Theo T.
If you’re reading this, rise to meet your pain with compassion and dignity.
For all my life I felt like something was different with me, but I could never put a finger on it. I sometimes had weird quirks of character, spouts of anxiety, or feelings of “otherness” that were tangible but undefinable. Then, as a Sophomore in high school, COVID year came—and BAM! Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) hit me like a truck. It turns out I’ve always had the disorder, and probably always will have it, but nothing will compare to the acute episode and subsequent diagnosis I suffered my Sophomore year.
It started with intrusive thoughts. First, I experienced nagging thoughts about engaging in sexual acts with my family and friends. It was incredibly disturbing and disgusting to think about these things, but it was like my mind kept flashing images into my head without my consent. I began to believe that I was going insane. I asked my parents to get me a therapist and even a psychiatrist because I was so disturbed by my own mind, but I didn’t dare tell anyone except my therapist what I was experiencing, for fear of repercussions. My therapist was convinced that my parents had abused me as a child, though I know for a fact that this is the furthest thing from the truth. All of this was tearing me up inside.
A week later, the intrusive thoughts got violent. I was afraid that I would hurt my closest loved ones. I loved these people more than anything, and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt them. “Alright,” I thought, “I’ve gone completely insane.” I demanded my parents take me to the psychiatric hospital immediately, despite their protests about what I might encounter there. I thought to myself, “I’m probably going to be the scariest patient there.”
The next morning, the emergency room psychiatrist gave me a diagnosis within 5 minutes of talking to me: Harm/Taboo OCD. Not many people know about the condition, but it is a particularly debilitating form of the disorder characterized by a fear of harming one’s family, friends, or the general public, and because it is such a taboo condition, many patients don’t even confess to having the symptoms. In addition, it is highly correlated with low self-esteem and rampant negative self-talk, wherein individuals lose the fundamental faith that they have control over their own body and mind. The ironic part about the disorder is that Harm-OCD sufferers are less likely to harm someone than a general member of the population. They are so afraid of hurting others that they become convinced they are dangerous. During this time period, I would think to myself: if I’m constantly imagining hurting someone, I must want to actually do it!
I dropped out of school sophomore year, and took the rest of the year to receive treatment at a psychiatric hospital for severe OCD patients in Wisconsin, hundreds of miles away from my home in Maryland. The treatment was tough, and my depression during this period was so severe that I would not be standing here today without the love and perseverance of my supporting parents. Ultimately, I was taught that OCD will only continue to cycle if I keep reaching for certainty. That is, the more I kept trying to convince myself that I won’t hurt somebody, the more I would be preoccupied with this whole outlandish notion in the first place.
So, to my horror, the hospital required that I accept the possibility that I might be insane, crazy, blood-thirsty, serial killer who would kill and abuse my only family. This started slow, by reading them scripts of what I might do to them, but progressed to holding a knife to their back while they were helpless on the stairs. As terrifying and bizarre as this treatment was, it worked, and my fear and intrusive thoughts slowly began to diminish, though they have not completely gone away. My psychiatrist says they never will.
When I arrived back home, I returned to stacks of letters and gifts from concerned friends, and my family, including my two beloved kitties. In addition, my teachers, who had taught online that year, had made a unanimous decision to pass me in their classes with an ‘A’ despite missing ⅓ of the year. They said I was the only one with my camera on in all of their classes and they had seen more engagement and learning in me than any of the other students who had been there the whole year.
I returned in-person to school Junior year, and though I had amazing friends and a loving family, I’ll admit it's still the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
Now, in college, my intrusive thoughts have continued to diminish, but they’re still with me every day. After my diagnosis I never thought I could have gone to college, let alone the University of Michigan. Yet, here I stand.
One fresh December morning during my Senior year of high school I remember thinking to myself, “I think things from here on out are going to be ok.”
Then I chuckled to myself.
I remembered that adage which had now been seared into my brain “or not!—you can never have certainty about the future!”
If you’re reading this, know that you’ll get through it. With pride and grace, you will tackle every obstacle that both your mind and the world throw at you. Whatever comes, when it comes.
Theo T., University of Michigan
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