, the simple fact that they are shoes means that they are "dirty" and life threatening.  

2.  i wash my hands, on average, about 30-35 times a day.  sometimes i wear gloves to touch things, and then immediately throw the gloves away, careful not to touch the outside of them where they have been contaminated.  i never go anywhere without a giant stack of disinfectant wipes in my bag.  i'm constantly disinfecting my hands, bag, clothes and even hair if it touches something out in the world.

3. once i was late to class because i couldn't stop checking my front door to make sure it was locked.  i would try to leave, but my brain and body told me something horrible was going to happen because i wasn't SURE if my door was locked, even though i had just checked it.  i would check the door, begin to walk away, and feel so overwhelmed that i would go back and check it again.  i did this for 20 minutes, sobbing the entire time because i knew i was being ridiculous, but i just couldn't stop.  

4. the floor and ground are dirty.  always.  everywhere.  even if i have just cleaned my own floors in my own house, i can't use or touch something that has fallen on it, and i certainly can't sit on it myself.  i have house shoes that never go outside, yard shoes that never come in the house nor out into the world, and world shoes that i only wear out, all so that i won't contaminate my home or yard with certain germs.  i am the exact same with my clothes.  out-in-the-world clothes are never worn in the house.  i have been known to strip down just outside of my door, put my clothes in a plastic bag, and disinfected my hands before going inside my home.  where had i been that made me so "dirty?"  the DMV.  logically i knew i wasn't dirty, but i saw a woman move her purse from the ground to an empty chair, which i then had to sit in later.  in my mind it was the same thing as having to sit on the floor because the germs had been transferred to the chair on her bag.  

5.  two weeks ago i had a panic attack {something that happens fairly often for me} in the car because the day before the mister had given someone i didn't know a ride in it.  suddenly the whole car felt disastrously unclean and we had to stop on the side of the road to let me out.  we had to spend the entire rest of the day roaming around a "clean" neighborhood just so i could calm down enough to get back in the car and drive home.

6.  i don't use shoes with shoelaces because the laces touch the ground, which is a "dirty" place, so then i wouldn't be able to touch the laces to tie them.  plus, even if i got the laces tied somehow, there would be something really "dirty" sitting on top of my shoes everywhere i go, touching the bottom of my pants, which would then cause my pants to become contaminated and then my legs... and it goes on and on from there.

7.  i never touch the door knob to a bathroom.  i know lots of people do this out at public restrooms, but i do it in my own house too.  i either use toilet paper or "dirty" clothes to open the bathroom door.

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i know this all sounds totally crazy, but my hope for sharing this is to give you an enlightening look at something we never talk about in society.  people feel like they can share their physical illnesses openly, because hey, you can't help being born with certain issues.  but there's still so much of a stigma around sharing mental illnesses, even though it's really the same thing.  the truth is, i have a mental illness.  my life is a daily struggle, but i am doing something about it.  i was receiving treatment up in san francisco, and i'm currently looking for a therapist here in los angeles.  in the meantime, i hope that being honest about this will be a liberating way for me to deal with my OCD, right now.  i've hidden it from everyone {sometimes even from myself} for so long that it feels really empowering to call it out in this public way.  with that said, it's still totally terrifying to write all this down and put it out there.

so there you have it.  life is pretty fucking hard.  but it doesn't mean that we have to lie down and take it.  we can educate ourselves about what exactly is happening, figure out what can be done about it, and then take action.  the rest is all about embracing the beautiful side of life, which is exactly what i hope my blog can be about. 

and just because i want to end on a happy note, here is my favorite thing this week:

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ps - i have the most wonderful, amazing, patient, supportive husband in the world! he deserves a metal for everything he puts up with living with me.