Living with OCD Interviews:
Maeve
Maeve
OCD can take many forms, and one person can experience a variety of these. Maeve, for instance, experienced obsessions and compulsions related to sexuality (colloquially referred to as "gay OCD," "homosexual OCD" HOCD, and "sexual orientation OCD" SO-OCD), relationships ("relationship OCD"), harm, and more. When I asked her if there was a message she would like to send to the world about OCD, it was about how OCD can take many forms.
Importantly, the content of people's obsessions can vary by context and one's life circumstances. Further, OCD can lead people with the disorder to question themselves and their sense of self. At times they may view the OCD metaphorically as something negative and outside of themselves, attacking them. They may ask themselves, "Is this me, or the OCD?" Below, Maeve reveals how these issues manifested in her life. Note that she has been diagnosed with OCD and depression.
Importantly, the content of people's obsessions can vary by context and one's life circumstances. Further, OCD can lead people with the disorder to question themselves and their sense of self. At times they may view the OCD metaphorically as something negative and outside of themselves, attacking them. They may ask themselves, "Is this me, or the OCD?" Below, Maeve reveals how these issues manifested in her life. Note that she has been diagnosed with OCD and depression.
In Maeve's words:
"When I was younger the first symptoms that I had of OCD were that I was afraid of germs and I was always washing my hands like non-stop. I don’t know where any of this came from, but I know that I was afraid of getting AIDS for a long time when I was a teenager, because that’s when I first found out about what AIDS was. And then anytime I went to a bathroom, I thought I was going to get AIDS if I touched anything, so that played into the handwashing thing.
When I was about 14 or 15 . . . my mom and dad thought that it would be helpful if I got involved in some kind of group with other people my age [so I went to a church youth group]. . . . The minister, or whoever was in charge, was kind of fanatical and he told us this story about if we lied to our parents we were going to get possessed by demons. . . . I started obsessing that I was going to get possessed by a demon. . . . I could not get that out of my head. I worried about that and obsessed about that for probably 5 years and I knew it was ridiculous and I knew it wasn’t ever going to happen but I could not get that out of my head.
I think in high school I was obsessing that I was gay for awhile. . . . I kept almost trying to like prove it to myself that I wasn’t. I'd start dating a guy just to be like look I'm dating a guy. That means I'm not gay. It was constant questioning in my head. . . . [I want people] to know about all the different possible issues that OCD can bring up in your life because I always just thought OCD was washing your hands. . . . I didn’t realize that there's a lot of things that OCD manifests itself in. . . . I never knew, like for the whole year or two that I had that obsession [about being gay], I thought I was legitimately searching for whether I was gay or straight. . . . when really it's just a symptom of OCD. [Maeve found out this could be an obsession when she spoke with her cousin and he told her that it was a 'typical OCD obsession.' Note that people who are straight may have obsessions about being gay, and those who are gay can have obsessions about being straight.]
I've been able to kick most of them [the obsessions and compulsions]. I don’t do the obsessive handwashing. I don’t have nearly any of the obsessions that I used to have. It just kind of morphs; it kind of changes like now my focus is relationships. I obsess a lot about my relationship with my boyfriend and different issues like that. . . . My boyfriend isn't religious. I am, so the thought runs through my head a lot that maybe we shouldn’t be together because he's not religious. Or maybe we shouldn’t be together because he's not funny enough. . . . I feel like I need validation or I need someone to say, 'No. It's good that you're with him. You should be with him.' And I don’t know why. That’s not something that I've heard of that’s a typical OCD issue like some of my other things like the handwashing. . . . Sometimes I even wonder is this still OCD. . .
OCD has affected my life as a whole in many ways. . . . I go through one obsession and I conquer it and I'm like 'Yes! That was the worst thing ever and now I'm done with it and I've gotten over it.' But then [sort of laughs] something else pops up like out of nowhere. . . . It makes me constantly doubt whether I am doing something because it is what I really want to do, or if what I’m doing is just because of my OCD. I doubt my major life decisions. . . . I obsess that I made the wrong decisions with previous relationships (e.g., should I have broke up with so-and-so because I was legitimately upset about something that anyone would have been upset over? Or was I upset about something that was just an OCD-related issue and not something a “normal” person would worry about?). I never know what is 'normal.'"