My first brush with mental illness predates the beginning of my eating disorder. When I was about 8 years old I developed Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or OCD. The onset of this was rather rapid as it was triggered by a traumatic event.
As a child I was deathly afraid of fire and the idea of a burning house was the worst thing that could ever happen in my mind. Early in the morning of one 4th of July I was woken up by my mom telling me that I shouldn’t be scared, but the house across the street was on fire. After taking a minute to comprehend what she was saying I turned to peek out the window. Sure enough giant flames were shooting up out of that house. I decided to be brave and go outside with everyone else to watch the spectacle, but got no further than our doorstep when I turned and bolted back inside. I could feel the heat of the flames and the intense smoke filling my lungs. I ended up in a sobbing heap on our kitchen floor and then spent the rest of the night in our loft watching reruns of the TV show Hey Dude on Nickelodeon. A fire that should have been put on rather quickly took over five hours due to the malfunction of several fire truck’s equipment.
From that day on I was unable to sit in the loft without irrational fears of evil creatures creeping up on me or something bad happening. I also suddenly developed a fear to riding horses which was part of a camp I was in. Why does this matter? The TV show Hey Dude takes place on a dude ranch and each episode is full of horses. I had taken my fear of the fire and transferred it to horses! The OCD symptoms began to fill my life to deal with the trauma that my psyche had undergone during the fire.
I never engaged in the ritualistic hand-washing the you may often hear about in relation to OCD, but instead got very into doing things a certain number of times, numbers, adding, time, and the like. On rare occasions I would force myself to say something ridiculous to strangers because I feared that if I didn’t something bad would happen. That bad thing that was going to happen? I never figured out what it was, but instead just lived in utter fear of it. Sometimes these rituals would get my locked into hours spent engaged with them. I would finally get done with whatever it was I was doing and end up exhausted, crying, and feeling worthless. Was life really going to be a continuum of this madness?
I asked for help and started to see a psychologist. Through that work I was able to start to challenge these urges and each time I didn’t do what I thought I had to and nothing bad happened I became stronger. Eventually I told myself that if these bad things was going to happen, then well they were just going to have to happen. I wasn’t going to be able to do anything about it so why bother going through all these motions. To this day one of my greatest achievements is that I overcame my OCD on my own, without the use of medication.
While most of my symptoms had disappeared by the time my eating disorder developed, the OCD paved a way for the eating disorder to form. Much of the ritualistic and routine behavior found with Anorexia is rooted in OCD and during the times of deepest illness my OCD symptoms were totally absent. A good trade-off? I think not.
At times I still feel the OCD urges, but I can easily tell that voice to stop and walk away. It took my own faith in myself and some risk to step into a place when I could challenge what I believed to be true.
The stigma of mental illnesses still prevents many from speaking out. You don’t have to be afraid.
Speak your truth.
Photo Credits: Charlesandmarie.com,
Thanks for this post, Hannah. You are very brave to overcome this on your own.
I often wonder if I have a level of OCD. Even OCD/hypochondria. It’s a scary thing and it’s nice to know you’re not alone.
I also suffered with OCD as a child. Mine took the form of repetitive hand washing — due in part to my living conditions — and replaying moments and alternative outcomes in my head, in great, torturous detail. Counting also played a major role, which I’m convinced fed into my eating disorder after college. I can say, with confidence, that I am a master at calculating meal plan scenarios within seconds.
I want to thank you for sharing your story and highlighting the connection between the two disorders, which is most often overlooked outside of treatment centers and medical journals. It’s comforting to know someone else can relate. Thank you.