What It Has Done...

Talking about mental illness to the masses is hard. It is hard to deal with it's misrepresented preconceived notions and it is hard to deal with the media's silence. We are often times villainized or sanitized but very often totally ignored.

That being said, because my diagnoses is severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, I do not necessarily deal with as many of the violent misconceptions other mental illness diagnosis come with.

Many people have the incorrect idea that OCD is somehow less life changing or devastating than it actually is. We can blame many things for this but the biggest issue is the idea that OCD is inherently about organization and cleanliness. Leaving people to use the term OCD for things that are not actually OCD and that is a problem. Because if we desensitize the diagnoses to being more about how a person likes their morning coffee, we are saying that it is not a scary, upsetting, life altering mental illness. And it  minimizes the very real , very terrorizing issues people that actually suffer from OCD face.

Make no mistake, I do not want to limit people's discussions on OCD. I have no issue with people using the term OCD. I just want people to know what it actually stands for and the disorder it describes. I want open debates. I want people to ask me about OCD. I want people to learn. I want us all to educate each other.

OCD has devastated my life. People see me as a happy go lucky thirty six year old house wife. I am, in essence, an anxiety ridden thirty six year old hermit. I tell people that I am a house wife but I do not tell them the reason I am a house wife has nothing to do with my dreams of being a stay at home mother. The reality is that because of my severe OCD I was unable to finish high school. I was then unable to attend college and I am currently and have always been, unable to hold down a job. I say I am a house wife because I do stay at home and take care of my home and children but I do not go into the details that I do this because I am unable to do anything else.  I am for lack of a better description, unemployable.

I had dreams of graduating high school and my grades were very good. My panic attacks made my attendance extremely poor. I had high hopes of trying to get into Julliard. I wanted to sing on Broadway. I am talented enough to do so. I could have graduated and at the very least tried out, but this disorder prevented me from being who I thought I could be. Instead of me trying out for a musical college, I struggled to leave my home. Instead of me making plans for my future, I became unable to be in crowds of people without having panic attacks.

 Those options were torn away from me. Not in one fell swoop like other disorders but by little bits and pieces over time. One tiny fear after another.  Anxiety attacks on replay over and over again .

This disorder has damaged my relationships. It has made me hard to understand and harder to live with. I am under no illusions that being married to me is a cake walk. I know better.  I know how stressful it is to live with someone who is almost constantly stressed out. I am afraid.  I am afraid of everything, all of the time.

It has made me unable to do things that other people do on a daily basis without ever thinking about it. I have issues going to public places. I am unable to take medications to help because my OCD is medication resistant.

I am a thirty six year old hermit, with no diploma or higher education, who does not drive, who is too unreliable to employ, and who can not even make doctor appointments on the phone without fending off a panic attack. That is my reality. That is what OCD has done to me.

 We can discuss semantics and pretend that I have made a go of it and accomplished a great deal despite my anxiety but the reality is still reality and it has been my reality for thirty two years. I do not make excuses or shy away from the truth that this disorder, my disorder, has effectively unabashedly and irrevocably changed my life.

OCD comes with extra baggage. The kind of baggage you don't see on television or movies. The kind of ugly sludge green, hard plastic, Bakelite luggage no one wants to claim at the baggage check because it is unbelievably heavy and embarrassing to be seen with. It comes with hesitations and freak outs. It comes with phobias, panic attacks, devastating intrusive thoughts, and mental or physical compulsions. It comes with sexual, blasphemous, or harm fears. It comes with suicidal ideologies and avoidance behaviors. It comes with triggers and life altering consequences.

And yes, I am doing well for someone that lives with severe OCD but let's not pretend that it hasn't shaped the person I have become because it has.

It marks the things I do on a regular basis.
I cannot deal with certain things like germs, contaminations, or other people breathing on me or touching me. My life has become a life of avoidance. I avoid, it is the hallmark of what I do.

 This is the reality of what OCD has done to me.


I strive to continue to work on it. I strive to be better accepting of all that comes with having a mental illness. I am happy to be where I am today even if it isn't what I thought I would achieve when I was younger. I actually enjoy being a stay at home mom.

I do have family and friends and a fantastic support system. I do have really good days. I do know that I do not suffer alone. There are many people who suffer from OCD.

I am not bitter about how my life has been affected but I refuse to be obtuse and pretend. OCD is hard. Shit happens.

I also hold on to being proud of the things that I can do and the small victories I am able to achieve. Waking up and getting out of bed on a bad day is a feat. Taking a shower after I get out of bed on a bad day is a victory. Walking outside amongst other people and interacting with them after I have taken that shower, after getting out of bed on a bad day is a fucking act of heroism. I don't need the things I can do to be big to be proud of them. I just need to acknowledge that I did them and because I have done them, I get stronger from it.

Victories do not have to be big. They just have to be victories.


Neurotic Nelly

Don't Like The Label....

                   As all human beings are individuals, I don't like the use of labels or umbrella terms describing us as if we are all identical. Living with any illness, be it mental or physical, you are going to have to come to terms with people labeling you to put you in a category with similar people for statistical purposes or to more easily describe to others what you suffer from. You get used to it, and even get used to using these labels when describing yourself. Because it is easier. Because it is common place. Because  like anything else you repeatedly hear and do, it becomes habit.

                  That being said, I have a problem with the term I am supposed to use for my disorder. I have a problem with the term anxiety disorder when describing my OCD. There I said it. Everyone light your torches and get your pitchforks ready...I don't like the label. I can not speak for everyone, I can only attest to my own thirty two years of having OCD and what my opinion is about those hellish thirty two years. Anxiety disorder as a description is not wrong when it comes to OCD,  but it lacks the complete description of what actually goes on. OCD, to me, is not simply an anxiety disorder. It is an anxiety causing disorder and there is a difference.

               Anxiety happens to everyone at some point in there lives. That isn't what we are talking about here. Anxiety has several disorders under it's wing. We aren't talking abut those in this post, either, although those are equally life altering and important to talk about. We are talking about a mental illness that isn't as much triggered by the anxiety as it causes the triggers to be there in the first place. It causes the anxiety. It creates the issues. Not the other way around and I think just simply calling it an anxiety disorder and not an anxiety causing disorder makes people misunderstand how it works.

                Calling it just an anxiety disorder doesn't explain how OCD fishes through your brain to find the most vile, most revolting, most disturbing thoughts to bother you with. It isn't interested in small things that don't upset you. It wants to horrify you, terrorize you, and make you live in a world of shame and guilt. It needs the anxiety to function, so it must cause it to do so. These thoughts are what cause the anxiety. Once it finds the one thing or three things or ten things that are completely unlike your personality, once it has uncovered something that really disgusts and upsets you, that is the image or thought it hooks onto. That will be the thing you obsess over. That will be the thing it haunts you with, until you learn to desensitize yourself to it. Then it goes fishing again. Once an intrusive thought no longer bothers you, it is dropped by the OCD so it can search for something else to up the ante, crank up the fear, and increase the feeling or horror.

                 No, the term anxiety disorder doesn't quite explain the Hounds of Hell that live inside your head, trying to take over your life by making you feel dirty and shamed, afraid and horrified. It doesn't really speak of the depth you will go to avoid such upsetting thoughts or how much you can end up giving up just to try and prevent the hell that OCD shows you. Calling it an anxiety causing disorder makes way more sense than just calling it simply an anxiety disorder because that is what it does. It causes the anxiety that causes the anxiety. It is more than just a few words under a label. It is my life. It is many other people's lives and it entails way more than simple labels can describe. That is all I am saying.

                    Labeling it as just an anxiety disorder makes some people confuse it with normal anxiety and it is way more than just anxiety to us. It is a life full of undeserving guilt and pain. It is a life full of people misunderstanding your diagnoses. It is a life full of pushing through and jumping over hurdles that OCD purposely puts in your way. It is the hell we are trying to crawl out of one fistful of dirt and ash at a time. To call it anything less than what it is to us and what it does to us feels insulting and sanitized and there never anything sanitized about having OCD. It is an anxiety causing disorder not simply an anxiety disorder and I refuse to call it anything else. I refuse to bow down and live my life under a label I don't believe describes my pain accurately. I refuse to label myself with something that only half describes the hell I live through on a daily basis.  I think it is important to label ourselves correctly if we are going to be forced to wear the labels given to us, around our necks like chains, to make us more easily identifiable by our mental illnesses. So, if we must be labeled, I am  going to label myself by how I feel my disorder affects me. And when asked by others what OCD is, I am going to say it is an anxiety causing disorder because for me, it is the truth. It is my truth and I will wear that chain of labels more proudly if I feel it represents what I live with more clearly to others. I mean, I will probably put charms on my chain and snazz it up with some spray paint or modge podge or something, but I don't mind wearing a chain of labels or a chest plate covered in name tags, or whatever the hell they want to give me to describe my OCD, as long as it is factual to what I go through. I just need factual and honest and real if I am going to have to use labels to define my life's issues. I don't really think that is asking for too much, I mean I could be wrong. But I have to represent myself the way I feel I am not how others think I should be. This is me. My name is Nelly and I have an anxiety causing disorder. I have OCD and I am not letting something as small as a not descriptive enough label hold me down.

