Here is another excerpt from my book “A Life Interrupted – the story of my battle with bullying and obsessive compulsive disorder”:
As stated on a website called familydoctor.org, OCD is a mental illness that causes people to have unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and to repeat certain behaviors (compulsions) over and over again. Common compulsions for OCDers listed on the website include the following: cleaning and grooming, such as washing hands, showering or brushing teeth over and over again; checking drawers, door locks and appliances to be sure they are shut, locked or turned off; repeating, such as going in and out of a door, sitting down and getting up from a chair, or touching certain objects several times; ordering and arranging items in certain ways; counting over and over to a certain number; saving newspapers, mail or containers when they are no longer needed, also known as hoarding; seeking constant reassurance and approval.
As I read through these obsessions and compulsions, I realized I’d experienced all of them at some point with the exception of hoarding. Obviously, my specialty was having fears of harming my loved ones along with images of bullies and repeating certain actions to ‘prevent’ this from occurring. But overall as an OCDer, I was really a textbook case. I also discovered that this illness is not a sole result of psychological trauma, but is actually caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. Psychological trauma however, such as years of relentless bullying from peers, can trigger the illness onset and determine the ways in which it plays out. After years spent fully believing that I was a schizophrenic, I finally understood exactly what had gone wrong with me!