John said something that shocked me the other night. He had just listened to an episode of the podcast Terrible, Thanks For Asking featuring me and my mom. We had come on the show mainly for my mom to talk about what it was like raising a child with mental illness because I’ve had OCD since I was four. Recording the show a few months ago was an emotional experience. I don’t remember much of my childhood so it’s always wild to hear how bad my symptoms were when I was growing up. I thought that John would come away from listening thinking of me as more fucked up than he had previously realized. Instead, he said something along the lines of, “I don’t think your OCD really interferes with our lives that much.” If I wasn’t afraid to touch the floor in clean clothes, I would have fainted.
As his words sunk in, I found myself having two conflicting reactions. One of which I might best describe as indignation. Even though my OCD is objectively mild considering the wide spectrum of experiences, it still occupies a lot of my thoughts and time. How could my live-in partner not see all the ways that it impacts my day-to-day life? Was he not paying attention to me? Should I be filling him in more on my various struggles? Shouldn’t his takeaway from that podcast be how much I have suffered throughout my life??? I am not proud I had that reaction. But that’s the thing about reactions versus responses: you can’t control them.
Luckily, I quickly realized I was focusing on the wrong thing. All I’ve ever wanted to hear from a partner is that my OCD isn’t causing a big problem in our relationship. In fact, I did a few months of Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy to achieve this very thing. John doesn’t know how much my brain is occupied by OCD thoughts on a regular basis because I don’t want him to know. My reason for this isn’t based in shame but self-care. If I shared all the thoughts in my head, I would give them more power. If I asked him to comply with every compulsion my OCD wants him to comply with, it would make my OCD stronger and our relationship more strained.
There is a difference between not sharing aspects of your mental health struggle with your partner because you don’t want them to know versus not sharing as a form of treatment. Learning how to stop myself from blurting things out has taken a lot of control. It is something I am proud of and hope to continue to build upon. I have done a lot of work to get to this place. As I have more distance from the conversation, I have moved away from any feelings of not being understood and embraced the feeling of being delighted by myself. My OCD isn’t that big of a deal to you? Absolutely incredible!
This unexpected exchange has also brought up the possibility that other people don’t see me the way I see myself—in a good way. While I think about the fact that I have OCD all the time, I’m starting to realize other people probably don’t. My personality is not outshined by my disorder. There is so much more to me than the contamination fears that run through my head. And even the people who know the full extent of my struggle are able to see that.
While I spend a lot of time talking and writing about OCD, I’m realizing that I have been tying too much of my identity to it. Part of this might be due to an underlying fear that I don’t even have OCD and that I am just faking. So whenever I see proof that I actually have it, I cling to it as evidence that I am not a dirty liar. But regardless of what is motivating this tie between me and my OCD, I think it would be good for me to loosen the chains a bit. I can still be an OCD advocate without it consuming my sense of self. And I can have OCD without it consuming my life.
xoxo,
Allison
P.S. You can listen to the aforementioned podcast episode here. My mom will blow you away.
I’m so happy for you! I’m going to share this post with my bf. My brain was being very loud last night and he kept asking me to share what I was thinking about so I could just get it out. I told him the things I was thinking were so unreasonable and unfair that it would be more harmful than helpful to share certain intrusive thoughts. I want so badly for him to know me, but over time I’ve realized he knows ME even if he doesn’t know the ins and outs of all my intrusive thoughts. He knows Me better than It and I love that for us 💜