Day 8 and a wrap up of Day 7

So since arriving to the OCDI i have learned a number of things that i didn't know that i had in terms of my OCD, and because i am treated this blog as an open account of living with OCD and now living with OCD in an intensive treatment environment i feel that i should be as honest as i can.  I have discovered since arriving here that i do in fact have intrusive thoughts which is something that i had always said "well at least thank god i don't have those" well I do.  And they have been a goddamn fucking nightmare this past week which has been one of the reasons why i haven't been blogging because i have been so triggered* through the first week and over the weekend that i have really just been keeping my head above the water.

i have violent intrusive thoughts about children falling over the top glass ledges on the second floor or higher levels of a mall.  we had a LSO (leisure skills outing**) to a large mall and many of the children were running around without supervision from their parents and I was crying the entire time.  I am learning that thought suppression for intrusive thoughts is not the way to get rid of them it only makes them more powerful.   so this was the first time in my life that i didn't suppress them and that i let them flood me and i tried to run away from the mall.  i went out side to try to get to my car but then i realized that i didn't have a car at the mall because the hospital provided the transportation.  part of me really wanted to call a girlfriend in the area to be like please take me back to the hospital please take me back.  instead i was able to use a technique that i have learned in a group called mindfulness that is called 5 senses.  I sat down on a large stone planter and felt the cold of the planter, the sound of people talking around me, the smell of the CPK cooking right in front of me, the dryness of my mouth from being panicked and through my tears the bright lights of the Crate and Barrel.  It was very grounding and eventually it snapped me out of it because i jumped up after a while and was like my butt is FREEZING from sitting on this stone.

the other thing that has been triggering the intrusive thoughts is another patient here that by "profession" is a trapper and has been talking about how they have are missing trapping season and different dispatch methods and other horrifyingly inappropriate topics.  this person has been told not to talk about this topic because it is very triggering to other people in the unit and still talks about it and has been triggering me with violent images about my own beloved pets.

all this time i keep trying to say the serenity prayer and try not to leap across the table after this person and put them out of commission.

I will check in more later about the good theraputic work that they are doing here but i thought that i would check in because it has been a couple of days and i know that there are some people that are curious as to what is going on.

*triggered- an environment, person, phrase, situation that spikes your SUDS and triggers you to want to ritualize to neutralize an obsession or compulsion

** LSO- an outing in treatment in which you get off the unit but are also confronted with situations in which you may become triggered and then using the skills you have acquired at the institute try to get through the trigger with out ritualizing and start to habituate

Inpatient Day 3: Holy Cow! WHAT A TREATMENT TEAM

So today is Day Three,

And Today was DAY 1 or Ground Zero if you will of my guided ERP's and my self directed ERP sessions.  Today my behavioral therapist had me flicking on and off the light switches all around the unit and on the third floor of the unit.  regardless of the person/people that are in the room.  AND i was not allowed to apologize at all!!! I even told one of the people as i did it " I am NOT sorry".  the second self guided exposure that i was working on was letting the doors close behind me and not check that they were actually closed.  this is something that caused me alot of stress.  I don't like to not look to check things that are behind me to make sure that they are perfectly closed.  the third item that i was working on and honestly i wasn't sure that i had a problem with it until she triggered me was that apparently i can get set off by a freezer and refridgerator being opened and closed and not knowing if they are closed or not.  and with the exposure i knew that the freezer door was open.  And that was an uncertainty that she had me walk away.  and i am proud of myself that i didn't go back and check to make sure that the door was close or try to correct the exposure.  they call it triggering and they want to you remain triggered.  so at the end of the session this morning that lasted two hours.  i was 100% triggered and just when i was starting to habitutate the guy in charge triggered me over the insurance sitautions and up and said that he was in constant contact with my insurance company to fight to get a couple of days at a time.  what a freaking nightmare. 

oh i meant to say earlier after blogging last night i found one of the counsellors on the floor last night and was able to rat myself out about the symmetry in my room and he helped me to break the symmetry and so far i have not gone to correct it.  this seemingly small step is a huge step for me becuase i have never been able to deal with someone breaking my symmetry without freaking out.  i am just so ready to have my life back, I WANT MY LIFE BACK.  I am not willing to let my OCD be in charge of my life any more. 

Especially not my horrible symmetry monster.


IN other news!!!

My psychiatrist here is incredibly familiar with the psychogenic nonepileptic seizures.  i was so thankful that i burst into tears in her office.  i have been waiting so long and trying to hard to find someone who even knows what the words mean and she was 100% familiar with the condition.  apparently they are brought on by a traumatic event, and actually alot of people in Europe are aware of them and are in treatment for them.