Neurotic Nelly

Their Names Matter....

        When the volume of the world around us is ear-splitting, the silence of the stigma we face daily, is deafening. It is proven with the way we treat those that have suffered before us. By the looks we avert and  the absence of our questions. The disregard we pass on to the past. Who were these people? What were their lives like? What were their names?

         Questions that Jon Crispin and his amazing website Willard Suitcases makes us pause and think about. Questions that need to be asked and in some small way, answered.  Willard Suitcases is a record of these people's lives  through the contents of their personal suitcases. With four hundred suitcases ranging from 1910 to the 1960's it is an open and honest depiction into the lives of the patients that called Willard Psychiatric Center home.

        A few days ago I stumbled upon Jon Crispin's work and realized that he had held a mirror to my face. What I found there was something that not only could I not turn away from  but needed to see. It is a window into the past. The past of people much like me and you. People that suffered from the silence of stigma and in many ways, although they are long gone from this earth, still suffer from the affects of it. I saw these people through the eyes of an amazing photographer who showed us their lovingly packed away belongings, the little bits and pieces of their forgotten lives, the soft whispers of their past. I saw their talents as an artist, a leather worker, a budding author, an academic. I saw their dreams and their faces smiling back at me in black and white and sepia tones. At some point, unbeknownst to myself, these pictures of simple suitcases filled with their clandestine contents stopped being something to view out of curiousity and became something very personal to me. I read some of their thoughts, gathered minute traces of their lives, and in doing so found myself lying there somewhere beneath the satin shoes, little carved terriers, books written in German, old records, letters written by loved ones,  blackened shoe polish, matching Bakelite hair brushes, and brightly colored embroidery string. These patients were not silent ghosts that lurked the halls invisible and forgotten. They were people. They were you and me.  I could have been them if I were born in their time. One of those suitcases could have been mine...One of those notebooks could have had my name scrawled across the top in pencil.

       Difference being, that my full name can be printed and photographed and their's can not. Not because they weren't real people. Not because they aren't worthy of such an overlooked privilege, but because they were mental patients and  because of the New York patient privacy laws, their full names are forever redacted. Many of them have numbers on their tombstones instead of names as if their lives did not matter. As if they did not have talents, loved ones, aspirations, or dreams. As if they were simply cogs in a wheel. Nondescript.  Unmentionable. Undesirables, graceless, faceless and nameless because they suffered. Their voices, or in this case names, remain silent. Much like the creator and photographer of the Willard Suitcases site, I feel this is unacceptable.

 Their names matter.

       The sterilization and sanitation of the ignored and forgotten has become all too familiar. The turning of a blind eye to things we do not understand or the shame we dole out onto things that make us feel uncomfortable. These hauntingly beautiful photos speak of a person's life as the individual. Not just as the inmates of an asylum scrubbed raw and washed clean only to become indiscernible from each other. These people had families, friends, lives, and dreams. Lives that don't simply disappear just because they were institutionalized. Having lived in Willard Psychiatric Center in no way makes them any less remarkable, less talented, or less human than anyone else.

       I applaud Jon Crispin and his site for giving these people  their dignity and individuality back and for showing us the humanity the world has stripped away from them for far too long. For showing us the human face behind the diagnoses. For reminding people that mental illness sufferers are not any less unique and individual than anyone else.

In closing:
      Their names should be allowed to be said, printed, and remembered. They deserve to be heard in death as they should have been in life. They should have their names on their grave markers above their bodies. They deserve to be seen. We have to stand not just for their names but by their names because it is not just  taking a stand for these remarkable people, it is taking a stand for all of those that came before them and for all of us that have come after. They deserve better.

      I have never been to New York. I have never visited Willard, but that doesn't change my opinion on doing what is right. These remarkable people deserve to be recognized for the people they were and the lives that they lived and should not be allowed to fade away from history slowly and deliberately, simply because they suffered from mental illness.

Please take a a few minutes to look at Jon Crispin's site  Willard Suitcases and leave him a message of support for his remarkable work in keeping these people's memories alive and in the public eye.

And if the story of these people has touched you in any way, please check out these links to help support the cause of giving back these wonderful souls the rights to their names.

For a more detailed look at Willard Psychiatric Center and it's suitcases story click here to purchase:
The Lives They Left Behind:Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic by Darby Penney.

For more information and updates on what is being done to restore the name rights to the former patients of Willard Psychiatric Center, please check out The Willard Cemetery Memorial Project.

For New York residents that want to get involved, Legislation for The Willard Cemetery Memorial Project.

For more information on the patients of Willard Psychiatric Center, check out The Inmates of Willard by Linda S. Stuhler and a link to her book The Inmates of Willard 1870-1900 a Genealogy Resource.

Their names matter. They always did, and they always will.

Neurotic Nelly

What About Our Asses?

I am now afraid of the toilet...and it is all  my mother's fault.

Two weeks ago while my husband was cleaning out the garage he asked me to come downstairs and look at a little friend he found. By words such as little and friend I was under the impression that this little friend would be something cute and well, little. What I saw, however, ran a chill in my bones. He motioned me to the sewer drain and proclaimed that something adorable was inside. This is the point where I should have realized my husband loves animals a little too much.....It was not some tiny little mouse, or a playful puppy, or a tiny kitten. No, when he removed the drain cover what popped out was a beady little eyed monster that kept washing it's face in sewer water. This was not friendly, this was not cute, this was a rather large sewer rat.

My pulse quickened. My mouth became dry. I could feel the icy fingers of my OCD niggling in the back of my neck. "Isn't it cute?" he said.

Oh, sure, sure it was. If by cute you mean cute like the Bubonic Plague, Weil's Disease, Rat Bite Fever, or Hanta Virus cute. If you mean cute like tearing off your own arm with your own teeth rather than touch anything it has ever touched as cute then yeah, it's cute alright. I am sure people that got the Black Death just thought these creatures were truly adorable. I know I felt all warm and fuzzy as it made eye contact with me, watching me watching it, as it cleaned it's disease covered hands with it's disease covered face.

And I may have possibly screamed (not going to confirm or deny) as it decided to go back into the pipe it so hideously came out of and back into whatever sewer system it dwells in. I felt better after it was gone. I felt safer and cleaner.

But then, I mention this whole incident to my mother because I now question my husband's sanity a tiny bit and she mentions that sewer rats can climb out your toilet.... .... .....I am just going to pause here a minute and compose myself while letting that little "I probably didn't need to fucking know because ignorance is bliss" factoid sink in.

My reaction was that of a total nuclear meltdown. I begged her to explain to me why she felt the need to share this little nugget of information with me knowing how truly fucked up in the head I am. I mean, I have been hovering my pasty white rearend over the toilet for thirty six years in my own houses and never once have I ever had a second thought about whether or not I could be hovering over a rat washing it's face in poop water. Did I need to know this? Um....no. Fear welled up in my voice. Panic set in. I immediately went into the bathroom and shut the toilet lid. The last thing I needed was to be thinking that beady eyed bastard was walking around in my house somewhere after it took a Sunday stroll through my toilet pipes only to munch on my face while I was asleep. Assuming I will ever truly sleep again...

I was told it can't happen to me because I have cats but let's be real for a second, I know my cats. I have had them for years. I have watched them as creepy crawly spiders have run across the floor and they were to busy licking their own butt to give a damn. They saw said spiders, they just didn't care. They won't even get up off of the couch for a treat. They expect you to bring it to them. They are so lazy you could leave the house for six hours, come back and they would still be in the same spot napping. Maybe someone else's cats would be a deterrent. Not my cats. They are lazy fat asses. I love them to pieces but it is the truth.

I get that there are rodents, I know there are such things as sewer rats, I am not judging. We are all God's creatures. I just prefer that some of God's creatures stay the fuck away from where I sleep, eat, and poop. I don't think I am asking too much. I mean, I don't pop up in his little rat house unannounced washing my face with his poo water now do I? It's common courtesy. That is all I am saying.

 Pooping will never be safe for me again....Great just great.

And finally, just as I got these images out of my mind after a week of obsessing and deflecting my new found terror of the commode, I go on facebook and my dear friend, who I had not told the rat story to, had felt the need to post an article about how easy it is for a rat to crawl out of your toilet. Seriously????? Is there some kind of rat in the shitter conspiracy I am unaware of? Did she too find an "adorable little friend" in her drain? Because if so, I think I am going to just start pooping in the yard. I don't need this kind of anxiety in my life....


I mean, we can put a man on the moon but nobody has figured out in the 400 years of having toilets how to create one that prevents Cinderella's little helpers from getting into your house and biting your ass?  Am I the only one a little freaked out about this?  What about our asses, people? Who is protecting our asses???!!!????

If I ever lift that lid and see one of these evil disease spreading bastards looking up at me I am going to burn my house down, starting with the toilet. I am not even kidding. I can go back to pooping like it is the 1300's. I can find a bucket like that crazy hobo my mother saw last year copping a squat by a junked out car on the side of the road as she drove downtown. We all  thought he was gross and crazy but maybe just maybe he once had a toilet and lifted it's lid only to be bit on the ass. Maybe he's not the crazy one.  Maybe we are, playing poop russian roulette every time we sit down unawares and unconcerned on the porcelain throne. Eh? Eh?

