The day I encountered the unknown — OCD

November 22, 2020

OCD. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Quite a fancy name, as far as diseases go at least. If you have never heard of it before then you are in for a ride. If you already know what I’m talking about, well, try and relate. Some people find it funny. I’m sure they haven’t experienced it because if they had they would say otherwise. Let’s take this shot already.

This story is about a kid named Francis. An eight-year-old boy, going to an English medium school. Full of curiosity and enthusiasm, he was always ready to learn new things. Given all that, he was a very shy kid. Didn’t interact with his classmates enough, not even his own family. I guess he was afraid of what they might think of him. You can say it was a ‘kind of fear’.

This 8 years old kid sitting by the window of the school bus on his daily trip to school. He never imagined that day would change his life forever. Or rather I should say, change him forever. Scared of practically everything, especially strangers. He was looking out of the window, deep in thought when he suddenly saw a beautiful young woman in her twenties.

It’s not the first time for him to see a beautiful lady, instead, this interaction came with an exception. They made eye contact. That was all that happened and the bus kept moving on. Nothing happened, right? So why am I mentioning all this? This little interaction stirred up something inside Francis. The always timid kid who feared even talking to his own friends interacted with a young woman and just made a little eye contact. Next what happened was inevitable.

The two questions

Francis was petrified by what had happened. The overwhelming emotion that gripped him suddenly changed into fear. He started asking himself questions as though he was in doubt of what had happened. The first question that popped up was, “did I make a vulgar or disrespectful face towards the lady?”, followed by another question, “did I wink at the lady?”.

That was it. These two questions were more than enough to ignite the little ambers of fear residing in his mind. After the questions came to the answers. With each answer, he associated a different scenario of what would happen. If he’d made a vulgar expression, what will the lady do? Will she call the police? Will she tell the school and get him expelled? If he’d winked, what would the lady do then? Follow him to his home and let his parents know? Blah blah blah…… The lady was a complete stranger. It was all nonsense building inside his head.

None of this was ever gonna happen, not in the real world at least. But the fear inside Francis’ mind made him think otherwise. He was left powerless. That day in school he kept running these scenarios in his head repeatedly looking for a solution. For hours his mind was drained by the thoughts of what if.

A meaningless interaction, making no sense at all raised mountains of doubts inside his head. I used this example to tell you that even something insignificant as this is enough to affect one’s mental health. We in India don’t take mental health seriously. The most who suffer from this are the children because they have no idea what’s happening to them, neither they have the resources to deal with it.

OCD — Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Yes, Francis was suffering from OCD. It’s a mental disorder, comes in variations. The fact that a mere 8-year-old was struck with it speaks so much of our society and its ways. Our ways, our culture, the environment we provide for kids, everything is accountable for what was happening to Francis.

Now that I’ve got your attention thanks to Francis. Let’s discuss more this curse of OCD. Its types, how does it affect people, and how to tackle it.

What is OCD?

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental illness that causes repeated unwanted thoughts or sensations (obsessions) or the urge to do something over and over again (compulsions). Some people can have both obsessions and compulsions.

An obsessive thought might be somewhat similar to what Francis was going through. Obsessing over a thought, material thing, or incident and creating repetitive scenarios inside one’s head. The problem with thoughts is that we can’t control them. The more we don’t want to think about something, it turns out the more we are thinking of it.

A compulsive habit might be to wash your hands seven times after touching something that could be dirty. Although you may not want to think or do these things, you feel powerless to stop. My aunt does this. She will wash her hands so many times that her skin will start to come off.

Everyone has habits or thoughts that repeat sometimes. People with OCD have thoughts or actions that:

• Take up at least an hour a day
• Are beyond your control
• Aren’t enjoyable
• Interfere with work, your social life, or another part of life

OCD Types and Symptoms

OCD comes in many forms, but most cases fall into at least one of four general categories:

• Checking — such as locks, alarm systems, ovens, or light switches, or thinking you have a medical condition like pregnancy or schizophrenia
• Contamination — fear of things that might be dirty or a compulsion to clean. Mental contamination involves feeling like you’ve been treated like dirt.
• Symmetry and order — the need to have things lined up in a certain way
• Ruminations and intrusive thoughts — an obsession with a line of thought. Some of these thoughts might be violent or disturbing.

Obsessions and Compulsions

Many people who have OCD know that their thoughts and habits don’t make sense. They don’t do them because they enjoy them, but because they can’t quit. And if they stop, they feel so bad that they start again.

Obsessive thoughts can include:

• Worries about yourself or other people getting hurt
• Constant awareness of blinking, breathing, or other body sensations
• The suspicion that a partner is unfaithful, with no reason to believe it

Compulsive habits can include:

• Doing tasks in a specific order every time or a certain “good” number of times
• Needing to count things, like steps or bottles
• Fear of touching doorknobs, using public toilets, or shaking hands

Children are the most vulnerable

Now that you have a brief idea about what OCD is, let’s take one more example. As seen in the case of Francis, a little act like blinking or breathing can turn into a worry, that becomes an obsessive thought. Karan, a friend of mine finally talked to me about his shyness. And guess what? It was OCD, again.

Karan was so distraught that he won’t even look people in the eye. He would avoid human contact at all if possible. Caged in his own little world, he tried to keep his mind off worrying. Although was far from it.

He would need to check things like gas knobs, door locks, etc. 5 to 6 times in an hour just to make sure everything was in the proper place. While writing exams, he would need to finish as early as possible even though it compromised his quality of answering the questions on the paper. He needed all the time he could get to check his paper thoroughly as many times as possible. He was so afraid that he might have written something inappropriate or vulgar, that he was ready to score fewer marks just to be sure and avoid worrying. Even after all this commotion, there was still worry left in his heart that ached like a pin pinching against the chest.

But why do people end up with OCD?

Now, the main question is what is the reason that Francis and Karan were experiencing something like this. Did they do something bad in their previous lives? Not a fan of reincarnation and all that. What was different in their world and yours? You live a completely normal life, I suppose, but they are not. Why so?

One of the main properties of OCD is that it’s genetic, so pretty much it came down from high up the ladder, father or grandfather maybe. If that’s not the case then it is because their minds have gone through some kind of trauma that instilled an unimaginable amount of fear inside their heart. These incidents happen mostly to children.

For example, some are sexually abused by their relatives while some are beaten daily because their dad was a drunkard. There can be millions of reasons. I’ll leave you to think for yourselves. All I’m saying is the environment in which we let our children grow up plays a huge, HUGE….. role in deciding the state of their mental health. Childhood traumas, bad memories….. often lead to repetitive obsessive thoughts that are beyond their control.

A child’s mind is like a sponge. It absorbs everything it touches.

Shan

Conclusion

I hope you are now aware that there is something like this out there and millions endure it without letting you know. Even if you understood a fraction of what I wrote, I’ll consider my blog successful.

I shared with you two different stories but both were aimed at making you understand how severe OCD can be. These are true stories by the way.

After reading both of them you might’ve been shocked to see how insignificant things can lead to worsening a child’s mental health. Adults are no exception either. But what matters most is the environment in which the child grows up. For the adult, the train has already left the station.

If as a society, in India especially, we can achieve peace and happiness on a humanitarian level, it would really benefit one’s mental health be it a child or an adult.

If your son/daughter is shy or is always scared, try to reach out to them and find out what is bothering them. Once you make them feel safe they’ll subconsciously start trusting their surroundings. If your sibling is distressed or worries a lot, talk to him. Of course, there are medications to tackle OCD, but they can only do so much. Everything depends on the person himself.

Let’s start taking our mental health more seriously, shall we?. Especially with the children.