My anxiety has been pretty high for the past few weeks. It's the day before Thanksgiving, so there is a lot going on. I started to wonder if all the frenzied holiday activity, the stress of thinking about the possible houseful of people (even though I'm excited to see them), my recent setback, and the worry that I'm going to be super anxious and somehow ruin the holiday have something to do with my heightened level of anxiety. Whatever the cause of my anxiety, I've been using a variety of coping skills that I've slowly started to compile.
Before this summer when my symptoms recurred with such severity that I was forced to seek counseling, I had no idea how to cope with my OCD in a healthy way. I was just doing mental compulsions to ease my anxiety for a short period of time, and that just made everything worse in the long run. Someone asked me about some of my coping techniques that I had been learning in therapy a while ago, and I thought I might share them, particularly right now, before Thanksgiving in case somebody else is struggling with the holidays, too.
Some of the coping techniques I've learned from mental health professionals: These might not work for everyone, but it wouldn't hurt to give it a try if you feel like it.
1. If you feel like you might have a panic attack, GROUNDING might help you. GROUNDING is a technique that gets you to do the opposite of what your anxiety tells you to do. Step 1: get on your feet because anxiety makes you want to curl up or lie down, so stand up. Step 2: Put your hands on something, for balance and to feel it, like a countertop, a bedpost, a table. Step 3: Find one thing in the room to focus on (instead of focusing on your racing thoughts or intrusive thoughts), and keep focused on that one thing. Step 4: Diaphragm breathing- slow deep breaths in through your nose, until you feel your rib cage expand as your lungs fill up, out through your mouth, lips formed like you're going to whistle (this tricks your brain into thinking that you're calm instead of in anxious overdrive). Counting while you breathe is a good idea. (My therapist suggested In- 1...2...Out...1...2). This is weird to do until you practice a little bit.
2. MOVING! If you're anxious, even if you've already had a panic attack and don't feel back to your normal yet, moving helps. I exercise 3 times a week (most of the time), and that physical activity has helped me manage my anxiety. When I've had a panic attack, I just want to sit and cry. That just makes it worse. So, I go for a walk. I particularly enjoy walking outside now that it's cold out. I just walk up and down my driveway for about 25-30 minutes, and it really does help. As long as you're moving it doesn't matter what you're doing, though...dancing, jumping around, anything.
3. FILL UP THE SPACE USUALLY OCCUPIED BY THE ANXIETY IN YOUR BRAIN. This one sounds weird, but it does work if you can find the right thing to do. A therapist at the crisis center taught me that, if you can fill your mind up with other stuff, you won't have the space for the anxiety to just hang out. Distract from it until it gets pushed far enough into the background. To do this I have to turn my TV on for noise, then I do something like read or color or do research on something that I want to learn. (Coloring is actually relaxing. I like those big, velvet coloring projects.)
4. UTILIZE YOUR SUPPORT SYSTEM. Friends, family, clergy, your therapist, or a crisis center near you. Talking to someone about whatever is going on is a great idea. When something is stuck, rolling around in your mind, and making you anxious, if you talk about it, it takes away a little bit of the power the anxiety has. Keeping things bottled up gives them too much power, and it can feel like it's going to swallow you. So, call someone for a chat or ask them to come over. If it's too much for you to handle, it's always okay to call a professional so they can help you figure out how to work through it or how to handle the anxiety symptoms.
I also figured out some stuff that works for me, without the help of a professional. Again, these might not work for everyone.
1. LAVENDER OIL: My mom got an oil lamp for me, and when my anxiety starts to spike, I heat up some lavender oil. I read somewhere online that lavender oil is calming.
2. SINGING: When I get anxious, I like noise instead of quiet. I get my iPod, I play something upbeat, and I sing. It takes my mind off the fact that I feel like I can't breathe. Plus, I'm distracted with trying to remember the words to the song.
3. COOKING: I've recently figured out how to use a stove, and I did it for this very purpose. I felt helpless, like I couldn't do anything. That helplessness added to my anxiety, so I got up and tried to fix myself something to eat, on the stove, like the adult that I am. I made scrambled eggs. It wasn't much, but just the idea that I wasn't so helpless helped me. Also, trying to concentrate on not ruining my dinner or burning the house down took my mind off everything else.
