I have OCD, and the pandemic has certainly taken a significant toll on my treatment and recovery. I’ve had OCD since early childhood, but within the past two years, I put a LOT of work into my cognitive behavioral therapy, and I am happy to say that I vastly improved! I used to routinely wash my hands until they bled, but stopped this behavior along with many other compulsions. Part of my exposure therapy involved no longer carrying around hand sanitizer everywhere I went, occasionally eating without washing my hands first, etc. Of course, under the current circumstances these kinds of exposures are no longer possible. It’s demoralizing to feel like I am backtracking in my progress even in cases where my response is consistent with the new “baseline” and technically not an OCD response. My various OCD-type symptoms are cognitively linked, though, so washing my hands more frequently, however “normal” that may be under the circumstances, has sadly re-kindled other obsessions/compulsions I had previously eradicated. For the most part, my OCD is actually not particularly cleanliness-based, but rather is more guilt-driven. I often get wrapped up in “magical thinking” where I feel like I am personally responsible for bad things happening in the world even when there is absolutely no logical connection between myself and the external events. For instance, I am terrified of not properly sanitizing things and as a result infecting other people. It has gotten to the point where just leaving my apartment to get my mail or take out the garbage is excruciatingly terrifying. A trip to the mailroom requires 30 minutes to an hour of sanitization and makes it impossible for me to do anything productive for several hours due to what I like to call a “radius of anxiety” around the stressful event. And then there is the secondary layer of guilt in feeling bad that I feel bad since I know I am extremely lucky—I’m healthy, my family is healthy, I have the privilege to work from home with pay, I have secure housing, etc. I’m trying to be patient with myself. I’m very thankful for the free tele-therapy currently available through the Student Health Plan and for my wonderful network of supportive family and friends. I was able to overcome my OCD before so I can certainly do it again!
Anecdote #6
