My journey as an OCD therapist (and what I’ve but to be taught).
Compulsions are a few of my earliest childhood reminiscences. I used to be the one daughter of a single mom, a political refugee from Poland, and a Mexican father that I didn’t know. I locked and relocked the entrance door, then picked up the landline to ensure there was a dial tone, then regarded out the again window to see if there was a automobile within the alley. I used to be six years previous once I began spending each afternoon, and plenty of weekends alone on the highest ground of a duplex in downtown Milwaukee.
In late elementary, I began feeling the urge to chop my arm. It was pre-internet, and I had no concept that anybody else did this too. I all the time reduce in the identical spot on the identical arm, after which spent the subsequent week compulsively dousing the wound with rubbing alcohol. The pores and skin would bubble and puss, and I might focus all my anxiousness on that searing ache. I distinctly keep in mind that queasy feeling of being each highly effective and powerless – what I now perceive to be the dichotomy of getting a management dysfunction that’s uncontrolled. I actually couldn’t cease hurting myself.
By center college, my compulsive chopping had morphed into stealing. I used to be simply the very best pupil in my lessons, however was pathologically quiet. When different college students went to recess, I might sneak again into the trainer’s provide room and take folders and binders. I by no means used any of these things, however I created slightly assortment in my bed room that felt sacred to me. sixth grade summer season, I started to slide single sleeves of stickers into my pants on the native Kohl’s grocery retailer (a staple of Nineties Wisconsin). My OCD model of shoplifting – the identical merchandise from the identical retailer on the identical time of day, each day – clearly acquired me caught. I truly acquired handcuffed as a 75 pound little woman, taken to the police station, and fingerprinted.
My stealing abruptly stopped after this scared straight second, and my OCD morphed as soon as once more into the place the place it fortunately stayed for the approaching many years: perfectionism.
After all some a part of me is grateful that my compulsivity settled right into a safer touchdown spot than self-harm or theft, however now that I’m a therapist, I admire how a lot tougher it’s to heal from perfectionism OCD. Pushing myself to attain that “excellent” feeling, and overachieving till I actually can’t maintain my eyes open anymore, has propelled most facets of my life. It has introduced delight and achievement, but in addition loss and disconnection. I anchor myself so loyally to perfection, I’m not certain who Natalia is outdoors of it.