4. HUMOR: Laughter helps me a lot when I'm anxious. I have a book of cheesy kids jokes that I read out of. I also look on YouTube and Pinterest for animals doing silly things. (Pinterest Search: Funny Cats or Funny Dogs, and I laugh like an excited little kid).
5. WRITING: I write poetry when I need to chill out. I also try to work on my book. I also keep what I refer to as an Anxiety Journal. (It's just a binder that has all my OCD and therapy stuff in it, really.) Every time my anxiety gets so high that I feel like I can't deal with it, I write down whatever is making me anxious, what I'm thinking, my symptoms, and what I'm doing about it. I guess this helps me because I'm taking a step back from my own mind and observing what's going on instead of getting so lost in it that I can't function. I've even taken the Anxiety Journal to therapy to discuss it with my therapist.
6. MEDITATION (sort of): I'm not very good at traditional meditation where you sit in silence and clear your mind. Instead, I pray the Rosary. I read over the excerpts about the Mysteries that I have printed out, I count the beads, and I recite the prayers. (I pray the Catholic Rosary, but there is an Anglican Rosary if anyone is interested.) The recitation of the prayers out loud; the feel of the beads in my hand and the clinking sounds the beads make; and concentrating on the Mysteries lulls my mind into a calmer place. It makes me feel peaceful.
7. CLOTHES AND MAKEUP: If I've been anxious for a prolonged period of time, I'll pick out a nice outfit, something I feel pretty in, and then I'll do my makeup. I guess this is an effort to fake it til I make it. Even if I'm just at home, I still do this. Then I smile at myself in the mirror. I feel more put together. I feel more confident, and maybe its easier to tackle a problem when you feel more confident.
There is one thing I never do:
SELF MEDICATE: I do drink sometimes, maybe a beer or a glass of wine whenever I'm in the mood for it. However, I absolutely never drink when I feel anxious. I don't want alcohol or any sort of self-medicating to become the way I cope. Plus, if you have an anxiety disorder or depression, your body is a little bit out of whack in regard to chemicals in your brain. If you add something like alcohol, it just makes everything more off-kilter. Impaired judgment that can lead to regret and/or guilt later, sleep problems, memory problems, bad effects on blood sugar, dehydration, and even mood swings (some people get depressed or angry when they're drunk) are all related to self-medicating with alcohol.
I did reach a point this summer when I wondered about self-medicating. I even looked at my mom and said, "I think I'd rather feel high on pot than to keep feeling like this." (I was having multiple panic attacks every day at that point. Plus, I was sure I was going to burn in Hell or cause the world to end or cause some horrific doom to befall my mom because of my intrusive thoughts.) I was only half-joking when I said it, too. (I've never tried any sort of illegal substance. I've never been high, but man, did it look appealing for a short few minutes.) I called a crisis center instead, and they helped me to bring my anxiety back down by using the Grounding Technique I mentioned above.
For a brief moment, I understood a little bit, the draw of self-medicating. I understood how nice it must feel to be numb or feel like I didn't care for a little while. How easy it seemed to just have the quick but fleeting relief from whatever monster lives in your head. I just couldn't do it because it doesn't really fix anything. It just makes you forget your problem until you sober up, and then the cycle starts over again. So, I chose therapy instead. It's slower and sure, my OCD is still in the back of my mind all the time, but I'm dealing with it. I'm working on it, and trying to get better.
I'll end with this: Finding healthy ways to cope that work for you is difficult, especially if you've been doing unhealthy things for a long time. It might seem like you'll never find something that works, but there is something out there. Just don't give up. Please, don't self-medicate because you think it eases your mental health struggle. Talk to a mental health professional for healthy ways to really deal with things. It's free to call a crisis center near you.
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Being Normal
Normal: conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected. (I Googled this definition.)
The idea of normal and what I should be to be "normal" has haunted me for practically my entire life since I reached adolescence, and especially since the onset of my OCD and panic symptoms. After the onset of symptoms, I felt like I was no longer normal. (Normal people don't have intrusive thoughts.) Then again, when my symptoms resurfaced, and they were so severe that I had to seek treatment, I was hit hard with the realization that I wasn't normal. (Normal people don't have OCD. Even my OCD isn't the normal OCD that I learned about.) Even recently, since I've been in therapy, I've found myself relapsed to a panicked state of existence because I wondered if I (or aspects of my behavior, personality, or anything about myself) was normal. I felt even worse about myself because I didn't fit the definition of normal.