I mean if you think about it, the only thing that could possibly keep a rat from coming out of your toilet is the lid that we all take for granted as a seat because it is implied that is what the lid is for. And as times have changed we made the lid out of cheap light plastic so it is more sleek and stylish instead of the first lids created out of heavy wood. Now I ask you, if a rat can hold it's breath for fifteen minutes, can tread water for three days, can survive a fall from five stories, can swim a half a mile in the open sea, can dive 100 feet underwater, can crawl vertically along walls, and can chew through aluminum sheeting, plaster, wood, rubber, and concrete block.....are we actually naive enough to believe a thin light weight lid made of plastic is going to keep them  from crawling out of your toilet...yeah, right, sure it is. I don't know about you but I no longer feel safe in my own bathroom.

I am now afraid of the toilet.....and I just want to thank my Mom. Thanks Mom. I needed to be just that much crazier.

Neurotic Nelly

A Shit Day and A Piss Pot.....

Well today is going to be a shit day.....

I was going to write on Tuesday like usual but life got in the way, as it often does, and more stress has decided to take up residence in my life. I am trying to breathe.....I am not sure I am doing it right. I mean, it looks like I am breathing but I don't feel any better about it. I think I am breathing through all of this but between my clenched teeth and white knuckles, I am not so sure...I may just be drowning and am too busy paddling the waves of stress to realize it. Can you actually drown from stress? If you don't hear from me on Tuesday, I guess we will have an answer to that....Hopefully I will find a life jacket soon.

I think people sometimes get irritated with me because I am a positive thinker. I can understand that the glass is always half full can be an annoying concept. But reality is, that I can not afford to dwell in my misery with no hope of salvation. No hope of a light at the end of the tunnel. No hope that things will eventually work themselves out. I have to believe that, because if I didn't I would not be able to get out of bed in the morning and face, obvious shit days like today is going to be. I need hope to keep fighting. I wish more people could understand that. I am positive not because I am a positive person but because I have to be to survive.  I was not born a ray of sunshine, I will myself to be a ray of sunshine because beneath this happy looking exterior I am a boiling pot of over pressurized stress. I am simply trying to continue to hold the walls around me up. Granted my walls are currently held together with chewed bubble gum, used tape, and wet newspapers but I am a firm believer in working with what you are given. And I was given recyclable refuse.

Again, I am confronted with the same ole, same ole issue of people thinking I am dealing well because I appear to be dealing well. Well, I am not dealing well. I am just really good at faking it and I would love to let my hair down and just fall apart at the knees but I have responsibilities, and kids, and shit to do today so I do not have the luxury of full nuclear meltdown this morning. I am not sure anyone would understand if I lost it right now and locked myself in my crappy closet sized bathroom and shut out the world for a few minutes while I ball my eyes out, anyway. I need sleep. I need a break. I need a good old cry.......I don't have time for that right now though. I guess losing my complete composure will just have to wait. What I wouldn't give for the fairy God mother to be real so she could turn that sewer rat I saw in my basement drain into a a beautiful white horse so I could ride away. I don't have a pumpkin to make into a carriage but I think I saw a half rotted peach in the back of my fridge this morning. She's a fairy so surely she could make something you could ride in out of that...

If I were still in Texas, I would say that I don't have a pot to piss in nor a window to throw it out of but there seems to be an over abundance of piss in my life right now. I don't have money for a pot to piss in but  I can't have this much piss and not have one so maybe I just have a cheap hand me down pot that smells of  old bologna and asbestos that used to belong to my great great grandfather and I am unaware of it........I am pretty sure this is too much piss for one person. Clearly someone else is pissing in my pot uninvited and unannounced....How rude. They could at least have the decency to rent it from me first.

Yes, today is going to be a shit day and I accept that but because I strive to see the positive side in things, I am going to see this piss pot as half full of shit instead of half empty...although, I am uncertain if that is actually a positive thing to want...

Till next Tuesday my friends, I hope today is treating you far better than it is treating me,
Neurotic Nelly

I Am Howard Hughes...

I am Howard Hughes. Well except for the whole being a rich man that designs and flies planes thing. I am also not a playboy....or dead. I am however a Texan...and I have OCD.

Last night, I watched The Aviator for the first time. A movie that I have purposely avoided watching till now. I sat there, palms sweaty, terrified of the mirror that would be held in front of my face. Before I hit the play button, I swallowed the lump in my throat that felt like a mini bus and asked my husband, "How much of myself am I going to see in this film?"  He had seen parts of it before. "A lot." he said.

"Wonderful." I thought in my purely sarcastic tone.

I have avoided watching this film for fears of triggers. You see, Howard had contamination fears and so do I. I was very afraid of having to sit through and hour and a half, triggering while Howard was triggering and trying not to completely freak out alongside the main character. It was daunting. It was unsettling. It was... magical.

For the first time, I saw a movie that did not glaze over my disorder. It did not present my disorder as something to laugh at. It did not show the character as being unaware of what was going on. Something that many OCD depictions overlook and try to cover up with humor. He clearly saw that what he was doing made no sense. It showed the clear agony of OCD on his face when he compulsed. It showed the hesitations. The little pauses we take when triggered. I had never seen that before in any film or read that in any book. It was like my typical day of what social dictations demand vs what my mind forces me to feel and I was blown away and thankful. I mean, I do not have all of Howard Hughes's symptoms, but I totally understood them and it was, for me, a relief.

The raw meat scenes.....totally my reactions. With the door in the public restroom scene, I could feel the complete panic. Not just because of the superb writing of the script and terrific acting of the actor, but because I do that. I look at the door knob with fear of knowing that I just washed wash my hands and I do not want to do it again. The complete panic and dread that sets in.

                               ( WARNING possible TRIGGERS on video )

                           (I do not own this video or any part of this video)

There is this part when he is in the plane with Kathrine Hepburn and he drinks after her. The hesitation before he takes a sip. I was yelling at the television. Oh my God. I don't think people understand what that means for a person with contamination fears. I do, but I am not sure other people can. I remember the first time I found someone I could drink or eat after. It was freeing and it is the first time I caught a glimpse of what it must be like to be like everyone else. To be not OCD.

Yes, I was triggered watching this movie but it moved me. It made me want to scream when they used Howard's OCD against him. It made me hold back tears when he was in pain and isolated himself. It made OCD real for the viewers and no, maybe they don't understand every nuance but they got the gist. And that means something. More than anyone else (normal) will ever know.

The hardest part of the film was the reality that many of us joke about. The dirty, unshaven naked man, reduced to peeing in his recycled milk bottles because he is afraid of being contaminated. I have often said I am one step away from being Howard Hughes. That isn't true, really. I am not to the point Howard got to but the idea of that I could become like that, terrifies me. That is what has kept me from watching this film, despite it's raving reviews, for eleven years. It was too close. It was too real for me because I can not simply walk out of the movie theater and pretend it was all just a movie. I live it everyday. I can not simply just turn off the television and go on about my day like everyone else. It wasn't a film that taught me about OCD because I know it too intimately, already. No, I am not peeing in milk bottles. No, I am not unwashed living in one tiny room afraid of contamination. No, I am not repeating myself over and over and over again. But I could have been and that is the point. I didn't really need to learn about Howard because I already am Howard Hughes on some small level. I knew him even before I didn't. And I think most OCD sufferers would understand that because I know them too. Just as they know me like only we can. Because only we know what it is like to live with this disorder. But now, because of this movie, maybe others will start to know too and that is....beyond gratifying. It is magical.

Neurotic Nelly

   

This Burden....

        I have spent my whole life trying to make up for being broken. I have always been a nice person, hoping people will accept me before they know my dysfunction. My life has been full of apologies and trying to swim through the swamps of my mind while trying desperately just to keep my head above water. I have always wanted to be liked. I put everyone else before me. Laying down my feelings on the sacrificial alter for others to trample on.....I have always tried to be so good to prove the things my mind was showing me were wrong. I am always trying to help others while helping myself. Sometimes I fail on the myself parts. And I apologize for that.

I beat myself up for not being perfect. I chastise myself for not being good enough. For not being a hero. For not being able to fix myself. For not being able to fix everyone else. For not being able to be there for everyone and everything that goes on this world. I blame myself for too much and do not forgive myself nearly enough. I lay my body on the concrete steps letting others scrape away my flesh and pick apart my bones till only my faults lie there in my place. Still it seems as if it is not enough. The suffering has become something that somewhere along the line, I picked up thinking it is all I deserve.

This burden has become too heavy and exhausting.

I know now that this is untrue. No, I am not perfect but I am no longer certain that is something I have to apologize for. I am a good person and I do not need to sacrifice my emotions to prove that to anyone, least of all myself. After all of this time, I should know who I am and what I am. I do not need to prove my worthiness or my sweetness or my goodness. I am a good person. I am a sweet person. I am a worthy person. I do not need reassurance for the first time in my life and it is exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time.  I feel hurt by those that have hurt me simply because they can and yet I feel stronger than I ever have. Finally, I have broken through this wall made of bricks and clay that I had carefully erected with my own childish hands trying not to keep others out but to keep myself in. Because I felt that is where the monsters belong. I can see the light shining through the holes I have clawed away and I can feel the sun's warmth on my face. I will no longer live with the darkness that I placed myself in. The empty blackened chamber I made for myself. The punishment I have inflicted upon myself for simply existing. I am no longer afraid. I do not believe that no one will ever love me, truly. I am no longer afraid others will not accept me. I am no longer unsure of my place. Those people's feelings about me do not change who I am. Their opinions on who I should be or what I am do not change my worth. I am not them. They are not me.

The more I look at myself in the mirror, the more I reflect on my own reflections, I realize that this burden I have been dragging behind me is not my burden to carry. No one is perfect.
The blame I have carried is not my blame to cock and point at myself. I do not need this damp and musty overcoat of shame anymore. It never fit me very well anyway.

I am Learning... I don't need anyone else to confirm who I am. I already know and I deserve to treated like the good, caring, responsible person that I am. I don't need to hold on to this self hatred any longer. There is nothing I could ever do that would make me deserve the punishments I have given myself on top of the suffering I already have. This stops today. I will no longer apologize for who I am or what I can and can not do. No one is held to these kind of standards and I shouldn't be held to them either. Even if those standards were something that only I have placed on myself.  So this is me dropping the lies, the blame, the guilt, and the overwhelming sense of shame and letting them all fall away. This is me accepting me, wholly and completely...and I am learning that those that can't stand be behind me on that, don't deserve to be standing beside me as my friends. It is they who are not worthy enough to be in my life and not the other way around....

Here is a short video of me talking about my acceptance of my OCD.
Neurotic Nelly

Insomnia and Being A PureO.....

Some things have been going on lately, making it hard to sleep. The night is my worst enemy. It is too quiet. It is too long. And my brain starts to thinking it's most when it is quiet and too long. I can't clean to occupy myself because everyone is asleep. There is nothing on television to mindlessly space out and stare at. No music to distract myself from myself because to do that the music would have to be loud enough to drown out my thoughts and my thoughts are very very loud.  I could have read but I was feeling too lazy. I could have written but the words wouldn't come to me. So, I just laid there praying to get exhausted enough to override my own mind. I just laid there and listened to the silence. Well, at least I think it was silence in the background of all of my thoughts.....I am not completely sure.

Insomnia blows.

I am so tired right now.

I will get over it, probably.



Please take few seconds to check out my new video about being a PureO. Thanks, and I promise to write a better post next Tuesday.

Neurotic Nelly

Why OCD Is Not Funny....

Hurt.
That is what I feel when someone makes fun of my disorder. We live in a time where information is just a click away and yet such ignorance abounds us all, it is amazing to me we can see through the fog of it. On a weekly basis I am confronted with people making light of my disorder or minimizing it's effects with dumb t-shirts or ignorant coffee cups and I become disheartened and offended.  It seriously happens to me all of the time. And as frustrating as it is, I can not totally blame the people that do it. They just don't know any better. So I ask myself how I can change the perceptions of things like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder to the masses. Granted, I will most likely not change the world with my posts on this blog, but if I can help just one person understand OCD a little better or help a fellow sufferer feel less alone, then I feel all of this has been worth the struggle.

 In looking through several videos on youtube about OCD, I have noticed that although there is a great deal on OCD, they aren't necessarily specific. There are several videos on compulsions that go hand in hand with Obsessive Compulsive disorder but not many on the obsessional or intrusive thought part of OCD and I would like to change that.

So, I have decided to make a few videos about my life with OCD and the things I have learned while suffering from it for almost thirty two years. They wont be anything spectacular. There won't be any animations or flow charts. No, art work being drawn as I speak or anything fancy. Just me talking about the things many of us OCD sufferers are afraid to talk about (the scary, guilt inducing, upsetting intrusive thoughts that rule our lives). I will be discussing what it is like to be a PureO because we are OCD sufferers too. Just not the ones most people think of when they think about OCD because our symptoms are not readily seen to the naked eye. I will be discussing why OCD is just as serious as every other mental illness and just why we do not find your Obsessive Cat Disorder shirts or Obsessive Coffee Disorder coffee mugs hilarious.  I will admit I am a little terrified of doing this. Writing is one thing, being on camera talking about it is quite another. I may even have hives and a panic attack before, after, or even during filming. Who knows. But I do feel it is important to try and I hope that it helps even in some small way.

So, here goes nothing...


             (you may need to use headphones the volume is low).

     (( I apologize for the overuse of the word "um", I was nervous))

Neurotic Nelly

UnValidated...

" Sometimes the people around you won't understand your journey. They don't need to, it's not for them." -Anonymous

         Deflected. That is what it feels like when someone makes excuses to not sympathize with how you are feeling. I get irritated when someone assumes that because I am upset about something, that it is because of my mental illness. As if, I am not allowed to have true feelings unless it is related to my OCD. Like somehow my OCD means that I can not truthfully be angry or hurt. It matters not what has transpired during my day or what situation I am facing. Crying or showing otherwise perfectly normal emotional responses to something is thrown back in my face because, surely it is my mental illness's fault and not because I am truly upset over something. It can't be because I had a shitty day. It has to be because I have OCD. And since I do have OCD, my feelings are just overreactions. My diagnosis has fundamentally colored the way I am perceived. And I am apparently perceived as someone who can not feel unless my mental illness is dictating it.

I know it may be hard to believe, but just like everyone else I am a human being. And being a human means that on occasion, I actually have human feelings. And they can be trampled on or hurt. (Go figure.)

         Few things hurt  more than when I am discussing my feelings on something and someone's response to it, is that I need to get back on my medicine. (I have medication resistant OCD). I don't think it is meant to be insulting on purpose but it is insulting all the same.  What you may be saying is that I am really passionate about whatever we are talking about or that I am really upset, but what I hear is the soft click of the door of communication as it closes tightly shut behind me. What I hear is that you do not care about my feelings. What I hear is that you can not get on my level and understand where I am coming from. What I hear is that my opinion is not important and my feelings are annoying and should be kept to myself, lest I bother anyone else with them. You may not know it, but these few simple words have effectively swept my emotions under the heavily stained, moth eaten carpet that everyone has trampled and wiped their dirt covered feet on.  It pushes my feelings away and crushes them down. Leaving me to feel misunderstood, extremely frustrated, unbelievably isolated, a tad bit devastated, and just plain sad. No one likes to feel ignored or swept aside and it is no different for those of us that suffer from mental illness.

       
       Even when I was on medication, if I had a moment when I was struggling or upset with something that had nothing to do with my mental illness at all, I would be asked, "Did you take your meds today?"

       I wanted to scream,"What the hell does my medication have to do with the validation of how I am feeling? Is it not possible for you to see me as a whole person? To see me as someone who is hurting? What does it matter even if it is my mental illness making me feel this way, are my emotions any less important? Any less valid? Do I not still feel them just as deeply? Why are my emotions ignored and overlooked and dismissed just because I suffer?"

I want to yell these things, but I usually end up just ending the conversation. Because once my feelings have been rebuffed by someone, I have a very hard time trusting that someone with them again.

        I can not begin to tell you how incredibly hurtful the medication question is. If you really think about it, it is more of a statement rather than a question. It says you are judging me. It says, albeit subtly and well hidden, that I don't have a right to have feelings let alone express them because they clearly aren't real. It implies that no one that has mental illness has any real emotions. They are a figment of our fractured minds and therefore do not need to be validated or listened to. They are immediately suspect and mistrusted. They are almost always looked at with a wary eye and a half closed ear.


        I mean yes, sometimes my mental illness affects my mood or causes me to react a certain way. But that is not every single time I feel an emotion. When someone has been a complete asshat to me and it hurts my feelings, I get pissed. I do not get pissed because I have OCD. I get pissed because someone has been a complete asshat to me and has hurt my feelings. I should not have to explain that. I should not have to validate that to someone else. I have a right to feel the way I feel about things.

 We are not emotional zombies. We are people.


       Asking me if I have taken my pills when I am upset makes me feel like I have to constantly validate my feelings when I feel them. It makes me start to feel as if I am not trustworthy of my own emotions. Like somehow, I am defunct and incapable. That my feelings are not important on the basis that I am mentally ill and because of that, those feelings have no merit.  Your feelings count and are treated as such. So should ours.  There shouldn't be this overwhelming need to explain why we aren't faking it or not overreacting. There should be no long drawn out explanation we have to give every time we are upset by something. Our feelings matter and they are very real to us. That should be more than good enough for everyone else.

         Somehow people with mental illness are always asked to defend how they feel about something and I hate that. I hate that I have to feel like my emotions are not my own and it is okay for them to be sterilized and whitewashed over simply because I have OCD.  My feelings are not a old barn door that needs to be reclaimed and painted over. They are not grimy bed linens that need to be washed clean with bleach. They are not distasteful and something to look down upon. They are simply feelings. Not something to be scrubbed away or sanitized.  Being told I need to water down my emotions when I am hurting is total bullshit and I vehemently resent it.

We are not exempt from feeling things. We are no different than anyone else.

            I am not asking you to understand every single thing we feel. We don't expect that from you. What I am asking is that you be compassionate. That you be kind. That you listen without ridicule or judgement. That you offer support just as we do you when you are upset or hurting. That is all I want. That is all any of us want. It really isn't that complicated. We just want to be heard. We just want to not have our feelings glossed over, ignored, omitted, or have them remain unvalidated. No one deserves to remain unvalidated.

You wouldn't like if we treated you like your views and emotions were pointless, so please don't do that to us either,

Neurotic Nelly

10 Ways You Can Help Your Child/Teenager/Loved one With OCD.........

I read an article today that really bothered me. The author wrote about the suicide of her teenage daughter due to OCD but it seemed to me to be very one sided. It read to be more about how much the treatment for her child's OCD cost the author, how long the drives for her child's treatment were, how her child's OCD destroyed her marriage, how it took and took and took from the author. I read this and as a sufferer from severe OCD for over 32 years, all I could think of was the teenager. What about all that she had gone through? What about all that she lost, because I can tell you from personal experience it was a hell of a lot more than the author did. After all, she lost her life to it.  It bothered me that it seemed to be more of an itemized list of things that affected the author and inconvenienced the author but without it really touching on the absolute agony OCD is. This article bothered me for many reasons, but the biggest reason for me was the inability to get on the same level as the sufferer. Don't get me wrong, I believe the author loved her child very much. Maybe she was just unable to understand the immense pain and guilt that OCD causes. Maybe she was pressured for time and just wrote how OCD affected her personally and not how it personally affected her child. I don't really know. What I do know is that the article made me angry and sad all at the same time and it just clarified for me how most people just really do not understand Obsessive Compulsive Disorder very well.

To rectify what I read and found to be almost offensive, I wrote down 10 things that helped me when I was younger and still continues to help me today. This is not advice as much as it is  MY OWN PERSONAL OPINION.

1. Don't say that your loved one's OCD tore your family apart and destroyed your life.
Not everything is about you so do not try and make this about you. A person's mental illness is just about them. You suffer because they suffer but make no mistake, your suffering is no where near the suffering we are going through. If you feel OCD is tearing your family apart, just imagine how much devastation it is causing us. Now imagine being told you are the one tearing apart the family on top of all of that devastation. You can't say something like that and not have the sufferer think it is their fault and that they are somehow responsible for having it. It only makes us feel like more of a burden to you. OCD is different from other mental illnesses, in that, we can tell that our disorder is negatively affecting our families and lives. We do not need you to point that out and make us feel less than because of it. Our OCD isn't something being done to you, it is something being done to us. We feel guilty that it affects you as well but it is not our fault we have OCD and saying something like only makes us unfairly blame ourselves just that much more.

2. OCD does not just pop up overnight.
 We may have less obvious symptoms. Mine started at the age of four. My parents saw it and knew something was off, they just didn't know what. No one wakes up one day and just randomly starts touching door knobs twenty five times. Their symptoms may be more obsessional and less compulsive. Less noteworthy than others. It is not like catching the flu. The signs are there, hidden as they may be.

3. Please DO NOT say that you just wish they would be normal again.
 That is a loaded statement. Once a person has OCD, normal is no longer a possibility. There is no cure. There is manageability. There is learning to live with it. There is having a good life and being OCD although, there will always be both good and bad days. The "normal" part of that person is a fun house mirror. A parlor trick. An illusion with smoke and mirrors. There is no normal, only normal for him/her. Drop the "just be normal" crap. It causes guilt we don't need and only further makes the sufferer feel bad about themselves. We aren't normal and we can learn to live with that fact. It is you that is holding on to an illusion when you say those things. It is your problem of accepting our mental illness, not ours.

4. Being a "tough love" parent is not always a good idea.
 OCD is an anxiety disorder. When we are suffering from anxiety, the very last thing we need is to have more anxiety thrust upon us because you are frustrated. We are frustrated too. Frustrated that we suffer. Frustrated at the pain and agony that accompanies our suffering. And frustrated that clearly you have a lack of understanding of what we are dealing with here. Listen to their doctors/therapist's advice on dealing with your loved one's anxiety disorder even if they point out that something you are doing is wrong. Even if it isn't what you want to hear. Again, this is not about you. Nothing says "I blame you" like yelling and pushing the OCD person to do something they feel they can't do with snide comments or condemnation in your tone. You push them gently, with many supportive discussions. You slowly egg them on with love and affection. They will have to do things they are very uncomfortable with and your job is to be there for them. Not lording over them with judgment on as to why they are failing at it and with contempt in your voice. You do not simply badger and belittle OCD away. It does not work that way and if anything it can make it worse.

5. Stand up for us.
Stigma is real and there be will people who do not believe we have what we have. They will say derogatory things to us or about us. They may try to trivialize or minimalize what we go through. They may make remarks about us being over dramatic, lazy, and or looking for attention. They may be friends, coworkers, or even family members. They do not understand but that does not give them the right to assume they know anything about our disorder or how it works. OCD is very complicated with, often times, several different symptoms. To support us, you need to stand up for us to these people. Educate them if you can. Tell them to fuck off if you can't. No one needs to be accused, discriminated, badgered, judged wrongly, or stigmatized further when they are already suffering from something that makes them feel bad about themselves. This kind of thing can make a bad situation even worse and make a toxic atmosphere for both the sufferer and the one's that love them.

6. Stop rationalizing.
OCD has no rational components. Someone who is afraid of germs may have issues with one place or object deemed dirty to them and not with another. Some one might fear being touched by a white cat and not an orange one. Someone may have to open and close the front door ten times but not the back door. We are aware it makes no sense. That does not make it any easier for us to deal with. Case in point, I am a germ-a-phobe and I hate grocery stores. I don't like to touch shelves there or sometimes even the products I want to buy. I, however, have no issue with the shopping cart even though, I know that the handle of the shopping cart has all kinds of germs on it. My OCD is not triggered by this one object but triggered by other things in the same store. There is no rhyme or reason for our fears. Don't rationalize as to why one thing bothers us and the other things don't. Just accept that the fears are what they are.

7. Educate yourself.
OCD is a mental illness and as such has many different symptoms. There are also varying degrees of severity. Some may be more text book i.e. excessive washing, fears of contamination or germs, touching, counting, checking. There are also less talked about symptoms i.e. fears of being homosexual (or if you are homosexual fears of being straight), harm fears, medical fears, reassurance. There are outward compulsions and inward mental compulsions and just when you think you have your symptoms figured out they can and do change around on you. Unwanted intrusive thoughts and images often plague the OCD sufferer. There is an over abundance of guilt and shame. There are phobias and triggers to panic attacks. Some people do outward repetitive actions to calm their anxiety and some do repetitive compulsions inwardly in their minds. No one is exactly the same and no one's fears are exactly the same. So, what freaks one OCD person out may or may not bother the next OCD sufferer. To help, you should be familiar with the behavioral therapies that tend to be helpful with OCD and also the medications prescribed for OCD. You can educate yourself easily with websites, books, blogs, and doctors. Basically, if someone you love has been diagnosed with OCD then you should be educating yourself to how OCD works. It is so easy to find out more about OCD in this day and age that there is absolutely no excuse for walking around being wholly ignorant about it.

8. Be Patient.
There is no one all to be all cure for OCD. It does not go away over night. It takes years of therapy and finding the right medications to help the sufferer cope....Not months, not weeks, not days but Years. Be patient as we figure out our triggers and work tirelessly to get over them. Be patient when we have set backs, because everyone does. Be patient while we learn how to stand on our own two legs to fight the monster of our nightmares (anxiety). Be patient when we look for reassurances, repeat ourselves or our actions, get upset with something because it doesn't feel right or takes too long. We know these things are frustrating, they are frustrating for us as well, be patient. Be patient with the drug side affects that can make us cranky, bloated, exhausted, or weak. Be patient when we have to do therapies that push the borders of our comfort zones and we freak out. Be patient as we repeat this cycle over and over and over and over and over again. We can't help it and we are working really hard to be more functional.

9. Silence is not golden, it is deadly.
OCD is often thought of something humorous or quirky. In reality, it is a devastating mental illness that brings with it self doubt, frustration, immense pain, shame, and guilt. It can lead to other mental illnesses or coincide with them. OCD needs to be treated, listened to, and talked about. It is just as deadly as depression or any other mental illness. The weird things we do may seem funny to others but they are agonizing to us. They are painful to us. We need to talk about them. The deadliest thing about OCD is silence because if we remain silent we do not get the help we need nor do we help erode the reality of the stigma and bias that surrounds it. Shame keeps us silent. Guilt keeps us silent. Fear keeps us silent and silence is a killer. Let us talk. Listen to what we say. Continue to discuss it with others. Continue to educate to the masses. Never, ever remain silent.

10. Remember we are people too.
Sometimes the anxiety seems so all consuming that people can forget that we are more than just our mental illness. We are people too. We like to do things. We like to be happy. We love, we laugh, we play. We are not just OCD, we are also human beings. We are still the person you love even though we struggle. That never changes.  Remember that although we have a mental illness, we are not just our diagnosis. We may need help but we are strong and resilient individuals. We are productive members of society. We are doctors, lawyers, moms, and dads. We are children and teachers and bus drivers. We are bloggers and authors and painters. We are factory workers, retirees, and mailmen. We are everywhere. We can be anyone. We are humans with dreams and desires and families. We are loved ones who have loved ones. Remember that we are not just OCD people. We are people who just happen to have OCD. And everything that applies to being human also applies to us as well because although we suffer, we are people too.



Neurotic Nelly

Blinded.....

My mom always says,"There are none so blind as those who will not see." And I sometimes think that is where we are. This divisional line in the sand crudely drawn with broken bits of lumber and long crooked pieces of driftwood. I sometimes feel like I can explain it until I am blue in the face and yet there are not enough words to fully paint such a horrific picture. I could go on and on and on and yet you would not get it. Not totally. And sometimes I wonder if that is because you are unable to understand because you do not suffer from it, or if it is simply because you can not see it. Or maybe it isn't that you can not see it but rather that you will not see it. Because seeing it means having to acknowledge the depth of agony, fear, and frustration that rules my life. And honestly, who wants to see that in the one they love?

I sit there in a quiet room and I hear you not meaning to trivialize, but doing it all the same and I want to scream....I want to yell......that yes, OCD can cause all of this pain. Yes, OCD can screw everything up and no, it doesn't necessarily matter what else is going on at the time. It is not that the triggers cause the anxiety as much as the OCD causes the triggers to be there in the first place. Without the mental illness there would be no triggers, just everyday things in life that no one notices except people like me.   So, it is in fact, just the OCD being the culprit and to pretend it is not such a big deal or that somehow I am blowing this all out of proportion is frustrating...not to mention, dangerous. Because OCD is a killer just as much as any other mental illness is and people need to remember that.

And I want you to understand my mental illness because if you did then you could understand me better. Because it is what makes me act the way I do, and it is what shapes my decisions right or wrong as they may be, and it is part of who I am. And since my youngest also has it, it would help you to understand him. It would help you to know what he will go through like I know what he will go through, because I have been in that hell for so long, I chose the wallpaper.

I really wish you could see. I wish I could explain it in a manner that didn't frighten you and that made more sense. I wish that you could see it as it is. It just is and like everything else, it is just something you have to learn to live with. I wish that it came with diagrams and maps and charts and picture books. I wish that it came with movies that depicted all of like it actually is and not the silly parts of it. I wish it came with warning labels and soft fuzzy blankets and posters to hang on the wall....I wish it came on coffee cups and in shadow boxes so that everyone could be familiar with it and understand it. So that everyone would know that it is a struggle and that struggle is real. That it is not an excuse for not doing something. It is not a fad or passing phase.  It can get better but it never goes away completely. It is manageable but it is not "curable". And he and I will be just fine although we will have bad days. We will also have good days. And there is always hope that things will get and remain better. Nothing in this world is hopeless as long as you make sure to always keep a positive attitude.

I don't know how else to put it. Maybe I fail at describing it in a way that makes it understandable. Maybe I fail at showing you how it works but then again I can not always understand the things you have gone through. Even though, I try really hard to. So there is that. Maybe I too sometimes can not see the struggles you go through for the very same reasons you can not see mine. Maybe that is what life is.....trying to see others and their lives with complete honesty and compassion and having love for them just the same....

Neurotic Nelly

Just Stop It Already....RANT......RANT......

Thanksgiving was interesting. My Grandma was sick and had to go to the hospital the day before Thanksgiving. She was in the hospital up until today. She is now going to a rehabilitation to help her regain her strength.  God only knows how long it will be until she gets to go home. I am worried about her which triggers my OCD medical fears about myself. We spent three days at my mom's and I helped clean my grandma's apartment after which I took a shower and then spent twenty minutes trying to remove a comb I was attempting to brush my unruly mane with, from said unruly mane. It was firmly implanted in my hair like I was born with it there. (This is why I carry my own hair comb but I forgot it this time.) Then after we returned home I started to decorate out new Christmas tree we picked up Saturday, only to somehow manage to get the string of Christmas lights entangled in my hair as well. I guess I am just having a bad hair week. Or maybe my hair has Pica or was super hungry...who knows.

The tree is decorated "Old World" style. I used to read Christmas books as a child and I always loved the illustrations with the Christmas trees that had garland and red and gold ornaments. My tree looks good but I need to get those little white candles to put on the tree. Fakes ones of course, because real ones are a fire hazard and I am extremely clumsy. I mean, I got the lights tangled in my hair, just imagine what I would be like around lit candles..

Am I happy with the tree? No because it is never perfect enough. And that is how OCD works my friends. It has to be perfect but it never quiet reaches the mark. It is something all OCD sufferers learn to live with.

Then I got on the internet to search OCD news and I ended up reading this article with the title "Khloe: I'm an OCD Freak."

It's about Klohe Kardashian ( I have no idea why I bothered to read such drivel) and her Thanksgiving table and plans. There were these pictures of a grand and intricately decorated table and here is what she says.


“A sneak peak of my craziness today. I know you see my OCD in high gear when you look at my cookie jars,”

“I have a problem... I know... but I like everything neat and in its place. This kind of stuff makes me SO happy!! #HappyThanksgiving”


Yea, because nothing says happiness like OCD. Hell, I know that my life with OCD is all shits and giggles. I couldn't be happier that I spent six hours today trying not to obsess over whether or not I have thyroid cancer because I am being triggered by holiday stress. I am so glad that Khloe Kardashian knows my pain..... I now feel complete.....*snicker*

I am so sick of hearing how liking things orderly is OCD. Sick to death of it, seriously. Stop it already! You don't have OCD because you like to line up your cookie jars a certain way. What you might have is a plethora of self importance, narcissism, delusions of grandeur, and possibly some serious self esteem issues but the one thing you do not have is OCD. You do not say that OCD makes you so happy, if you actually have it. Because if you actually had it you would understand what a fucking horrible burden having OCD is. Here's a tip, there are actual words used to describe OCD. I won't burden you with the long list of what they are but I will tell you what they aren't. They aren't words like happy, or cool, or fashionable, or fun. It's mental illness and it blows. Okay? Is that so hard for people to understand?

And further more, I really don't want my mental illness to be sullied or trivialized by some small minded idiot who only got famous because her sister is famous for a sex tape and or possibly being peed on. I am so tired of seeing everything these ridiculous self absorbed people say plastered all over the news as if they have a fucking clue what they are talking about. They don't. So please for the love of all things holy, stop it already.

I think what bothers me the most is that this year has been the hardest for me OCD wise. I have been battling OCD for as almost as long as I can remember and I have been unmedicated for over three years now, but there have been a ton of stressers this year. Deaths in my family, diagnoses of medical issues, relearning how to function on somewhat of a schedule which truth be told, has never been my strong suit. And to have to read something so asinine as my mental illness/mental hell being reduced to something as paltry as lined up cookie jars just really pisses me off. As if it would make sense out of all of this pain and frustration if I would only be famous, ridiculously rich and stupid, and just line my crockery in eye pleasing patterns. Then and only then I could be "so happy". So no, I am not really happy right now. Especially, after reading an article that calls OCD sufferers "freaks"....(Gee thanks. That really bolsters my self esteem.) Or having to read ridiculous claims made by morally inept morons as to why their Thanksgiving preparations in any way compare to the absolute hell I have been living with the last thirty one years.

I mean, I think we as sufferers of all mental illnesses deserve more respect than that. We deserve to be treated like what we have is an actual illness and isn't something to be used as a general term for something odd or quirky. Just because you are having a bad day doesn't make you " Bipolar". Feeling paranoid does not make you "Schizo". And lining your cookie jars up in a row clearly does not make you "OCD". So stop it. Just stop.

And just so you know, poorly written news article author: We are magnificent, brave, courageous, intelligent, and strong individuals. We are many things to the many people in our lives. We are important and we matter. We are not "freaks". We are human beings. So, educate yourself because smearing us with words like "freak" shows your ignorance and bias. And I don't think anyone who suffers form mental illness finds your title amusing or cute.


Neurotic Nelly

It's Not So Bad.....

I am a positive person. I am a positive thinker. I am one of those annoying "the glass is half full" kind of people. I strive to see the silver lining even in the midst of a hurricane as it tears away the walls of my home and pokes holes in my ceiling. I believe that having a positive attitude is necessary for me to keep going when things get complicated and tough because things for me are always complicated and tough. I even have taught my children that anything worth having is hard because life is never easy and if something is easy it usually isn't worth having.

I am a positive individual that tries to see good in every situation. What I am not, is stupid, naive, nor am I an idiot. I am not ignorant or obtuse. I am well read, I spell impeccably but type like I have ham hocks for fingers, I have a high I.Q. although I suck at math. I curse too much. I hate couscous and have an aversion to sushi. I scream obscenities at the football game on my television even though I don't really care who wins. I watch hockey not because I know the teams or care about the scoreboard, I just like to watch people get checked into the walls. I am not perfect. I am not a saint and I certainly have things to atone for in my life. I am sensitive and kind and I am a people pleaser.

