Michelle's Story: Living With OCD

By Michelle LeClair

OCD is a real disorder that effects the way a person thinks and acts. It effects an individuals' thoughts and actions. OCD takes control of your whole life and once it does, it is hard to get your life back. OCD makes the world a scary place where you cannot and will not venture into. It controls your actions, it controls your thoughts and it changes your personality. It shuts you off from your family and friends and closes in the world around you. Your world becomes smaller and darker until it is just you and OCD with OCD in the driver's seat.

At first I told myself that the compulsion of wiping and washing things was real because of the concern for germs. So it made perfect sense. So I kept wipes with me and washed my hands with them every time I touched something because I didn't want to get dirty. Then the OCD became more invasive of my life. It was not enough to wash my hands with the wipes -- now I could no longer touch anything because somehow it was contaminated -- dirty. So I would need to wash the paper, pencil, the desk, my hands and on and on. I kept washing it because the germs were still there. I couldn't think of anything except being contaminated and washing away the contamination.

OCD was telling me: "DON'T TOUCH IT. IT IS CONTAMINATED. YOU WILL GET DIRTY IF YOU TOUCH IT." It is then that the OCD took total control of my life. I tried to hide it from everyone, but then it became overwhelming. Even if I didn't touch anything somehow the OCD convinced my brain that the air around it is contaminated and therefore so was I. So going outside and being with people was no longer an option. My life stopped. My world started caving in. I stopped interacting with people. I stopped touching everything and everyone.