When you can't be something, it seems like you want to be the forbidden something more than you want anything else. I felt like I would never be normal after I was diagnosed. I wanted to be normal more than I wanted to be anything else in the world. I caught myself monitoring my behavior, my thought patterns, everything in an effort to appear as normal as possible. (Never mind the fact that I'm a writer with a sleeve of tattoos and purple hair, which would make it seem that the "normal" ship sailed without me a long time ago.)
There is one problem with being normal, though. Normal is a subjective idea. No one idea of normal will ever be able to fit every single person in the world. Normal, in the eyes of society, is conforming to the set of ideas that the majority of people have and behaving in an the way that everyone else behaves. (To fit the rural, East TN definition of "normal" that I grew up with, I would have to be an Evangelical Christian, Baptist most likely. I would have a more conventional career in the works like that of a teacher, nurse, lawyer, or a social worker. I'd be a University of Tennessee and a Titans fan. I definitely wouldn't have purple hair. I tried being normal. I gave up.) Normal changes based on where you're from, where you choose to live, the beliefs that you have. Normal changes from culture to culture, state to state, and even family to family.
I called a crisis center while I was panicking, and I had a chat with a therapist that worked there. He pointed out that holding myself to the idea of normal wasn't a good goal to have because normal is so subjective. (As a psychology major I knew that, but I wasn't able to be very logical at that moment because anxiety isn't exactly logical or rational.) I realized that I want to eventually get back to MY normal not what everybody else thought normal was supposed to be.
MY normal is different from everyone else's normal. Everyone's normal is different from everyone else's normal. When I talk about getting back to MY normal I mean getting back to the days when I didn't have panic attacks and wasn't so riddled with anxiety that I couldn't eat; the days when I worked on my book for hours and got so lost in the story that I forgot everything else; the days when I talked to myself and acted out dialogue between the characters I'm writing about; the days when I daydreamed about the day my book gets turned into a movie and maybe, just maybe, I get to go on the Ellen Show. (I've accepted that OCD is just a new part of my normal, and that's alright, just like having Cerebral Palsy is part of my normal, too.) That's MY normal, and I know that sounds crazy or weird or maybe even silly to other people. That's okay, though, because I know their normal is different from my normal. Somebody else's normal might be a 12-hour shift in a hospital, with a significant other, 2.5 kids, and a dog waiting for them in a home with a white picket fence. That's perfectly fine, but that doesn't describe MY normal.
My normal is one type of normal. My OCD might be a nontraditional type, but it's part of MY normal. Life with mental illness doesn't always fit with what society or even our friends and family tell us that normal is supposed to be. That is okay.
I'll end with this: "Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly."- Morticia Adams. Normal is different for everyone. Instead of focusing on one idea that someone else thinks is normal, focus on YOUR normal. Don't let someone make you feel that, just because you might be struggling with mental illness as part of your normal, your normal is not good enough or "normal" enough.
The idea of normal and what I should be to be "normal" has haunted me for practically my entire life since I reached adolescence, and especially since the onset of my OCD and panic symptoms. After the onset of symptoms, I felt like I was no longer normal. (Normal people don't have intrusive thoughts.) Then again, when my symptoms resurfaced, and they were so severe that I had to seek treatment, I was hit hard with the realization that I wasn't normal. (Normal people don't have OCD. Even my OCD isn't the normal OCD that I learned about.) Even recently, since I've been in therapy, I've found myself relapsed to a panicked state of existence because I wondered if I (or aspects of my behavior, personality, or anything about myself) was normal. I felt even worse about myself because I didn't fit the definition of normal.
When you can't be something, it seems like you want to be the forbidden something more than you want anything else. I felt like I would never be normal after I was diagnosed. I wanted to be normal more than I wanted to be anything else in the world. I caught myself monitoring my behavior, my thought patterns, everything in an effort to appear as normal as possible. (Never mind the fact that I'm a writer with a sleeve of tattoos and purple hair, which would make it seem that the "normal" ship sailed without me a long time ago.)
