“Having a social life is difficult when you believe everyone is capable of making you ill.”

I struggle with OCD, mostly with regards to contamination OCD and religious OCD. I do not remember a time in my life where I did not exhibit symptoms. I think this is also partially due to the fact that I am autistic, and OCD is a very common co-morbidity.

My earliest memory regarding my OCD is being a small child and having meltdowns when my parents would interrupt rituals of mine- one of which was touching my bedroom door knob three times before leaving my room. I’d constantly have intrusive thoughts if I wasn’t allowed to finish the rituals/compulsions I had started.

Another one I remember is compulsively praying as a young child for hours a day when I would do something I deemed ‘morally wrong’ and I so badly feared being damned to hell. I am now no longer religious, but the OCD sometimes will convince me that I must be in order to have a peaceful afterlife. The prevalence of religious people in the world trying to convince others to be religious does not help. I still struggle with this but I have found writing poetry helps the thought become less scary as I put them on paper, outside of my head.

Some symptoms I experience include but are not limited to checking, repetition of thoughts, words or behaviors, obsessive sanitizing, rearranging objects, repetitive praying, and obsession with my bodily sensations to the point of hypochondria. I have performed compulsions for as long as I can remember.

Contamination OCD has been crippling lately. I was starting to get better but the pandemic started, and now monkeypox. I live in fear everyday and dread being around other people. I constantly fear the air is ‘dirty’ and will hold my breath around others out of fear that they will infect me.

Airports, hotels, public cafeterias/restaurants, malls, bathrooms, and other public spaces are hell for me. I am afraid of anything touching my skin, which makes existing in day to day life very difficult, especially as so many people have stopped wearing masks. I work in a school and people are always getting sick, which fills me with constant anxiety. I come close to quitting very often, but am forced to stay as I have to feed myself. Having a social life is difficult when you believe everyone is capable of making you ill. I simply don’t have the capacity for it anymore and it has been crippling.

My diagnosis was actually given to me fairly recently at the same time as receiving my autism diagnosis a few months ago. It didn’t come as a shock at all, as my mother and younger brother also clearly have some type of OCD manifestation. I was just relieved to know I wasn’t imagining things.

I have been in psychotherapy since age 12. I have been labelled as treatment resistant with regards to medication, and I have tried just about everything. The only thing that has given me some sort of relief was my medical marijuana prescription, it has truly changed my life. I will be starting occupational therapy and DBT as soon as I can as well.

There is so much stigma attached to OCD. Most people will downplay my struggles and simply assume I am neat and neurotic, or dramatic, but it is so much more. It is like battling your own thoughts every single day. Battling thoughts that have no basis in reality, but feel so very real to you. It can be even more distressing at times knowing people do not understand the condition, and it makes me feel more isolated.

Something I wish people knew about OCD is that it is not a choice, nor is it in my control for the most part. I am not being dramatic when I am in tears at the mere thought of a public door handle touching my skin. It can be so hard to live with and all I ask of people is patience, compassion, and understanding.