Hiding OCD From Others

Hiding OCD? Us OC-Doers, know what we are doing is irrational. Essentially we allow the Jedi mind tricks that we project to have a huge voice in reason. Thinking of winning the lottery does not better our chances of actually winning. But think about a refrigerator falling on top of your dog and we have to regather, redo, rethink, and recheck on our hound.

We don’t want others noticing us walking backwards talking to ourselves. How do we explain that? “Oh, I uh, don’t want my pup getting struck by a leaning fridge so I’m back stepping until I think of something more soothing.”

It’s already ridiculous to us, others will certainly think we are cuckoo. So we spend good mind capacity on hiding our OCD.

Surroundings manipulating our own thoughts:

I used to work in a big corporate building, with a pretty entertaining cafeteria. Our cafe had TVs, a pool table, ping pong table, juke box, vending machines, and 3 microwaves. Eating lunch and meeting up with friends for a few games was the highlight of work.

I’m at the microwave, my food only has a few seconds, the line behind me is pretty long. One of the TVs began reporting a story about a sink hole. I heard none of the previous words that this channel was spewing, but mentioning sink hole while I opened the microwave door was unacceptable. I opened, I closed, attempting to erase the thought of a sink hole occurring again. Holding on to that handle until pulling open again.

I needed to do a few more closings and openings, but peeps behind me had eagle eyes on the next available free heat box. With my food in hand, I sat and watched like a day owl (Not like a sleeping owl, but like an owl awake… during the day… not nocturnal… never mind. Moving on). My food was done, but I couldn’t eat it. Not yet, OCD had me convinced it could cause another sink hole somewhere.

I normally scarfed my food down so the majority of my lunch was spent in the game room. I didn’t take a bite. Instead, I got back in line, waited for an available microwave and placed my food for a few seconds of reheat. I couldn’t even remember what I had originally heard that made me need to reopen a microwave, but soon as I opened that door, I remembered… sink hole. Shit!

My food was over heated now. I sat down, watched the same people that were behind me disburse, and I got back in line. I reheated my food again after it was my turn, and this time, I got relief by hearing a more pleasant jingle on the TV screen as I opened the zapper.

Now that half of my lunch is up, and my food is over cooked, I could go into the game room. Once you feed OCD, it wants to eat more. I played pool, I listened to good music, we all laughed, and the thought of a sink hole wasn’t on my mind again until it was time to rush back up to my desk because lunch is over.

Walking out of the game room I thought of it. Dang it, I should walk back in there to get a redo. I’m with friends though, and we are all in a rush to get back to our desks. We hop on the elevator. Crap, I thought of it again, now its burning a hole in my forehead. We get off of the elevator and I think sink hole again… Arghhh!

I rush to my desk and report that I am back from lunch. Instead of getting right back into work, I rush back downstairs to the game room by myself, pretending to others and to me that I left something behind. I get the necessary redo and walk out with a better thought. Alright, I feel better. I get on an empty elevator, so far so good. I get off the elevator, maybe step a toe back in the elevator for good measure. Then I get back to my desk to work eventually.

Whew… now I feel a bit of relief. Just no one say sink hole please. All the while I am mad at putting myself through it to begin with. Hiding OCD is sometimes the most draining part.

Avoiding people all together:

I’m pretty outgoing. Although telling my friends “No” was becoming more and more of a staple. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to hang. Oh, I wanted to hang. What I didn’t want was “What are you doing Brent” if they happened to witness me being compulsive and doing peculiar  things over again because of intrusive thinking. 

No one would understand. Hiding OCD was necessary right?

If I were to go out that night, I would have to either give in to repetition, compulsive behaviors, weird acts of habits in risk of being exposed or just resist. Resisting it meant I was just going to be on edge for a while, which was sometimes alright, because after a while I might think “You know what, I’m good without repeating that one”, which would lead me back to being me.

What If I did not resist? Or what if I did resist leading my skin to crawl up a wall like a giant tarantula?

It would take a toll on me, so more often then I would like, I would usually just stay home to avoid people and try to stay clear of the awkward. UGH OCD! You come ruling in here with your shiny new crown like you run the freakin place.

Transitioning my physical compulsions to mental compulsions:

Instead of trying to hide from contact of others 100 percent of the time, I would transition physically flipping switches to mentally flipping switches. It usually meant I had a blank expression while everything else was going on around me until I came back to reality.

This felt even worse. I couldn’t enjoy the great company that surrounded me. I wouldn’t be present in the room that I shared with people I care for. They all seemed to be having fun, I seemed to be having fun too, on the outside. Inside, there was a battle going on in my head. An army of safe words and happy images were all lined up with their weapon of choice to fight one foe, the villainous OCD blob.

At the spark of laughter, I would come back to giggle at a joke because others began to chuckle. For a moment, I would chime in on my favorite part of a song playing in the background. I would tell a quick story hoping it was relative to whatever the conversation is, and go back to head battles.

Much of my time was spent hiding my OCD from others. It felt more like I was just hiding myself from others.

Check out some of my other posts where hiding OCD proves to be draining: OCD Woes – How It Sucked The Fun Out Of Fun and My OCD Safe Words.

Let me know if you found this helpful. I am curious to hear your opinions. Leave a comment or find me on Twitter @UghOCD or Instagram @brentleybigkid.