There is one problem with being normal, though. Normal is a subjective idea. No one idea of normal will ever be able to fit every single person in the world. Normal, in the eyes of society, is conforming to the set of ideas that the majority of people have and behaving in an the way that everyone else behaves. (To fit the rural, East TN definition of "normal" that I grew up with, I would have to be an Evangelical Christian, Baptist most likely. I would have a more conventional career in the works like that of a teacher, nurse, lawyer, or a social worker. I'd be a University of Tennessee and a Titans fan. I definitely wouldn't have purple hair. I tried being normal. I gave up.) Normal changes based on where you're from, where you choose to live, the beliefs that you have. Normal changes from culture to culture, state to state, and even family to family.
I called a crisis center while I was panicking, and I had a chat with a therapist that worked there. He pointed out that holding myself to the idea of normal wasn't a good goal to have because normal is so subjective. (As a psychology major I knew that, but I wasn't able to be very logical at that moment because anxiety isn't exactly logical or rational.) I realized that I want to eventually get back to MY normal not what everybody else thought normal was supposed to be.
MY normal is different from everyone else's normal. Everyone's normal is different from everyone else's normal. When I talk about getting back to MY normal I mean getting back to the days when I didn't have panic attacks and wasn't so riddled with anxiety that I couldn't eat; the days when I worked on my book for hours and got so lost in the story that I forgot everything else; the days when I talked to myself and acted out dialogue between the characters I'm writing about; the days when I daydreamed about the day my book gets turned into a movie and maybe, just maybe, I get to go on the Ellen Show. (I've accepted that OCD is just a new part of my normal, and that's alright, just like having Cerebral Palsy is part of my normal, too.) That's MY normal, and I know that sounds crazy or weird or maybe even silly to other people. That's okay, though, because I know their normal is different from my normal. Somebody else's normal might be a 12-hour shift in a hospital, with a significant other, 2.5 kids, and a dog waiting for them in a home with a white picket fence. That's perfectly fine, but that doesn't describe MY normal.
My normal is one type of normal. My OCD might be a nontraditional type, but it's part of MY normal. Life with mental illness doesn't always fit with what society or even our friends and family tell us that normal is supposed to be. That is okay.
I'll end with this: "Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly."- Morticia Adams. Normal is different for everyone. Instead of focusing on one idea that someone else thinks is normal, focus on YOUR normal. Don't let someone make you feel that, just because you might be struggling with mental illness as part of your normal, your normal is not good enough or "normal" enough.
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Things I Took for Granted
I never actually thought much about how my current life living with mental illness is different from the life I had before the onset of my Pure OCD. Then, this past week, I hit a rough patch, perhaps the worst one since I began treatment. I realized that I took some things for granted before the onset of Pure O. Easy things had become not so easy, even though I pretended that my life hadn't changed so much.
One of the big things I realized I had taken for granted before was good days. Before onset, most of my days were good days. I didn't have to work for them. My good days just happened. Then, mental illness set in, and the anxiety and OCD sort of took that from me. A lot of my days from that point on were days that I just tried to survive, hour by hour, and tried not to get so lost in the deepest, darkest corners of my mind that I'd never be able to find my way out again. I had lots of days like that, and like this rough patch, bad days can turn into bad weeks.
With mental illness, I do have good days just like everyone else in life has good and bad days. The difference between now and before, is that my good days take effort. For lack of a better way to put it, I fight like Hell against my own mind. On the good days, I literally say to myself, "I win at life," because that's how it feels. I appreciate my good days more now, I guess, because I feel like I'm winning a battle when I have them.
I also feel like mental illness took my sense of peace and trust in myself. I've always been a pretty logical person, but I also took my intuition into account when I made decisions. I made life decisions, like where to go to college, my career choice, and even the future I tried to plan in my head based on what my heart told me. (You know the old saying, "Follow your heart because it will never lead you down the wrong path." At least that's what my mother always told me). Don't get me wrong, I also evaluated what my heart wanted with the logical steps to get there. I had peace knowing that my life was guided in such a way, and I trusted myself. I knew, deep down, in my very soul that my decisions were the right ones for me. Then mental illness set in, and I started to second guess every single thing about myself.