I am so grateful for being here in treatment.  I am worth it.  I am worth it.  It has taken too long for me to have that self realization. 

don't pity me, i don't want.

Inpatient Day 2

So i have finally worked up enough courage to use the computers in the common room in the inpatient portion of the OCDI.  So far i would say that alot of things are going fairly well.  I am not going to lie this is a very stressful environment.  I am having a hard time getting used to being around so many people.  I am in a single room which is good and bad.  Right now there are a lot of people behind me that are making me incredibly nervous but this is something that i am trying to habituate and not turn around and check what is going on behind me. 

i had a good meeting with my behavioral therapist this morning, so far i have been fortunate or maybe iti s a function of the fact that this a world renowned program, either way i am working really well with the social worker that i  have and i connected really well with the behavioral therapist that i have been assigned.  it was funny she was asking about the therapist that i was seeing back in my home town and when i told her the name of the guy that i am working with she was impressed and happy.  she also was really happy with the progress that i have been making with my therapist back home.  I am not going to lie have come a long way from where i was a couple of years ago but i have a long way to go still.  I am feeling confident though in the short time that i have been here that this program is really going to work for me. 

I am really going to try to break the symmetry that i have tried to create in my room tonight and through myself off but i am not sure if i should try to save this for the ERP work that i am going to be doing tomorrow.  I am clinging to the symmtrey right now and part of me wants to rat myself out so that me and my treatment team can start to tackle this beast ASAP because it really is quite the bear of a ritual, and then there is part of me that wants to try to squirrel it away and keep it hidden for as long as possible but i know that i am only going to be cheating myself out of the work that i want to be doing in this program and ultimately it is a self destructive behavior.  Now that i have actually written this out i think that i am going to go and find my counselor for the even and rat myself out.  and then try to break the symmtery and deal with it.  It is so hard becuase right now i am the only person in the ward that has symmtry and perfectionism.  I am not sure how they are going to have me work on this but i am sure that they are going to help me grab the bull by the horns.

One thing that was really positive that I accomplished today, was that on my own motivation I got up and got a shower, cursing (not to loudly) and all through the whole thing and enduring a 9.5/10 on my SUDS, but i got through it and i didn't bail and i didn't rewash, which is a REALLY big thing for me. 


I have to confess there is a guy in the unit that is working one of my last nerves right now, i don't know that hei s going to last very long in the program, he seems more preoccupied to talk about gutting and pelting animals than acutally working on his rituals.  He is so disruptive in the group sessions, and of course i am in the same sessions that he is in.  I find myself reciting the serenity prayer over and over again in order to get through some of the times that i am forced to spend around him.  Unfortunately it seems when i am trying to socialize he is also out of his room and honestly i am very nervous around him.  But enough about that

This is just the whole process of just habituating a new environment and getting used to the fact that you have to deal with living with uncertaninty and that is something i am learning very quickly.


I want my life back.  And i am going to do what ever it takes to get it back. end of story.

Checked in day one- the starts of it at least

So I am already checked into the OCDI and considering the train wreck that I was last night I would say that the mOrning is going well. We were up at 500 even though I have been up on and off since two this morning.

So I just did my first Erp with the nurse here with my first medication pour. So far everyone is really nice but there are alot of people moVing around and that has got me spooked

checking into treatment tomorrow

so tomorrow is the big day so to speak.  part of me is freaking out about packing and part of me is just so exhausted from riding this emotional rollercoaster i kinda don't care about packing.  I have been wanting to pack for a long time and that is one of the rituals that i have been struggling with for years and this time i held out until the night before and it has been a struggle.  so i thought that i would take a break from packing and blogg about how i have been feeling about the whole process of going away and the thoughts about getting help and what that is going to potentially mean for me in the near future. 



so as it stands right now we are going to be getting up to morrow morning at some ungodly hour along the lines of 5:00 because we are going to be heading into boston.  we are going to be leaving the house around 6, and then it is around an hour or so drive.  i am sure that i am going to be crying the entire drive down to the institute.  Incidently i am going to be going into McLeans OCDI.  I am actually going to try to blog while i am there so there might be a flurry of activity from inside there from me but it all depends on how i am feeling but honestly i think that i have to be feeling alot better than i have been feeling for months now.

