Well, where do I start. I've been thinking for a long time about what would be a great first post, but somehow it's really difficult to start. But probably it would be good to start from the beginning, with me and my story, so that you first know what it's all about and what made me start this blog.
I'm Vivian, 30 years old and currently a Media Artist student. With this I have found my absolute dream job, my passion, and even if this all sounds fantastic and as if everything would be perfect and happy, there is something that has a lasting negative impact on my life, my monster in my head. This monster is called OCD, more specific a washing compulsion, and it has been living up there for about 5/6 years now. Initially it was small, a shadow ghoul that flitted through the corridors of my mind castle from time to time. But the shadow grew with time and became bigger, darker and more evil and one day it happened that it became so big, a big dark cloud with demonic grinning grimace and huge claw-like hands, that it got the upper hand and caught me completely. Since then I have been chained by my arms and legs in the dungeon of my mind castle and can´t get free. The monster, however, grows and grows and grows, feeding on my energy and thoughts, and as I grow weaker and weaker, the monster grows stronger and stronger.
"But how does it manifest itself, what does the monster do to you and what is a washing compulsion anyway?", some will ask.
Unfortunately I can't say what the decisive trigger was, but it started with the need to wash my hands over and over again, more and more often and for longer and longer periods of time, until the skin on my hands tore open and started to bleed. At that time I didn't know what it was and even less how and why it started, didn´t figured it out till now. I know what image I associate with it, but not the decisive trigger at that time 5/6 years ago. My aunt then told me, after I confided in her, that this is called washing compulsion.
At some point it spread further, became bigger, and I had to shower every day when I came home, that is, when I had left the house before. In the shower, however, I literally had to scrub off my skin and it always took about 1-2 hours until I felt well enough, or rather clean enough, to leave the shower again. During this time I also started a hypnotherapy, through which there were first improvements after some time, so that I no longer had to shower when I came home. I still had to wash my hands and arms for a very long time, but I didn't have to shower anymore every day, but I couldn't touch myself anywhere. That is, if I got my hand on my belly or my legs or anywhere else, I had to wash my hands again for a long time. The only thing I could touch was my face, but only if I had washed my hands for a long time and they felt clean to me.
Unfortunately, about 1 year ago a trigger came up that was directly connected with the image that I associate with the OCD and that was too much for me. That day I also had the first panic attack of my life and my OCD really exploded, it became worse than ever before and so it came that it only went downhill with the OCD. Washing my hands didn't help anymore against the feeling of being dirty, showering didn't help either. In the meantime I showered 2-3 hours and literally scrubbed the skin of my body, but there was no feeling of cleanliness. Last year in April I moved because of the studies that I'm doing right now and had the hope that everything would get better and I would get the compulsion under control and be able to live normally again, I had even sold almost all my things because I couldn't touch them at all anymore. However, unfortunately it didn´t come as I wished for and my compulsion became nevertheless worse and worse. At my new place of residence I managed at least at some point that I washed my hands extensively in the morning, after I had previously wiped my cell phone and tablet with disinfectant wipes, dressed myself with newly ordered clothes, my old clothes I could no longer put on, although they were freshly washed, washed my hands again and then left the house and sat down all day to my favorite Irishman in the pub or in my favorite cafe and ordered me good food and lots of ginger ale or homemade ice tea and matcha latte and followed my studies there on the tablet. When I came home in the evening I had to wash my hands after taking off my clothes for at least 1 hour and then I could go to bed. The next day the whole thing started all over again. As soon as I lay in bed, I couldn`t touch anything with my left hand, because I slept on it and otherwise I would have had to wash my hands again for a long time. That means, from then on I could do everything only with my right hand, with which I was not allowed to touch my face. You see, even here the OCD already gave many rules that limited me and cost me hours of time.
As you can see, the monster in my head is now huge and very threatening and dangerous. It determines my whole everyday life, which I suffer from very much. It is very stressful and I often ask myself "Why me? Why did this happen and why like this?"
That's exactly why I decided to start this blog, because I want to talk about it and show that just because you don't see an illness and injury, that doesn't mean it's not there and the sufferers aren't in agony from it. Inner pain, emotional pain, can hurt just as much as physical pain and inner pain can also become physical and be felt as physical pain. For me, for example, every time I wash my hands and take a shower, it is a torture for me and I would like to scream and then I feel the mental pain as an unbearable burning in the whole body. Unfortunately, mental illnesses are still a taboo subject in society and those affected are ostracized and have to listen to sayings such as "Don't act like that", "Pull yourself together", "Don't be so sensitive", etc etc. This makes them feel ashamed. As a result, they are ashamed of their illness, try to hide it and don´t dare to talk about it. It also took me a long time to be able to deal with it openly and to talk about it, but I´m still ashamed of it sometimes. However, no one should be ashamed of being sick, especially if one is chronically ill. No one chooses to get an illness and believe me, anyone with a mental illness would immediately choose to be healthy if they could. But unfortunately it is not that easy and mostly mental illnesses are more difficult to treat than physical illnesses or the healing process takes much longer and the risk of relapse should not be underestimated.
I have now voluntarily entered in clinical treatment because I simply can´t continue to live like this. The OCD is too stressful and I just want to get well again and be able to live normally.
I would like to raise awareness of mental illness here and writ about how life with OCD is like for me. Of course, I would also like to write about my hospital stay and everyday life and take you on my way towards healing and a normal life again.
💜Please don't be afraid to write me here in the comments or in person, either via the contact form below or on Instagram, if you have any questions or maybe a topic you'd like to read about here on my blog or maybe you're affected by OCD or other mental illness yourself and want to share.
-> Please remain friendly in the comments, mental illness is a very sensitive topic and it is hard enough for sufferers to disclose and talk about it. Ugly comments, be it discriminatory, bullying or any other vile way to attack someone, will be deleted by me. I don´t want to have such things here. The tone makes the music and here I want a friendly and respectful interaction :)
💜 I have also created a group on Facebook for all those who want to talk about the topic. It´s called Life with the monster in my head
No comments:
Post a Comment