My point is, I have lived my whole life trying to please everybody. Trying to fit in. Trying to not be a burden on anyone. I have spent 31 years pretending to be okay. We all do it. We all pretend that OCD is not how it actually is. Sometimes we say it has good qualities to it. Sometimes we claim it is a gift. Sometimes we act as if it is funny or something that doesn't really affect our lives. I have seen people say that they have OCD but only enough to make them "cute" about it. We have even gone so far as to compare our symptoms to each others so we can pretend that it isn't as horrible as it is. Then we chide ourselves for complaining that it has caused us issues or that we get upset by it because other people may have it more severely than we do. Like we have no right to be irritated or upset. Like we have something to apologize for because it still bothers us.

An analogy of this would be if you woke up this morning and your hand just fell of your wrist and landed on the floor.  You would be concerned. You would be upset. Would you be less upset if you found out later that some guy two states over woke up with his whole arm gone? Would that make your pain any less real or your frustrations any less valid? No. You would have compassion for him and feel bad for his loss too but you would still have to live your life without your hand and you would have every right to feel however you felt about losing said hand and everything that has to change because you now only have one hand to work with.

 OCD is the same way. It doesn't matter who has it and to what degree, if you have OCD and it bothers you then you have a right to be mad, upset, frustrated, depressed, irritated, or disturbed by it. You have a right to your feelings about how OCD bothers you. You are not being whiny or over dramatic because Bob in sales has to wash his hands forty two times and all you do is use hand sanitizer twenty six times a day. Your pain is your pain and it is okay to say that. It is okay to not be okay. You shouldn't have to pretend that your OCD doesn't affect you if it does.

We have convinced ourselves that OCD is just not that bad and in doing so, have convinced everyone else that too. We have made it seem  like  OCD isn't as bad as other illnesses. It isn't as hard on your mental stability. It isn't as painful. It isn't as note worthy. We are constantly making excuses for it or covering it up. We tell little bitty white lies about it that fester and grow until those little white lies have all been painted together and are now the whitewash we paint ourselves with.

We don't go up to people and say, "Hi my name is Nelly. I have OCD and my life is a fucking disaster because of it." No we say paltry things like ,"Yea, I have OCD and I wash my hands sixty times a day but hey...I like clean hands. I mean, it's not that bad." or "Oh, you know, I can't drive anymore because I keep thinking I have ran over people even though I know I haven't so I have to get out of my car six times to make sure. But I always wanted to learn the bus route anyway."  We may tell people we have it but then we move on because it is easier to let others think that we just like to clean or are just quirky. We are so used to acting like it is no big deal that we start to believe it ourselves.....

We excel at pretending that what we go through isn't really because of the soul sucking succubus that lives in our minds. We don't want others to think poorly of us so we don't announce the pain we are in or the struggles we go through daily. We don't want to be a burden or make other people uncomfortable. Never mind, that we are always uncomfortable. As long as no one else is, it is okay. It's not so bad.

I am a positive person but let me be a realist for a second. OCD is not some wondrous gift bestowed upon the lucky few that have been graced with it. It's Hell. Pure mental disfigurement, terror inducing, emotional torture. It's fear and dread and a constant overwhelming plague of guilt. It is a full course meal of pain and frustration. It is a daily struggle just to keep your head above water to breathe. It is a drowning of realty. It is pulling your hair out until you have bald patches, and picking your skin until it scars. It is believing that something is wrong with your body even though no one else sees it but you. It is washing your hands until they bleed, or avoiding places, people, things because you are terrified of your own mind and what it shows you. It is touching, counting, checking things for hours and hours and hours only to have to stand there and do it again. It is living in a constant state of doubting yourself, your mind, the whole world around you. It is being unable to control racing thoughts of violence or sex or blasphemy and then hating yourself and blaming yourself for not being able to control the unwanted thoughts in the first place. It is being afraid of anything or everything and sometimes both at the same time. It is feeling alone and scared and completely fucked up because unlike other mental illnesses you are perfectly aware that it is fucked up in the first place. It is crying yourself to sleep at night, or worrying yourself sick , or having the same thought loop through your mind over and over and over and over an over and over and over again until you want to fucking stick your fingers down your throat in hopes that you can finally purge this evil thing, this mental demon that refuses to let you be. This isn't a pleasure cruise or a college road trip. This isn't about being neat or tidy. This has nothing to do with organization or being punctual. This is Hell. No, this is worse than Hell ever thought about being. This is OCD. This is Hell on steroids mixed with caffeine and a cigarette addiction. This is Hell in technicolor with surround sound. This is Hell imprinted on a broken record trapped under the bent needle of a child's 1950's plastic red Fisher-Price record player.

If it were like we try and brush it off to be, if it were not so bad as we play act it out, than instead of it plaguing it's sufferer it would wear a pink polka dot apron, have a bake sale, and hand out free cupcakes. It would get you promotions instead of making it impossible to function at work or in some cases, like mine, unable to work at all. If it were truly no big deal then people wouldn't commit suicide because of it or become depressed because they have it.

I am not saying that having it makes you doomed or that you can't live with it. I am not saying you can't fight it or manage it. I am not saying that we should all become morose or macabre about it. I am just saying we have to stop minimizing it's affects on our lives to other people. We have to stop comparing our symptoms and severity with others. You have it and it hurts and that is all that needs to be understood.  We have to stop people pleasing and worrying about how uncomfortable talking about how it really is to others will make them feel. We have to be real about it because if we act like it is not so bad, how are other people going to understand what we go through? How do we expect them to change their views on it if we keep brushing it off and making it sound like it is no big deal? How can we heal if we keep acting like it isn't the huge ugly vomit colored elephant in the room that it clearly is? I mean, I think if we want people to take what we go through seriously than we have to let them know what we actually go through and just how serious it can be.

OCD is not so bad, it's horrible. It is painful. It is life altering. It is just as serious as every other mental illness. It is a killer, a wounder of souls, a damager to people's lives. It is not a gift, it is a mental illness. It is not cute or fashionable no more than diabetes is cute or fashionable. It is an illness and it causes suffering and I think people should stop treating like it is not so bad, when clearly that is not the truth.



Neurotic Nelly

Happy Halloween, Ghouls and Gals....

Tomorrow is Halloween. I love this holiday. It is the one day a year you can be anyone you want to be and not worry about being thought of as kooky or odd. I don't dress up anymore but my kids do. I am allergic to Halloween makeup. It chemically burns my face and both my kids were born with my extra sensitive skin (I am sure they are thrilled about that) leaving us to be more creative when creating costumes.

I may be scared of almost everything but the one thing that does not scare me is haunts. People dressed up in creepy costumes walking around, jumping out at you with props, bad lighting, fog machines and eerie sound effects don't bother me in the least. Give me someone coughing in my direction and I am totally freaked out. Give me some asshat in a clown costume with a chainsaw without the blade making moaning noises at me and I laugh. It seems ridiculous to me. They can't hurt you, the common cold can....

A few years ago my oldest and I were trick or treating when we had to walk up on this guy's porch. It was dark and he had so many decorations in the yard that you had to walk all the way around just to go up the steps. He was sitting in the corner decked out in some monstrous skeletal costume. My oldest was completely freaked out. I elbowed him gently with a fake smile plastered on my face and whispered through my teeth,"just take the candy and let's go". I wasn't scared but the weird slow movements the guy was making as he was going to give my kid the candy made me a tad bit uncomfortable. It was almost as if he was  robotic in movement and he was completely silent. He got his hand about three inches from my kid and my kid bolted. I have never seen him move so fast in his entire life. He jumped off of the porch with so much speed and force he took out half of the creepy guy's yard decorations and almost knocked over some big dude standing there chatting with other trick or treater's parents. I was left there with creepy guy unsure of what to do, so I held out my hand for the candy he still had in his hand and kept the fake smile plastered on my face and mouthed sorry at him. I mean, I am not sure what protocol you are supposed to go through when someone scares your kid so badly they actually end up destroying half of their Halloween display.

Anyway we currently avoid that house, partly out of embarrassment and partly because I prefer my children to not have nightmares every night for the next six years of their lives. When my kids stop trick or treating and they want to stay home to pass out candy to the other kids, maybe I will dress up and we will decorate the yard. I will just make sure not to be too scary for the kids or make odd robotic movements because that shit is super creepy, even to people like me that find all of this "scary" stuff ridiculous.

Hope you all have a safe and happy Halloween! Happy Halloween Ghouls and Gals!

Neurotic Nelly

My First Test.....

People with OCD are fantastic actors. We look normal. We blend into most any situation. We hide our symptoms as often as we can the best that we can and most of the time no one has any idea there is something broken in our minds.

