Dany’s OCD Story

Posted on: September 22nd, 2023

In this week’s blog, Dany shares his OCD story and offers us insightful considerations:

How are you? Something we ask and get asked every day. I’m sure the majority of us answer with “I’m good thanks, how about you?”

But are you good? Are you really ok? Would it be better to say how you’re really feeling? Is it easy to say how you are really feeling?

I walk my daughter to school. She’s happy, she skips along excited to see her friends. Her happiness makes me smile. We get to the playground, kids and parents greeting each other with the normal morning “how are you? I’m good thanks”. How are you? Do I answer with “I’m fine” or do I say how I’m really feeling? Do I say actually I’m awful. It’s taken me 15 minutes to leave the house because I’ve had to check every door and window over and over again. I’ve checked the gas is off on the hob a few times and even sniffed it just to make sure and also I stood staring at the clock to be on an even number before I left the kitchen because if I don’t do these things there’s a good chance in my mind that I’ll probably get murdered on the way home or someone will break in to my house and either burgle it or be waiting to kidnap me. Maybe I’ll just stick with “doing good thanks”.

When I get home all I want to do is go to bed, shut myself away from the world this way nobody can get me, nobody can hurt me. I don’t have to do compulsions over and over again. Yes, the intrusive thoughts are still there but I’m shut away from the world in bed, nobody can get me here, it’s my safe place.

I have things to do so I can’t shut myself away. My dog needs walking. I need to prepare my lunch for work and various other day to day tasks to do.

I’ve not heard from my wife since she got to work. Is she ok? In reality she’s fine but the intrusive thoughts in my head are telling me what if she’s not? What if she’s had an accident on the way to work and she’s dead?

I can make this ok. All I need to do is all my normal compulsions and she will be fine. I’ll tidy the cutlery drawer and line everything up completely perfect and then once I’ve done this I’ll stare at it for a bit, get them all out and line them all up again then maybe I’ll do it again!

My dog is pacing around, and she’s desperate to go out. A simple task like this can be a nightmare. All I have to do is walk out of my door, lock it and off we go. Unfortunately, I can’t do this. Time to check the gas, check every window and door over and over again, time to wait for the clock to be even. Leave the house, lock the door, check that door is locked, walk away, go back check door. Walk away again full of anxiety that I’ve left the door unlocked and when I get home someone will be waiting in my house to kill me. Leaving my wife with no husband and my kids with no dad. Sounds awful right? This is what having to deal with intrusive thoughts is like. OCD is ruining my life. I don’t want to keep living this way, but I can’t tell anybody about this. It’s my secret, nobody needs to know about it.

How easy could it possibly be to just tell my wife what is happening to me? Surely it can’t be that hard? I wrote my wife a letter and explained everything that was going on. I cried reading it back and thought what a coward! How could you possibly not talk to someone you love face to face rather than a letter? Letter goes in the bin, I’ll just keep this to myself, this is who I am now, I have dealt with it for so long alone, I can carry on this way.

The day came that I could no longer go on living with OCD by myself. I was exhausted. I was tired. I didn’t want to carry on living this way. I needed to talk.

I sat down with my wife. I cried then cried some more while trying to explain what had been happening to me. I can easily say it is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life. But also, one the most rewarding because this led me to getting help. Speaking to people who understand about OCD. Getting therapy, although very challenging, has made my life better and easier. I’ve done Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). Both are brilliant and I highly recommend them.

Talking about problems especially for men is difficult but needs to be more common. If you really want to man up speak up, don’t hide your problems away. Life can and will be better by taking that first step and telling someone about what’s going on in your life.

So how are you?

Tags: ,

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *