'OCD Took My Relationships & Career: Listen to My Warning': Seattle Times
OCD took my relationships and career. Listen to my warning | Mental Health Perspectives. By Leslie Robinson, The Seattle Times, Jan. 1, 2023. - Ed.
- Leslie Robinson has learned to accept her OCD as a part of herself and uses therapy to cope. -
Roughly 30 years ago, when I was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), I reacted with robust denial. Raised to be a high achiever, I hadn’t the slightest room in my life for a mental disorder. So I minimized the OCD to myself and to others. Boy oh boy, was that the wrong approach. But at long last, I’ve come to terms with having a mental illness, and my reward is seeing the chance of a happier existence ahead.
In fairness, it’s hard to recognize a condition that invades your mind & thoughts and pushes you to act urgently on constant obsessions. In my case, I needed to check everything under the sun. A trip to the grocery store meant checking and rechecking that I’d been charged accurately & had received the right change. Doing the laundry meant checking and rechecking that I really had poured in the detergent & set the dials correctly.
Above all, I was deathly afraid of making a mistake in the freelance newspaper and magazine articles I wrote, so I repeatedly checked the facts, the quotes, everything.
Because of my OCD, which I long ago named Fred, I was convinced I was getting something wrong, & equally convinced that the results would be catastrophic. All that checking and fear meant I couldn’t produce articles quickly, so my planned journalism career fizzled. The part-time jobs I took to supplement my writing income also required constant checking, whether I was shelving books at the library or marking down shoes at Sears. Fred is no snob about the kind of employment he impacts.
Through my 30s and 40s I essentially worked 3 jobs — the part-time one, the writing I could manage, & placating my OCD, Fred. I was poor, & too wrapped up in basic survival to step back & really see what was happening: not only a dashed career, but a level of poverty that rendered relationships difficult & guaranteed I’d never be able to have a child. OCD is an illness that demands much time & effort. It took me ages to absorb that Fred is a big, old liar, & an extremely persuasive one.
Having Fred is like living with P.T. Barnum in my head. I now recognize the minimizing, the survival dog paddling, the junctures where I should’ve made different decisions.
At 59 years old, I certainly have the benefit of hindsight, & it’s motivated the heck out of me to use my experience to advise others to face your conditions, and fight back... - Read More, https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/mental-health/ocd-took-my-relationships-and-career-listen-to-my-warning-mental-health-perspectives/
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[*The Seattle Times Mental Health Project features contributed essays from members of our community as part of our Mental Health Perspectives guest column. We invite individuals with personal stories related to mental health to share their experiences that reflect broader issues and concerns in the field. If you would like to inquire about submitting a column, please email mentalhealth@seattletimes.com.]