For instance, I may be in an elevator with a group of people. There may seem to be too many people on the elevator but I have to be on it too. I don't outwardly freak out but inside my OCD is freaking out," What if we are exceeding the weight limit? What if this whole things comes tumbling down?" and God forbid, someone sneeze or cough in the elevator with me in it. However, all you see in this situation is me with a fake smile plastered all over my face. You see a polite, normal person. You see a woman, a mother, an individual. What you don't see is that this woman, mother, and individual is screaming inside of her mind.

I have been out of hand sanitizer for two weeks now. I have been out of the house three times. It has been unbelievably hard. My first test was going to the doctors office. I had to sign in with some mechanical machine with a stylus, I damn well know everyone and their dog's have touched. I had to touch door knobs and chairs and elevator buttons (things I usually avoid by using my sleeve instead of my fingers). I searched for any hand sanitzer in the office with desperation and found nothing. Sure, I looked calm on the outside but on the inside I was screaming. I was totally freaked out. The Price is Right was on the office television. The beeps of the wheel turned into a long annoying sound of dings and pings. The audience clapping became a loud obnoxious murmur. The sounds of the people in the doctors office became a background noise. A cough, a sneeze, some woman in tight pants and an animal print shirt continued to clear her throat and make annoying sniffing sounds while she read something on her cell phone....and then my brain took over. Everything faded away and the silence came. I no longer heard or tasted or smelled. The only sense left in my body was feeling the germs. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw my saving grace, a wall with a hand sanitizer pump on it. Hallelujah! I walked quickly over to it and pumped the glorious germ killing miracle gel all over my hands. Relief!

Then a few days later I went to the grocery store. Again this is where I would have used my hand sanitizer at anytime I would feel the start of the OCD contamination and germ fears but I did not have my fall back hand sanitizer. I seemed happy on the outside but on the inside my mind was reeling." Don't touch the cart, don't touch the counter, Leave the package of raw meat alone, germs, germs, germs, germs...tainted, tainted, tainted...dirty, dirty, dirty...."
I was so worried and anxious through the whole experience that I totally forgot to buy hand santizer for myself. I made it through and made it home without touching my face with my tainted hands, and then promptly washed my hands as soon as I walked through the door....Relief!

I need to get more sanitizer but I am kinda stoked I was able to get through both of my major triggers without my trusty hand sanitizer and still made it through with out an outward, ugly,extreme breakdown in public. Which is exciting because a few years ago I am not sure that would have been possible.

Neurotic Nelly

OCD Awareness Week, Rock It Like It Is 2014!

Yay, the new sign for OCD awareness week is out! And I went to print it and guess what? I am out of ink in my printer....ugh! I am going to put the actual online printout super imposed onto my picture instead. (A huge thank you to my extremely tech savvy best friend!) Since I said I would use the UK sign, I will do both and since there is no "I am a PureO" sign, I decided to make one myself, with paper and pen because I am cheap and I suck at Paint Shop Pro and apparently, I suck at looking to see when I need to refill my ink cartridges as well.

OCD awareness week means so much to me. After having this illness for over 31 years, I can not explain how wonderful it is for it to be recognized and talked about. Growing up, I thought I was crazy. Now, I know I am crazy but I also know that I am not alone. There are thousands of us. Thousands of crazy, beautiful, magnificent, wonderful people just like me and I am not sure that there is anything more powerful than learning you are not alone. You do not suffer alone. You do not worry alone. That there are people who may not have the exact same rituals, compulsions, or obsessions that you do but yet they still know exactly how you feel. It is amazing and comforting and even, dare I say calming? It helps to know that I am a part of such a terrific group of individuals.

Thirty years ago, twenty years ago, hell even ten years ago, OCD was a nameless mental illness only known to those of us that had been diagnosed with it. There was no fanfare or special weeks set out for it. No t-shirts or banners to hang. It wasn't uncommon to have explain your diagnoses over and over again to the same person until they understood that yes, it was a real thing and that yes, you, in fact, suffered from it. Now days, people use the term OCD like it is the most fashionable thing in the world. They use it to describe everything from being neat and tidy to quirky and organized. This is probably the most insulting and irritating thing an actual OCD sufferer can hear but at the same time if people are willing to incorrectly label themselves as OCD than I am going to take their faux pas and turn it into a discussion with them of just why they are not sooo OCD and I am....I believe everything can be used as a teaching tool and we now have the voice to speak, teach, and educate just what OCD is about and how it affects us and the ones that we love.

Anyway, Happy OCD Awareness week my wonderful peeps! Hold your head high and be proud of not just what we have accomplished but who we are as people. Because honestly, we might be a bit different than the rest of the world but we are makes this world diverse and unique and beautiful. We rock, so let's rock it  like it is 2014! Yeah!

Neurotic Nelly

OCD Saved My Life...

As annoying, frustrating, and agonizing OCD can be, it literally may have saved my life last night. I won't venture far enough to say OCD is my hero but this is one time I am thankful I just can't stop obsessing about stuff.

Earlier this year we had a total of four gas leaks.....yes I said four. The first two were from my faulty and old water heater which we had replaced. Let me just say, that I have one of those incredibly sensitive noses. It has been a bain of my existence that some small smells literally drive me insane but one of the things my senses pick up on is natural gas. I am not sure if my sense of smell is so uncanny because of my OCD or because of my bad eyesight, but I can smell a gas leak, even the tiniest of gas leaks from far away.

The furnace went out right after winter this year. I smelled gas outside and called the energy company. My husband at this point was sure I was crazy as he didn't smell it. He thought I was imagining things, even though I was right the two times before with the water heater. The energy guy told me someone's furnace was about to go out.......sadly, I found out three days later it was mine. Yay me (sarcasm). My furnace was over thirty eight years old, so it wasn't a huge surprise. I went down to the basement and and sure enough, I smelled gas and it was bad. The energy company had to get come out and turn off the gas running to my then defunct furnace. It was scary and I decided that this was just not safe. We had to get a new furnace before this winter. Especially, since last year we had temps of -20 degrees Fahrenheit. This year is predicted to be worse. Most of it was arctic blasts from Canada......thanks Canada......I love Canada but it was sharing a little too much last winter, if you ask me. It's beautiful there and the people are wonderful but in the winter it can be frigid. Please for the love of God, keep your arctic blasts up there where they belong...brrrr.

So, a new furnace was put in two weeks ago and for the first time all year, I finally felt like the leaking gas debacle would be over. My family would be safe. My house would be free and clear of noxious and poisonous air......I was finally able to rest peacefully that we would be safe sleeping in a house that wasn't a virtual death trap. In fact, the furnace installer had told us had we continued to use the old one, we would have gone to sleep one night and never have woken up.

As for the two carbon monoxide detectors we have, never once has either one of them gone off. Sure the hybrid one will scream at you if you try and cook a hamburger patty on a skillet and declare that your house is burning down around you but have four gas leaks in a six month period and it is bupkis. I am not saying they don't work...I am just saying I don't fully trust them. I mean, if my nose smells gas shouldn't the detectors?

Which leads me to how OCD saved my life and my family's lives. Last night...err early morning, about 2 a.m. I remembered that I had forgot to switch over the laundry so my youngest would have pants to wear to school today. As we all know, pants are kind of important for leaving the house. I went down to the black hole (the basement) an started to switch out the clothes and BAM....gas. It was more of a strong grease odor at first, with a tiny sliver of gas smell underneath. I thought I was going insane. I mean, it is a two week old freaking furnace for God's sake! How in the hell could we have yet another gas leak???!!!

I decided, as I sniffed around like a bomb sniffing dog, that maybe just maybe it was all in my head. The smell had ceased so I went back upstairs. Where I sat and obsessed. And worried. And freaked myself out only to decide to go and sniff again to make sure....Something I don't normally do. I usually refuse to give into my OCD reassurances. But in this case I decided that I would not be able to sleep if I was laying there pondering whether or not gas was filling up in my basement making my house into a poison fueled, ticking time bomb.

As soon as I opened the door and went down three steps I smelled it again. It was faint but obviously there. I went to the new furnace and bent over and sniffed. The smell of natural gas was so strong that it made me light headed for a nano second. Thankfully, the new furnace people had made shut off levers on my gas lines when they installed the new furnace for me, so I went up stairs, woke the hubby and we turned off the gas...again. Ugh...did I mention how much I fucking hate having natural gas as a fuel source to heat my home? Well, I do, I hate it passionately.

The furnace people will be here soon to see why I have a leak and maybe just maybe I will finally be able to get some sleep because I haven't slept since last night. Even with the gas turned off I am paranoid about it.

And although, I hate having OCD, I am so thankful that it made me go back into that basement last night. Otherwise, I have a strong suspicion that we would have had a much bigger problem than a restless nights sleep.

So OCD, I sometimes hate your obsessing, compulsing, anxiety ridden guts....but sometimes, like last night, I am thankful that you are an actual thing and not just something I made up in my head. Thanks for bugging me relentlessly and making me go back into the basement to check for the second time.  Thanks for saving me and my family from carbon monoxide poisoning or from being blown to smithereens. Thanks OCD, thanks. My family and I appreciate it.


OCD saved my life, so today I am a little more thankful for it and just maybe, I hate it just a little bit less.

Neurotic Nelly