{"id":161,"date":"2019-10-07T15:39:32","date_gmt":"2019-10-07T19:39:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cpeclinicblog.com\/?p=161"},"modified":"2019-10-08T20:59:04","modified_gmt":"2019-10-09T00:59:04","slug":"losing-control-gaining-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cpeclinicblog.com\/?p=161","title":{"rendered":"Losing Control. Gaining Perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Meira Kell<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been an Olympic-level worrier\nfrom a very young age. From about 10 to 14, I had periods of intense worrying\nabout a variety of unrelated topics, including fearing that I was losing my\nfaith in God, that I had cheated on tests that I knew I hadn\u2019t cheated on, that\nI was a generally bad person. I would worry about small things I\u2019d done years\nin the past, feeling as guilty as if I had committed a felony. I tried\neverything I could to soothe them, such as praying in specific ways, avoiding\nanything that reminded me of them, and most often \u201cconfessing\u201d to my mom. I kept\neach fear to myself for weeks or months, ashamed of whatever transgression I\nthought I had committed and embarrassed by the unreasonable amount of guilt I\nfelt. It would build until I couldn\u2019t handle it anymore and then I would \u201cconfess\u201d\nto my mom, who tried to understand my panic. My parents were just as\ndumbfounded as I was about why these cycles happened. After talking to her, I\nwould feel better for a while, then something else would pop up. Each time, the\ninterval between the relief and the start of a new fear grew shorter and\nshorter, so I began to worry all the time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of 8th<\/sup> grade,\nI developed two of the most terrifying fears that I had experienced. First,\nthat I was going to kill myself. Now, I didn\u2019t actually want to hurt myself. I\nremember seeing a medication commercial that declared \u201cTalk to your doctor if\nyou have thoughts of wanting to hurt yourself.\u201d That statement alone sent me\ninto a spiral. What if I did want to hurt myself? But I don\u2019t, I would respond.\nBut what if you do? Does even thinking about this question mean you want to\nhurt yourself? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around the same time that this fear\narose, I suddenly started worrying that a family member had sexually abused me.\nAgain, I knew this person never had and never would. What kind of person would\nfear this from someone who had only ever loved me? I had never experienced\nabuse. I was disgusted with myself and felt like I was going crazy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My brain circled in loops for\nmonths on these two fears. For years, I had wondered if I should see a\npsychologist, but built it into The Worst Possible Outcome because in my mind,\nI had to face my true craziness if I saw someone. But at 14, I\u2019d hit the end of\nmy rapidly fraying rope. I decided I needed to tell someone about these fears,\nbearing in the mind the possibilities that a) I might be institutionalized for\nsuicidality and b) I could destroy my family if someone didn\u2019t believe me when\nI said the family member had never hurt me.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I told my mom, who was at a loss. After\ntalking to a friend who was a psychologist, the friend said, \u201cThis sounds like\nclassic obsessive-compulsive disorder.\u201d And like that, my fears had a name. It\nwas the worst day of my life, but suddenly, we had hope. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our friend referred us to an OCD\nspecialist in the area. The friend emphasized the importance of a trusting\nrelationship between the therapist and client \u2013 and if it\u2019s not the right fit, find\nanother therapist. Otherwise, it just won\u2019t work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was extremely blessed to click with the incredible OCD specialist to whom she referred us \u2013 Dr. Theresa Shank. With her non-judgmental listening and guidance, she taught me and my parents that my constant fears were obsessions and that I did not need to control the intrusive thoughts. OCD is like a Chinese finger trap: the more I resisted and tried to control the anxiety with my compulsions of avoidance and confessing, the tighter the anxiety took hold. But as I learned to tolerate the thoughts and view them more objectively, it became easier to recognize and sit with the obsessions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Shank and I built a base of cognitive-behavioral\ntherapy (CBT) skills and began using exposure and response therapy (ERT) to\npractice purposefully facing the anxiety without compulsing. But she never\npressured me to move beyond what I could handle at the time, which were small\nexposures to some of my milder obsessions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One year into treatment, I was encouraged to attend the International OCD Foundation\u2019s annual conference, which was being held in DC that year. My mom and I had an amazing experience meeting individuals and families also affected by this frustrating, odd illness.  Most importantly, I realized from other people\u2019s success stories that I needed to do the most challenging exposures for my most feared obsessions to kick OCD in the butt. I took this motivation back to Dr. Shank and she knew I was ready to tackle what I\u2019d been avoiding. With her close supervision and the participation of the family member \u2013 to whom I will be forever grateful – we spent about two months developing and carrying out exposures. At times, it was pretty harrowing, but when I purposefully tried to make the anxiety as high as it could go and maintain it there, my body and mind started habituating faster and faster. The same scripts for exposures that initially made me want to run away gradually stopped feeling \u201cdangerous.\u201d They would never be pleasant, but they became boring. And when you\u2019ve been terrified of something for years, boring is miraculous. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After about a year and half of consistently going to therapy, I decided that I was on maintenance mode. Over the years, I\u2019ve had some flare-ups of obsessive anxiety, but with intermittent appointments with Dr. Shank and my own practice of CBT and ERT, I\u2019ve never returned to the level I experienced as a young teenager.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
\u201cI\u2019ve been there, with thoughts just like these, and I\u2019m telling you, it can get better.\u201d <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s been 10 years since I learned that I had OCD. I\u2019m a registered nurse in an emergency department now, which kind of means my whole job is an exposure. I never would have thought I could handle and even enjoy this type of chaos, but good therapy can make you into person that surprises your old self. My story came full circle last year, when I was caring for a person who came in to be seen for thoughts of self-harm and fears of hurting other people. After one conversation, I knew this person was not suicidal or a risk to others. They were obsessing, plagued by thoughts and images and then feelings of revulsion so strong they were almost audible. It wasn\u2019t life they wanted to stop, but the endless cycles. They were me, 10 years ago. As I got their last set of vital signs before they were discharged with follow-up, they cried to me and said, \u201cI just wish I knew if it will get better.\u201d My professional nurse wall broke and I hugged this person and told them \u201cI\u2019ve been there, with thoughts just like these, and I\u2019m telling you, it can get better.\u201d And it has. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…good therapy can make you into person that surprises your old self…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":141,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,20,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anxiety","category-ocd","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cpeclinicblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/OCD_Blog.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpeclinicblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpeclinicblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpeclinicblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpeclinicblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpeclinicblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=161"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cpeclinicblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":237,"href":"https:\/\/cpeclinicblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161\/revisions\/237"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpeclinicblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpeclinicblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpeclinicblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpeclinicblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}