I made decisions about my life, and back then, they seemed like the easiest decisions in the world to make. They all felt right. I took a trip through Carson-Newman campus when I was in elementary school, and I knew I would go there because I felt peace while I was there. All through high school, I wanted to write as a career. Sure, I thought about going to graduate school while I was in college, but I always came back to writing because that was where my heart was. I knew a writing career was a risk, but it was a risk I was willing to take. That was the path for me. I forgot about graduate school, and I felt like a huge weight was gone off my shoulders. I felt at peace. Then my OCD picked everything apart, and I accidentally let it. I had taken for granted the ability to trust myself and my intuition.
I struggle more with decisions since the onset of my OCD, and when I make decisions, I agonize over whether or not it was the right decision. I started listening to my head more, and I lost my sense of peace because an anxious brain likes to think of everything that can go wrong. Then those possibilities turn into real dangers inside my mind. Wrong decisions, in my head, lead to catastrophe.
I'll end with this: Mental illness changes things. Mental illness has certainly changed things about my life that I hadn't even thought about. Life with mental illness can feel like an uphill battle some days, and you have to make an effort everyday to fight. Everybody always says it gets better, and the good days feel like that. On my bad days, I try as hard as I can to hang on to the thought that a good day will come around again.
One of the big things I realized I had taken for granted before was good days. Before onset, most of my days were good days. I didn't have to work for them. My good days just happened. Then, mental illness set in, and the anxiety and OCD sort of took that from me. A lot of my days from that point on were days that I just tried to survive, hour by hour, and tried not to get so lost in the deepest, darkest corners of my mind that I'd never be able to find my way out again. I had lots of days like that, and like this rough patch, bad days can turn into bad weeks.
With mental illness, I do have good days just like everyone else in life has good and bad days. The difference between now and before, is that my good days take effort. For lack of a better way to put it, I fight like Hell against my own mind. On the good days, I literally say to myself, "I win at life," because that's how it feels. I appreciate my good days more now, I guess, because I feel like I'm winning a battle when I have them.
I also feel like mental illness took my sense of peace and trust in myself. I've always been a pretty logical person, but I also took my intuition into account when I made decisions. I made life decisions, like where to go to college, my career choice, and even the future I tried to plan in my head based on what my heart told me. (You know the old saying, "Follow your heart because it will never lead you down the wrong path." At least that's what my mother always told me). Don't get me wrong, I also evaluated what my heart wanted with the logical steps to get there. I had peace knowing that my life was guided in such a way, and I trusted myself. I knew, deep down, in my very soul that my decisions were the right ones for me. Then mental illness set in, and I started to second guess every single thing about myself.
I made decisions about my life, and back then, they seemed like the easiest decisions in the world to make. They all felt right. I took a trip through Carson-Newman campus when I was in elementary school, and I knew I would go there because I felt peace while I was there. All through high school, I wanted to write as a career. Sure, I thought about going to graduate school while I was in college, but I always came back to writing because that was where my heart was. I knew a writing career was a risk, but it was a risk I was willing to take. That was the path for me. I forgot about graduate school, and I felt like a huge weight was gone off my shoulders. I felt at peace. Then my OCD picked everything apart, and I accidentally let it. I had taken for granted the ability to trust myself and my intuition.
I struggle more with decisions since the onset of my OCD, and when I make decisions, I agonize over whether or not it was the right decision. I started listening to my head more, and I lost my sense of peace because an anxious brain likes to think of everything that can go wrong. Then those possibilities turn into real dangers inside my mind. Wrong decisions, in my head, lead to catastrophe.
I'll end with this: Mental illness changes things. Mental illness has certainly changed things about my life that I hadn't even thought about. Life with mental illness can feel like an uphill battle some days, and you have to make an effort everyday to fight. Everybody always says it gets better, and the good days feel like that. On my bad days, I try as hard as I can to hang on to the thought that a good day will come around again.
