Living with OCD Interviews:
Justine
Justine
At age 13 and living in Canada, Justine felt like something was wrong. However, she could not imagine what. Listening to Justine and others, I realized that there are stages people with OCD commonly traverse: an OCD career. The first stage is perceiving themselves as having a problem. The second is giving it a name.
Like a number of other people I interviewed, Justine happened upon information about the disorder and diagnosed herself. Once deciding she had OCD, Justine did not want to tell her parents. The next stages of the OCD career include treatment and learning to live with the disorder.
On her own, Justine managed to gather information from the Internet and others with OCD about contemporary evidence-based treatments. She ended up treating herself, demonstrating the power of information and how we can medicalize/psychologize our own experiences. Justine felt she overcame the OCD, but demonstrating how aspects of OCD can be chronic, she continued to remain vigilant in case the disorder reared its head again.
Like a number of other people I interviewed, Justine happened upon information about the disorder and diagnosed herself. Once deciding she had OCD, Justine did not want to tell her parents. The next stages of the OCD career include treatment and learning to live with the disorder.
On her own, Justine managed to gather information from the Internet and others with OCD about contemporary evidence-based treatments. She ended up treating herself, demonstrating the power of information and how we can medicalize/psychologize our own experiences. Justine felt she overcame the OCD, but demonstrating how aspects of OCD can be chronic, she continued to remain vigilant in case the disorder reared its head again.
In Justine's words:
"I once saw a Q & A section in a teen magazine and a girl was listing her symptoms and asking what was wrong with her. I realized some of her symptoms were very similar to mine. So I realized it is actually a disorder and . . . that I am not alone in this. . . . At first I had absolutely no control over it simply because I did not know how to deal with it. Symptoms included checking if the front door is locked; reopening envelopes before sending them due to fear that I have written something wrong; stepping on cracks in sidewalks; using extra commas when writing sentences (which resulted in losing marks in school for bad grammar skills); avoiding the number 3 or any number that had 3 in it, or was divisible by 3; checking if the alarm clock was set for correct hour a certain number of times before going to bed; others also. . . .
I have researched OCD myself, through books and online resources and realized that many sufferers went to see a therapist, went through therapy, or were prescribed medications. However, at the time I was afraid of letting people know of my condition because I was scared of being diagnosed as crazy. (I
guess it's [this concern is] typical). The obsessions & compulsions would take 2-3 hours of my time every day, perhaps even more. My mind always felt tired, exhausted, trapped. When I got older (age 16 or 17 maybe) I just figured that the only way for me to free myself of this disorder is to actually do something about it myself. So I started going against the compulsions. If the need came to check whether a door is locked, I would sit tight on the chair and force myself to stay put. It was extremely difficult and painful, but after a few times the compulsion simply went away. And I realized it was worth all the pain & effort.
I did the same with certain other compulsions, and once I started this self-therapy certain compulsions disappeared on their own. With obsessions it was different because they are in your head (horrible, non-realistic thoughts), but they too disappeared one by one once the compulsions started fading away.
I no longer have the disorder, because now I am in control and OCD is not. However, I know that if I ever get depressed/extremely sad about something, OCD will try to overtake my weak mind again. Therefore, I do not allow myself to slip into depression. I also turn to religion/God, because I know as long as my
faith is strong, I will never get depressed and trigger OCD."