by KC (US)
Let me begin by touching on my very first experience of ocd as a kid, I don't recall my exact age, may be 6 or 7, I was attending a local church on Sunday morning with my older cousins and siblings, the church was crowded and I was sitting with my siblings and I just realized there were so many people around me.
I felt anxiety overcoming me all of a sudden, I was panicking for no reason, and I was looking around me to see who is causing this. This happened before the mass started, and there were some people talking and socializing around me, and I felt strange and paranoid that this is happening to me at the time.
When I grew older, I did more research, I realized I have ocd, because I am a clean freak, I like everything to be clean and things be tidy and kept in an orderly fashioned. For example, when you put a book down on a coffee table or a remote control, it has to be kept in an upright position at about 90 degrees straight, and any deviation from this would trigger an anxiety, I know this is strange for normal people.
You have to keep in mind, this is just a small part of my larger routine in my daily life, for example, you have to triple check to make sure the door is locked when you leave the house or after when you park the car. In most cases I have learn to live with it and tried to ignored it, living with ocd is hard, even though you tried hard to ignore these feelings, one way or the other it somehow pulls you back into it.
The main thing that I wanted to share in this story is that the covid situation has helped me in more ways than others, I know the entire world has been impacted negatively by covid, I am not ignoring that but I am just touching on how it helped me.
Before the pandemic, I have to go to work as normal, for example, getting up early in the morning, preparing lunch, driving to work, and so on, like a regular routine everyone has, I have a good job working as an IT, so I am not complaining about that. But because I have ocd, I have anxiety going to work everyday, is not the job, and sometime I just don't want to interact or socialize with others. I am a social person, I like to socialize, but when my anxiety kicks in I stay away from people.
Since the pandemic, everyone from my company has to work from home, and since when I started working from home, I now have less anxiety versus going to work. I don't have to worry about checking to make sure the house is locked completely before leaving or triple checking to make sure the car is locked after when I parked. During work I don't have to worry about interacting with others when I don't feel like it because I can just chat them up or talk to my colleague on the phone.
The things that I talked about is just the beginning of the day, I still have to deal with ocd for the rest of the day routine, but because I now work from home, I don't have to deal with the outside problems or routine associated with ocd. In a sense I am more free now from ocd, but every now and then, the anxiety will kick in, but I need to be aware and tried to ignored it, just to be free.
When you have ocd, your mind gets fixated, I get fixated when I have anxiety, for example, sometime when I checked to make sure the stove is turned off, I get fixated on the stove for 30 seconds to a minute to make sure it is turned off, so I need to be aware when I starts to get fixating on things and to just ignored it, and to free my mind so to speak.
If you have ocd, please share your stories, how you live and deal with it, so other like us can be more free from our mind.