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
More Than You See on TV
While I was getting my hair done this weekend, I overheard something that made me stop for a second. I was sitting in my chair, while the lady dried my hair, and another lady that was waiting for her appointment got up and straightened things on a table to my left. Some rowdy kids had been in the salon, and they had left a mess there on the table. As she was straightening things up, another stylist glanced up from her work and remarked, "Your OCD kicked in, huh." The other lady laughed.
I wasn't offended, but the fact that she just so flippantly threw that out there, just because someone decided to straighten up a cluttered mess, made me stop and think. Why would someone use an actual mental disorder as an adjective in this situation? Why would the stylist's mind automatically turn to OCD when someone was just tidying things? Why? Because stereotypes of mental illness have pervaded our culture. That isn't okay, just like it isn't okay to stereotype someone based on the color of their skin.
I became very aware of how OCD and mental illness in general were stereotyped after my diagnosis. People with OCD are neat freaks. People with OCD check things repeatedly. Quirks equal OCD. The "neat freaks" and the checkers are only two types of OCD. Many different types of OCD exist. Pure O, like I have, is just an example of OCD that people don't hear much about. Also, just because you like your room neat or you like things in multiples of 3 and 5 doesn't mean you have OCD. The difference between a quirk or a preference and OCD is that OCD causes the person distress when they can't say, have something in multiples of 3 and 5, while preferences and quirks don't cause someone distress.
Mental illness in general has quite a few stereotypes. Mentally ill people are dangerous and unpredictable. Mentally ill people are incompetent. Mentally ill people are doomed to be mentally ill forever, and they can never get better or improve.
I did some research on stereotypes about other disorders that I don't have personal experience with as well:
Anxiety: People with anxiety just want attention. People with anxiety are just overdramatic. Anxiety equals panic attacks. For women with anxiety: Oh, she's just menstrual or over-emotional.
*Anyone can have anxiety, and they can't help it. You can't turn it off and on or fake it for attention. Not everyone with anxiety has panic attacks.
Bipolar Disorder: He or she is just moody. People with Bipolar Disorder are dangerous. People with Bipolar Disorder aren't able to be high functioning, productive members of society.
*Bipolar Disorder isn't just moodiness. Many people with Bipolar Disorder are high functioning and productive. Just look at Demi Lovato. Most people with any kind of mental illness are not violent or dangerous at all.
Depression: Happy people can't be depressed. Depression is just sadness. Depression is a result of life circumstances.
*Just because someone seems happy doesn't mean they can't be depressed. You can have good days and bad days. Depression isn't just sadness. It is a whole range of emotions from self-loathing, despair, shame, guilt, and then sometimes it's hard to feel anything at all. Life circumstances don't cause depression.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Only soldiers can have PTSD.
*People that have never served in the military can have PTSD, like abuse or rape victims and survivors of natural disasters. Also, not everyone that goes into a combat zone comes home with PTSD.
Eating Disorders: Eating disorders only happen to skinny, white girls. Eating Disorders aren't real disorders.
*Eating disorders can happen to anyone regardless of gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or popularity. They are real problems that need psychological treatment, and they take time to treat. The sufferer can't just stop it.
These stereotypes have a huge effect on the people they are applied to. Stereotypes affect the way a person sees themselves, and the way the world views the stereotyped person. Mental health stereotypes can determine whether or not a person seeks help. Maybe they have OCD, but they don't fit the neatness or checking stereotype that we see so often portrayed in the media that the think they don't have the disorder. So, because they don't fit the stereotype they may continue to suffer in silence because they think no one else will believe them.
Back to the flippant use of a mental disorder that I heard in the salon over the weekend. I'm sure the stylist and the lady didn't think anything of using the term OCD. Before my diagnosis, I might not have even noticed it. Since I did notice it, I think it points out a different problem in our society. The problem is that people aren't educated about mental health. Sure, they know about disorders and things, but most only know what they see portrayed in the media, which isn't a complete and accurate picture. If more people were educated about what mental disorders actually were, if they knew about the suffering that came with a diagnosis like OCD or Depression, and the feelings of shame and guilt at not being "normal", they might be as quick to flippantly use terms like that about themselves and others.
I'll end with this: Mental illness is so much more than the stereotypes that pervade our society. Mental illnesses are real illnesses, just like asthma and diabetes. Mental illnesses are not jokes or funny or less serious than other forms of illness. Mental illness doesn't mean unpredictability, violence, or an inability to have a great, healthy, and productive life.
