Living with OCD

For my first post, I'd like to talk about the misuse of the term 'OCD' and what that means for those of use who truly have the disorder.
I've been struggling with OCD for the last 5 years - in all honesty, I have memories of carrying out compulsions a long time before that, maybe about 10/12 years ago, but things have really escalated quite badly over the last 5 years.
When I first admitted to my family that I was carrying out compulsions, they could not have been more supportive and if they had any doubts about the severity of the problem, they never discussed it with me. Even when I really started to open up about how many compulsions I was doing, they did their best to understand. My experience with my friends was different - people immediately either commented that I wasn't particularly occupied with cleanliness and germs, or they told me that they too have OCD because they likes things to be done in a certain way. Even my doctor suggested that I didn't really have OCD. Don't get me wrong, they were and still are so supportive (something for which I am extremely grateful, I know not everyone is so lucky) but it also felt like they were (intentionally or not) belittling the problem or somehow suggesting that I didn't really have a problem at all.

This was a few months ago and since then, I've been attending a therapist for CBT. In the last few weeks, I've become increasingly frustrated with my CBT (for reasons that I haven't been able to put my finger on yet) and I started desperately scouring the Internet for anything that might reignite some motivation in me. I read other so many other people's stories of their OCD experience and how they had recovered but I just didn't find anything that I could identify with so I turned to social media to see what I could find but this was where I really started to notice the 'dumbing down' of OCD.

My first search was on Pinterest (it may seem random as a first place to look but I'm completely hooked on Pinterest these days so it's my first port of call for everything!). Weirdly, I've found it to be a great place to get the most random information and ideas.
I just did a simple search for the term 'OCD', expecting and hoping to see some inspirational quotes or advice but the majority of the results were tips on cleaning and organising, pictures of non-symmetrical objects, articles where the title openly admits that it will annoy people with OCD. Things that people would stereotypically associate with OCD.
I was intrigued to see if this was limited to Pinterest so I searched for #ocd on Facebook and Twitter as well to see what would turn up. The results there were pretty similar - I saw a picture that was apparently an OCD test and a link to images that would apparently 'trigger your OCD itch'. I didn't even click on that link, just the title made my blood boil! Would we accept this if it was an article of images to "trigger an epileptic fit" or if a shop was selling something to "trigger a diabetic coma"? For all of our sakes, I hope we wouldn't.

It might be going a little too far to suggest that these types of links and articles are enabling people whose OCD is centred around those themes (we're all ultimately responsible for ourselves of course and we can just not click on those links etc.) but it's certainly not helpful for them to be categorised in this way.

By this point in my search, I was less intrigued, more frustrated - frustrated that in these times when we're all being encouraged and trying to be more open and understanding of mental illness, OCD is still so trivialised.
People readily and almost proudly describe themselves as 'being OCD' about something when they like things to be ordered or done in a certain way. Now I'm not suggesting at all that OCD is something to be ashamed of, (I actually think it's proof of some admirable qualities in a person but that's for a different post) but if those people were told that from this moment, they had to leave something slightly misaligned or do a set of activities in a different order then they could probably do it without much problem. Sure, breaking any habit is tricky but overcoming an OCD ritual or compulsion is so much more than breaking a habit. It's about overcoming fear, overcoming that absolute terror that something truly awful is going to happen if you don't follow through with a compulsion. It's about changing your belief system that you are responsible for everything. It's beyond anything that I could put into words here.
I know this because I'm in the midst of it and struggling but not giving up.

It's imperative that we all keep talking about our mental health, no one should suffer in silence, but it's easy to see why so many of us feel that we can't open up when some mental illnesses (like OCD) are often treated as a joke.

We've all seen those images saying that you wouldn't tell someone with cancer to just "get over it" so don't say it to someone with mental health problems.
I think we need to add something to that - you wouldn't joke about having cancer or any other serious physical illness, so please don't joke about OCD or any other mental illness. To those of us who are suffering with those problems, it's so far from a joke.

Please let me know in the comments if you've ever dealt with someone making a joke of your OCD and if so, how did you deal with it. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

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