No matter how severe Obsessive-compulsive behavior has become for you or a loved one, there is hope — and with very hard work, there is a good chance that it can be controlled and the symptoms reduced. Obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD, can be so much less of a presence in your life, but you must commit that you will make every effort to tolerate uncertainty, unpleasant spikes in anxiety, and to stand up to the mental noise that you have, up until now, bought into.
OCD is persistent. It will not let up as you step up to fight it. It will get stronger and it will do whatever it can to keep you locked in. No matter how real or intrusive your thoughts have become, resist the urge to respond to them with everything you’ve got. Stop engaging those thoughts with ritualized behaviors. Whether the compulsions are mental, physical, or both, your commitment to resist, reduce and stand up to the brain noise will give you your life back. Believe me when I say that I lived through the mental and physical anguish for almost 30 years and that I have kicked OCD, and so can you.
For some perspective on how irrational and destructive OCD can be, let me share something personal from years ago when my OCD was at its worst. During my first year of college I joined a fraternity. The final week before I was to officially become a “Brother,” my fellow pledges and I agreed to get our ankles tattooed with the fraternity letters.
The moment I was injected with ink and experienced that tiny needle enter my body, I panicked inside. I was convinced almost immediately that by getting this tattoo, I’d contracted HIV. I didn’t say anything to anyone out of fear they would laugh, call me crazy, or avoid hanging out with me. Instead, afterward I began to isolate myself, spend hours in the library researching tattoos and HIV, contraction methods of HIV, statistics, symptoms, full-blown AIDS, dying, and every other issue that went through my panicked mind.
I was so lonely and isolated and yet I didn’t know how to ask for help. I was also completely convinced that I had contracted HIV but wasn’t willing to get tested because I was trying to hold onto the slim chance that I was negative, and getting tested would have wiped out all hope.
For nearly three years I lived a life totally immersed in obsessive thoughts leading to compulsions such as checking my temperature at least 75 times a day, staring at my tattoo and inspecting it for infection, discoloration, and repeatedly staring in the mirror at my skin to check for KS lesions (a sign of full-blown AIDS). Finally, the mental anguish was too much to bear, and I proceeded to pack my bags, get in my car and leave college altogether and head home to California.
Before I left town I stopped at an HIV testing center because I couldn’t take the uncertainty anymore. I finally got the courage to get tested. For four days I drove and imagined the HIV destroying my body, my future, and that last bit of hope I was trying to hang on to. The day I got home, I called the clinic and told them that I did not want to know the results because I couldn’t take knowing the test would show I was positive. Before I hung up, the nurse on the other end stated, “Mr. Lukas, you are negative. Please breathe, you are fine.”
Well, actually I was not fine. This was the breaking point in my life when I knew I could no longer live like this. I began intensive treatment for OCD and started a slow recovery that did have numerous setbacks along the way. I never gave up, and even when I refused at times to believe my thoughts were “OCD Thoughts,” I stayed committed to treatment.
At times I would get discouraged when I heard doctors call my OCD “treatment resistant.” I would get down on myself, socially isolate, feel ashamed of my thoughts, and even become depressed. But I accepted that I had a brain disorder and that I wasn’t crazy, and that this brain disease would be chronic.
For nearly a decade, I have been out of treatment and now I treat others. I can honestly say to them, “I understand what you are feeling, and with hard work you, too, can get this disorder under control.” No matter what kind of OCD I see in my practice, I know that no one should feel that their situation is hopeless or untreatable. If it takes intensive outpatient or even intensive inpatient OCD treatment, there is hope for those suffering. OCD should never have to get as bad as it was for me. There is so much more understanding and evidence-based treatment (Exposure and Response Prevention), than there was for me when I was a child and even an adolescent/young adult.
Don’t give up hope, don’t give in to the mental noise, don’t refuse the help if you have access to it, and don’t ever believe that “Your OCD” is worse than someone else’s. Thinking like this will only make you more likely to close down and buy into the false belief that you are broken.
Today I am a happy, fully functioning husband and father and I know that these experiences with OCD served to make me a stronger and more empathic person. I believe more than ever that if you put your mind to it, you can overcome OCD as well.
— Jon Lukas MFT is a psychotherapist specializing in cognitive behavioral therapy. He is in private practice and runs The OCD Treatment Center of Santa Barbara, working with adolescents and adults with anxiety disorders. Click here for more information or call 805.453.2347.
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