I wasn't offended, but the fact that she just so flippantly threw that out there, just because someone decided to straighten up a cluttered mess, made me stop and think. Why would someone use an actual mental disorder as an adjective in this situation? Why would the stylist's mind automatically turn to OCD when someone was just tidying things? Why? Because stereotypes of mental illness have pervaded our culture. That isn't okay, just like it isn't okay to stereotype someone based on the color of their skin.
I became very aware of how OCD and mental illness in general were stereotyped after my diagnosis. People with OCD are neat freaks. People with OCD check things repeatedly. Quirks equal OCD. The "neat freaks" and the checkers are only two types of OCD. Many different types of OCD exist. Pure O, like I have, is just an example of OCD that people don't hear much about. Also, just because you like your room neat or you like things in multiples of 3 and 5 doesn't mean you have OCD. The difference between a quirk or a preference and OCD is that OCD causes the person distress when they can't say, have something in multiples of 3 and 5, while preferences and quirks don't cause someone distress.
Mental illness in general has quite a few stereotypes. Mentally ill people are dangerous and unpredictable. Mentally ill people are incompetent. Mentally ill people are doomed to be mentally ill forever, and they can never get better or improve.
I did some research on stereotypes about other disorders that I don't have personal experience with as well:
Anxiety: People with anxiety just want attention. People with anxiety are just overdramatic. Anxiety equals panic attacks. For women with anxiety: Oh, she's just menstrual or over-emotional.
*Anyone can have anxiety, and they can't help it. You can't turn it off and on or fake it for attention. Not everyone with anxiety has panic attacks.
Bipolar Disorder: He or she is just moody. People with Bipolar Disorder are dangerous. People with Bipolar Disorder aren't able to be high functioning, productive members of society.
*Bipolar Disorder isn't just moodiness. Many people with Bipolar Disorder are high functioning and productive. Just look at Demi Lovato. Most people with any kind of mental illness are not violent or dangerous at all.
Depression: Happy people can't be depressed. Depression is just sadness. Depression is a result of life circumstances.
*Just because someone seems happy doesn't mean they can't be depressed. You can have good days and bad days. Depression isn't just sadness. It is a whole range of emotions from self-loathing, despair, shame, guilt, and then sometimes it's hard to feel anything at all. Life circumstances don't cause depression.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Only soldiers can have PTSD.
*People that have never served in the military can have PTSD, like abuse or rape victims and survivors of natural disasters. Also, not everyone that goes into a combat zone comes home with PTSD.
Eating Disorders: Eating disorders only happen to skinny, white girls. Eating Disorders aren't real disorders.
*Eating disorders can happen to anyone regardless of gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or popularity. They are real problems that need psychological treatment, and they take time to treat. The sufferer can't just stop it.
These stereotypes have a huge effect on the people they are applied to. Stereotypes affect the way a person sees themselves, and the way the world views the stereotyped person. Mental health stereotypes can determine whether or not a person seeks help. Maybe they have OCD, but they don't fit the neatness or checking stereotype that we see so often portrayed in the media that the think they don't have the disorder. So, because they don't fit the stereotype they may continue to suffer in silence because they think no one else will believe them.
Back to the flippant use of a mental disorder that I heard in the salon over the weekend. I'm sure the stylist and the lady didn't think anything of using the term OCD. Before my diagnosis, I might not have even noticed it. Since I did notice it, I think it points out a different problem in our society. The problem is that people aren't educated about mental health. Sure, they know about disorders and things, but most only know what they see portrayed in the media, which isn't a complete and accurate picture. If more people were educated about what mental disorders actually were, if they knew about the suffering that came with a diagnosis like OCD or Depression, and the feelings of shame and guilt at not being "normal", they might be as quick to flippantly use terms like that about themselves and others.
I'll end with this: Mental illness is so much more than the stereotypes that pervade our society. Mental illnesses are real illnesses, just like asthma and diabetes. Mental illnesses are not jokes or funny or less serious than other forms of illness. Mental illness doesn't mean unpredictability, violence, or an inability to have a great, healthy, and productive life.
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