Glimpses of OCD

I was 44 years old when I was diagnosed with OCD. By then, I already had an undergraduate degree in psychology and a master's degree in counseling. Not once did I think, "Hmm... that could be me." Friends would tease me about "being OCD," but I never seriously considered it. My closest therapist friend has OCD, and it still never crossed my mind to think, "That reminds me of me." 

What I've learned on this journey is that OCD is notoriously difficult to pin down. My first psychiatrist (at 44 years old) missed it. I even showed up with a three-page autobiography of "My Potential OCD Symptoms." Who does that? Someone with OCD! 

I'm an articulate adult with graduate-level training in mental health. I had the vocabulary to describe exactly what was happening inside my own head. Even then, my first psychiatrist dismissed it. 

Looking back, I can see that I always had a very noisy brain. My thoughts were sticky. Snippets of songs and rhymes would get stuck in my head for days. I negotiated with a higher power for longer snow days. I believed "he loves me" because the daisy I plucked said so. I never stepped on a crack because I knew what would happen to my mother's back. Childhood is full of magical thinking, so none of that particularly screamed OCD. 

But somewhere around seven or eight years old, I became convinced that the world would end the year I turned thirteen. I didn't wonder if it might happen. I knew it would. I'd cry, mourning the future I believed I'd never have as I counted down each passing year. I never told anybody. Maybe I was afraid that saying it out loud would somehow make it more real. These kinds of thoughts have a way of thriving in the shadows. 

There was no shortage of things that made me stand out as a kid, but the part of me that OCD took first never saw the light of day.

Looking back, I can even trace how the thought took root. Back in the Blockbuster Video days, my parents let us watch movies with them. To be honest, scary movies have always been my favorite. I think my brain knew that werewolves and poltergeists weren't real. But scenes from The Terminator and Red Dawn planted a seed. I remember needing reassurance that we were safe from nuclear war. With the thought of World War III in mind I asked my father when he thought the next world war would happen, and my brain went to work. It connected the dots, did the math, and arrived at an inevitable conclusion: the next war would be World War III, the world would end, and I'd be thirteen. My brain created a horrifying certainty out of tiny snippets of truth.

The only outward sign I can remember as a young kid was demanding a hug and a kiss before my dad would leave home for any amount of time, just in case. I'd say that part out loud, with urgency, "I need a hug and kiss just in case!" I'm sure he thought I meant just in case I didn't see him before bedtime but my brain literally thought, if I don't do this he'll never come back but I couldn't say that out loud.

There were more outward signs as I grew older but they weren't obvious. I couldn't talk about them because they were driven by inside forces I couldn't even explain at the time. By fourth grade, I had become entrenched in "safe clothes" and "just right" hair. If something felt off, it would ruin my whole day. I remember it making me feel sick to my stomach. I didn't care if I wore the same pair of pants every single day. They looked right. They felt right. If my safe clothes got tossed out, I'd secretly retrieve them and hide them in my backpack so I could change once I got to school. I knew I wasn't supposed to do it, and I felt like such a bad kid. 

In my experience as a child therapist, the youngest kids I see rarely present with obvious obsessions or compulsions. Instead, I catch glimpses of magical thinking and brains searching for certainty where none can be found. "Will my dad die if I lose the soccer game?" whispered into a Magic 8 Ball. A sticky thought so unspeakable that a bright third grader melts into sobs: "I can't say it out loud." Hints of "just right" evolving into a rigid and dysregulating need. What worries me is the iceberg of despair that may be hiding just below the surface. 

Children can't tell us what they don't understand. Sometimes all we get are glimpses: a noisy brain, sticky thoughts, magical thinking, or a kid who can't explain why something feels so unspeakably yucky. If those glimpses leave you wondering, don't feel like you have to rush toward certainty. Sometimes the most helpful thing we can do is stay curious. OCD can be remarkably difficult to recognize, and one conversation or one evaluation doesn't always capture that.