I Was Diagnosed With OCD At Age 12 & It's So Much More Nuanced Than People Realize

My psychologist came to the clear conclusion that my symptoms matched those of obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD. This condition manifests differently from person to person, but broadly speaking, it refers to someone whose brain creates fears (obsessions) and then methods to prohibit those fears from coming true (compulsions). The throughline is that both are irrational.

A lot of my early obsessions and compulsions were quite concrete: The former had to do with fears around cleanliness and symmetry, while the latter usually involved physical actions. I worked with my psychologist to identify behaviors that weren't serving me and to practice response prevention (simply put, not acting on the compulsion elicited by the obsession). 

One of the tricky characteristics of OCD is that oftentimes, once you overcome one fear, another pops up in its place. As I curbed the need to touch things to make them even or constantly ensure cleanliness, other, less concrete fears arose.

As I became more adept at working through each progressively sneaky fear, my OCD eventually developed into the version that I experience now. It's hard to describe, which is part of why it's challenging to navigate. Generally, it manifests as a sense of doubt and fear around what I consider most precious and important to me. That doubt turns into anxiety about what I "should" be doing in order to be a good person. Again, the key is that the definition of a "good person" from my OCD's perspective is wildly stringent, specific, and, simply put, untenable.

I work with this anxiety using a technique called Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)1. It's similar to what I practiced when I was younger, except that it also includes exposure to the core fear. Identifying the root of what I am trying to "fix" or "avoid" is efficacious because it keeps the fear from morphing into a slightly different theme that's still grounded in the same worry.

I think a lot of people are familiar with the trope of OCD as a love for neatness, cleanliness, and perfection. And many people with OCD do experience obsessions and compulsions related to those themes. The difference is that the intensity of the fears can affect your ability to function with ease, and even to trust yourself.  

I was recently asked if I hate or love my OCD, and I answered "Neither." I can't imagine my life without it. While I sometimes feel curious about what my day-to-day life might be like without OCD, it is essential to the way I relate to the world. It has caused me great suffering, and it has also caused immense pride in my ability to work with my mind.

I consider empathy to be one of my greatest strengths, and OCD has significantly increased my ability to practice it. Additionally, the skills I have acquired from treatments like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) translate quite beneficially into other areas of my life. I am brave because a lot of what I encounter externally doesn't hold a candle to what I've experienced in my own mind.