As a very young child, I never engaged with anyone outside my family. I was terrified of the world around me. I was scared of germs, lice, and disease. Around the age of 5 or 6, I slowly developed my first real obsessive habits. Every single night, I sat my parents down and repeated the same sentence. I convinced myself I needed to do this in order to be OK in the morning. My parents thought it was cute, and made a video of me repeating this sentence to send to friends.
These types of compulsions slowly got more intense, but not enough to be fully recognized. At around 9 years old, I picked up an intrusive habit of washing my hands every time they had any sort of natural moisture, like sweat or oil. I wanted my hands to have the texture of paper: dry, smooth, and lifeless.
People often called me a germaphobe, but it was more than that. I washed my hands so much that I developed eczema, which made it hard to form a fist. Still, I never felt clean. My parents viewed this kind of thing as a childhood quirk, assuming I would grow out of it. But I didn’t.
A Failed Therapy Session
When I started 5th grade, I realized, through my own research, that I wasn’t just a germaphobe; I had OCD. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or OCD, changes the way you look at the world, and how comfortable you are living in it. OCD is a disorder that causes you to have unwanted chains of thought, resulting in specific compulsions for self-comfort. Before I realized I had OCD, I felt misunderstood and confused. I didn’t understand my own behaviors and wondered why I had to live my life this way. My only coping mechanism at the time was writing; that’s where I felt comfortable expressing myself.
I told my parents that I needed some help. It took a little while for them to fully understand the place I was in, but they had noticed I’d been feeling depressed. My first therapist, Lizzy, was hired to cover this situation.
I remember the first and only session with Lizzy well: The sweet, floral scent of the plug-in air freshener on her wall felt like it was crawling under my skin. We sat on dusty pink chaise lounge couches across from one another. I felt pressured, knowing that my mother sat just outside the door, confused about what was going on with me.
As a shy, avoidant 10-year-old girl, I felt like I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t tell Lizzy how confused and afraid I felt since I couldn’t even explain it to myself. I barely spoke, and afterward I asked my parents to cancel the rest of our sessions. Even though I knew I needed help, I wasn’t ready for therapy.
Shortly after my 11th birthday, I started washing my face excessively. Something had clicked inside my brain that I would secrete snot and liquid from my eyes unless I washed my face perfectly, lathering the soap from the bottom to the top of my face. If I disrupted the motion of washing, I would have to do it over and over and over again until I’d done it perfectly. This was the start of being terrified of myself.
A Sanctuary and a Prison
Then came the COVID lockdown. Being in quarantine seemed to bring about a new version of my OCD, a stronger and more persistent kind. The sun would peek in from behind my curtains, as if begging to come in, but my brain ordered me “Don’t open the curtains.” I felt like a walking corpse. My room was a graveyard for unwanted thoughts. I feared dirt, and that’s what I was turning into.
I had heard the phrase “the room is a reflection of the mind,” but I had never believed it until then. I developed an obsession with cleanliness, worrying about bacteria in my room. The only way to make my room feel like a safe space for me was to undergo a multi-step process, a ritualistic cleaning. The process would tire me, and soon I was completely worn and tattered. My life had become mixed up, and I felt like it was my fault.
I used bleach for casual cleaning around my room. Clorox was my favorite brand. I went to sleep with bottles of cleaners open throughout my room and woke up with the scent of bleach blistering my nostrils. Used paper towels sat on a drying rack in the middle of my room for months. Dried out Clorox wipes carpeted my floors. My desk was covered with different spray bottles of Seventh Generation disinfectants and Clorox wipes, preventing me from doing what I had once loved, writing.
Although I slept on my bare mattress, tip-toed over bleach containers, and turned the sun away, I imagined a life where my hair flowed long, my room stayed clean, and my mind was free. But in reality, my head was in scrambles constantly, and I felt like it was my fault. I had nobody else to blame for my tendencies and thought that this must have been deserved. I couldn’t think of any other way to explain the state that I was in.
I spent most of a year burrowed away in my room, which was both my sanctuary and my prison. I was given too much time to myself, which resulted in significantly more time to think and develop compulsions. Knowing that the pandemic was affecting the entire world made me feel less alone, until I realized that, even though others were stuck at home, they weren’t struggling with the same issues.
A Good Omen
By this point, my parents were even more concerned and I’d been through multiple therapists. But it still felt difficult to open up to new people. I had grown extremely paranoid of everything, not just germs. Even though I didn’t say much in therapy, it was clear that I was struggling.
One of my therapists said that it was time for me to start taking medication. This scared me at first, but I didn’t think that all these doctors and therapists would leave me alone unless I took the medication they were giving me. So, in August 2021, I began taking antidepressants, which are commonly used to treat OCD.
I would no longer be a shy girl stuck inside a dark bedroom littered with cleaning products.
On one of the hotter days of early September, I woke up to a ladybug on my hand. I’ve heard that ladybugs are omens of good luck, and that might have been true. I stepped out of my bed and looked over all the garbage of empty disinfectant bottles and dried up Clorox wipes. The sun managed to shine through my curtains, and I saw everything aglow. I started to see a room that could be brand new and mine. I was overwhelmed with so many options.
I got out of bed and slowly picked up the empty disinfectant bottles and dried up Clorox wipes around me. I felt like it was the start to a new life, a new era. Seventh grade started in a week, and for that entire week I prepared myself. School would no longer be remote and I would no longer be a shy girl stuck inside a dark bedroom littered with cleaning products. Going back to school felt like an opportunity to restart my life.
I gathered the courage to try to socialize in my homeroom. This was my type of exposure therapy—making myself talk to new people even though I was afraid, in hopes that the fear would start to dissipate. After all, nothing could hit me as hard as it did a year before, and I felt I had nothing to lose. I was scared people would find me weird, and not want to be my friend. I was already very quiet and socially awkward before all of this, and it had just gotten amplified.
This courage did not flow in on its own. The medication helped. It allowed my brain to be settled and calm, and for me to start forming my own thoughts again. This made me look at everything differently, and gave me the motivation to talk to people like I never had before.
The first friend I made complimented a band shirt that I was wearing, Cocteau Twins. To them, it was such a simple interaction, but it meant the world to me. We became close friends and I felt more confident being able to walk side by side with her.
Finally Comfortable
In 7th grade, I felt as if I had been reborn. Without the constant thoughts about bacteria taking up space in my mind, I learned more things about myself. I developed a style in clothes, and I began to express myself more. For the first time I wasn’t ashamed and embarrassed. I felt content with who I could be.
I developed ways to distract myself from recurring thoughts about the habits I’d started to break, like repeatedly washing my hands. When those thoughts came, I would write poetry, which I submitted to a school magazine. I shared my raw, personal experiences because I wanted to make sure nobody would feel as alone as I did. I found music that made me feel more relaxed and less alone. I also finally found a therapist I liked, who I’ve been seeing for two years now. She helps me sort out lingering problems that I struggle to manage.
Sometimes, I remember the girl stuck inside a dark bedroom littered with cleaning products. Even though she is an ever-smaller portion of who I am becoming now, sometimes I feel just like her again. I remember this version of myself when I feel like crying next to her, in a busted up room. But there are also times I think of her when I achieve things I never thought I could and have the experiences I begged myself to let me have.
I’m still in therapy, working on new strategies to deal with OCD and other battles. I still get anxious about touching subway poles and sharing food, but I finally feel able to live comfortably. I am proud of how far I’ve come. I hope to inspire others to continue working toward living a stable life.
- Mental Health