OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER OCD 72 YEAR OLD TELLS HIS STORY AND OFFERS TIPS

 It's computer dummy heaven today. I just figured out how to fix my laptop all alone. It only required batteries but normally I would not have been able to even find where the batteries go. My new OCD mindfulness gave me a bonus. I am a 72 year old geezer but giddy as if I had just stole my first high school kiss.

A fortunate life has been my blessing. But, as my mother used to say "your worst enemy cannot do to you what you can do to yourself." What a merciless self assaulter I have been. We are talking mentally, The pain from a broken brain is ferocious.

I remember trying to lay my dead tired eight year old body in bed and go to sleep but I couldn't. The pillow would not line up to my satisfaction with a thin line on the headboard. So, I would keep popping up out of bed like a jumping jack for hours on end trying to line up the pillow exactly the way I wanted it. I would finally just flop into the bed drenched in sweat and pass out because my little body was so exhausted.

The obsessions became worse as I got older. Physical confrontation became the centerpiece of my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. The word FEAR is central to my defective soul. I believe it is to everyone with OCD.

Facing dangerous self made physical confrontations was my curse. I would be mentally implored to go back after someone who I decided had bullied me with words or deeds. It could have been a high school schoolmate who slapped me around thirty years before or a person who insulted a lady at the golf course in the morning who I thought I should have stood up to.

I could grab onto any event and conclude I had to be my own avenging angel. All that had to happen was a thought popping into my head. Bingo. The thought would not go away. Than, off I would go to the OCD dungeon.

My stomach would start rolling constantly. Only, after finding the misguided courage to act by confronting the bully would the fear abate. Most times, my attempts exacerbated the problem and turned minor, non-dangerous obsessions into deadly missions.

My delusional trips to hell lasted from days to decades and sometimes with multiple obsessions working simultaneously. Than, after even a favorable conclusion, the fear would come back about the same issue or a new issue. The insidiousness of OCD always returns and continues with a sufferer.

There is no finish line.

I do not know how I led a somewhat normal life married with a wife and kids for many years. I escaped through gambling, sex, cocaine, and anything but taking my emotional problems seriously. I even started and developed several businesses which I mostly pissed away because of OCD and other mental disorders.

Symbolically, trying to line up that pillow defined my life. Endlessly seeking relief for my tortured mind by seeking relief and confronting people I thought bullied me for any reason was my existence.

I could be triggered from loud music, barking dogs, a person insulting or making fun of or criticizing me. Hearing sarcastic remarks aimed at me was intolerable and grounds for retribution. Slammed doors and countless other triggers would bring out the same insanity that trying to adjust that pillow triggered.

I just had to get it right. That meant finding and than confronting the victimizer with my terror stricken mind which was petrified of the consequences but unable to stop the pursuit.

The torture was merciless and went on 24/7 when I would get something in my head that I did not want to do but felt I had to do or my stomach would torment with that horrid flight or fight feeling.

The pain lasted acutely for 69 years and still exists, but mildly in comparison when I was so bad I could not get out of bed for days.

Finally, I surrendered and accepted that 100% self acceptance was only right answer for me. I came to terms with me.

That has proven to be very painful but amazingly effective.

It amounts to doing nothing with that OCD urge but living with it.

Not acting is the answer for everyone. Not giving into checking the door or washing your hands again or thousands of other urges builds strength.

The temptation with OCD is always to give into urges for fast but only temporary relief.

The road to health is accepting OCD and knowing the condition will get better and very manageable as you work on it.

Starving it is the pathway to relief.

It is what you should do about that urge that has owned you.

Nothing.

I always felt like a victim who was compelled to confront every OCD urge.

I fearfully got into countless confrontations because of the misguided belief that I would get permanent relief after I resolved some ridiculous issue. I would usually end up worse off then I was before I started trying to solve the thing that triggered me.

I ended up in front of judges, in jail, and in a mental hospital because of the degrees to which I would go seeking relief.

I went to so many shrinks, took so many pills, read so many books, and still occasionally suffer as I write about OCD sixty five years after it started.

It has no quit. But, it cannot breathe if I do not give it oxygen.

I blessedly have found pathways to relief through exercising, writing, meditating, breathing, and just knowing the OCD urge is just a thinking disorder and can be accepted and coped with. That sounds easy but it's not.

It takes mind bending work to heal. There is hope for all of us though. Take it from me..

I am not violent or psychotic. I am a lifelong scared little boy who was taught to go outside and face the bullies in the old neighborhood. I cried instead. The family definition of courage was about fists and not words. It took a lifetime to recognize the family was fucked up with good intentions. They did not know macho was not a one size fits all hat.

After many years of good fortune even though I have taken many poundings from acting out I have landed right side up.

But, not until I was arrested and briefly jailed several times for minor non-violent crimes, been in a mental ward, and been isolated from the world in severe depression many times.. Everything was connected to OCD.

Endless hours of OCD torture have left me damaged mentally but okay enough to say I am much better after a lot of hard work.

I now am spending time learning how to let stuff go and accept my condition. I never really cared about standing up for myself except for a few times in my life where it was legitimate. It's selfishly only been about relieving the fear that I felt with and never sticking with the coping skills that I would not use properly.

Writing is an alternative for me. Right now I am choosing not to obsess or act out and I accept my condition. It ain't going away.

Exercising, reading, volunteering, hobbies, and almost any activity are tools that work well in battling OCD.

Going to OCD group meetings and becoming friendly with others who are afflicted is valuable and a big step in recovering.

The irrational but overwhelming fear of the "what ifs" of not doing what you falsely believe you must do literally eats you up. However, once you are able to realize that the anxiety of OCD urges can be endured with treatment and training life gets immeasurably better.

Learning to say no to debilitating OCD urges is the only way to get permanently healthier.

Obsessive Disorder Compulsive is permanent but can be effectively dealt with as with addictions like gambling or drinking and many others.

You can do it.

12 step programs are effective.

Why me becomes an obvious question to those afflicted reading this.

The answer is your brain is not normal.

Normal brains do not involuntarily attach to abnormal thinking. OCD brains do. They are different chemically and they do not process thoughts correctly.

OCD is always about fear, fear, fear, whether you are compulsively checking and rechecking the stove, door, the dogs water, washing your hands, obsessing about harming a child, facing a bully or some other thought.

But, there are ways to safelytreat OCD..

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is all about fear no matter where you start.

Fear can be dealt with effectively.

Go online and look at resources and blogs on OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) There is so much information out there for every sufferer.

Read about it. Find relief. It is there.

Here are some resources to use. I do not get paid in any way by anyone I mention.

I want to help.

I just Google like you should do.

Here are a few places around the country that came up.

FHEHealth Restore 888-986-1382

Park Avenue Psychotherapy Associates 973-815-0777

Go To UTube and punch up OCD

Call 720-605-1316

Call 305-856-9442

Call 754-227-6634

Online Therapy-312-955-1212

Good Luck

David S.

I am an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder sufferer.

DAVID