I am kind happy that i am going to be taken off of my husbands hands for a while at least because it will give him an emotional break from me which is something that i think that we both need.  i think that he has been itching to clean up the apartment and i am currently in a place right now that i am freaking out if a kleenex gets thrown out.  even now he is cleaning up in the kitchen, kind of jumping the gun if you were to ask my opinion.  i am not even out of the house and he is spiking my anxiety. 

I am dealing with the anticipation of separation from my husband...my safe person....the one who protects me from my ghosts.*

I will share a little more of myself than i have in the past.  I grew up in an emotional and psychologically manipulatively (i would say abusive) home where my father ruled supreme, with the passing of my mother, who was my protector things only got worse and as my OCD got worse the meaner he got.  In college I got into a relationship with a guy that tried and almost successfully beat me on a number of occasions and in a failed attempt to limit the people that I saw held me against my will in his home for a number of hours through intimidation and violence.  I got away, and didn't look back.  This was my freshman and sophmore year then flash to my junior year, during fall finals, a drunk football fratbrother tried to force his way into my apartment on campus and i am forced to handle the situation, the long and short of it was it was very violent, but he didn't get a hold of me.  While i bare no physical scars from any of these encounters the emotional damage has been done and these are wounds that have not even healed, they aren't even scars yet.  my doctors have told me this is called PTSD.I am not afraid of the treatment that i am going to receive, I am very concerned about how i am going to be able to sleep in a place with a bunch of people i don't know, in a facility that i don't know, that i am not sure is "safe". 

Anyway back to packing.  I am sure that tomorrow is going to be an adventure, one of my friends from my support group said try to enjoy the ride, and i am honestly going to try to.



*ghosts- ghosts is the term that i use for something that haunts you from your past, for me it is something that keeps me up at night, makes me shake in fear, want to hide in the back of my closet and disappear from the world

Going into inpatient treatment

"The time has come the walrus said to think of many things...."

So the time has come for me to check into my inpatient treatment center.  I go in monday morning November 21 at 9:00 am.  it has been an excruciating wait, full of a lot of pain, rituals and tears.  Now i feel myself full of aprehension, tension, anticipation, some relief and the intense urges to ritualize like i have done in the past.

I will write more about this later, i wanted to let people know that help is on the horizon and i am very close to it. 

one last thing to think on, and i was listening to my favorite artist Beyonce and her singing Scared of Lonely and it sums up alot of my none OCD fears...

if you haven't listened to it you should listen to it once because i hear alot of emotion in it an it speaks to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SzGKnRg4fs

Scared Of Lonely lyricsSongwriters: Butler, Richard; Daniels, Lashawn; Jerkins, Rodney; Johnson, Cristyle; Knowles, Beyonce; Knowles, Solange;
I'm in this fight and I'm swinging and my arms are getting tired
I'm trying to beat this emptiness but I'm running out of time
I'm sinking in the sand and I can't barely stand
I'm lost in this dream, I need you to hold me
I'm scared of lonely

I try to be patient but I'm hurting deep inside
And I can't keep waiting, I need comfort late at night
And I can't find my way, won't you lead me home?
'Cause I'm lost in this dream, I need you to hold me

I'm scared of lonely
And I'm scared of being the only shadow I see along a wall
And I'm scared of the only heart beat I hear beating is my own
And I'm scared of being alone, I can't seem to breathe
When I am lost in this dream, I need you to hold me
I'm scared of lonely, I'm scared of lonely

I cry at night 'cause my baby's too far to be by my side
To wipe away these tears of mine so I hold my pillow tight
To imagine you I'll stretch your hand looking for mine
'Cause I'm lost in this dream, I need you to hold me

I'm scared of lonely
And I'm scared of being the only shadow I see along a wall
And I'm scared of the only heart beat I hear beating is my own
I'm scared of being alone, I can't seem to breathe
When I am lost in this dream, I need you to hold me

I need your break when nobody is around
'Cause I'm tired of this emptiness
I think I'm drowning, I can't be lonely
And I'm lost in this dream, I need you to hold me

I'm scared of lonely
And I'm scared of being the only shadow I see along a wall
And I'm scared of the only heart beat I hear beating is my own
And I'm scared of being alone, I can't seem to breathe
When I am lost in this dream, I need you to hold me

I'm scared of lonely
And I'm scared of be the only shadow I see along a wall
And I'm scared of the only heart beat I hear beating is my own
And I'm scared of being alone, I can't seem to breathe
When I am lost in this dream, I need you to hold me
I'm scared of lonely, I'm scared of lonely


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