My OCD Didn't Make Me a Better Person

I get varied reactions when I mention that I live with a subtype of OCD called primarily obsessional OCD and that my obsessions tend to be religiously and morally based. Some people are confused but curious because they never knew OCD could be more than the stereotypical contamination or checking type of OCD. Some people think I'm joking when I tell them that I can't lie. Some people are dismissive because the particular type of OCD I live with doesn't seem like a "real" mental illness. Then some people say things like, "Well, at least your mental illness makes you a better person."

I know, or at least I hope, the person is saying that statement from a place of kindness. I try to remind myself that the person is probably trying to find the silver lining in a situation that they don't really understand. However, statements like the above really hit a nerve with me. 

On the surface, the statement feels dismissive of my mental health struggle. On a deeper level, it feels uncomfortably close to the "transformed by suffering" trope we see over and over again in movies and books in which something tragic happens to a person who consistently lives in a moral shade of gray, and then they suddenly realize they need to be a better person after the tragic thing happens to them. It feels, to me, like the person is softly implying that my OCD is the tragic thing that turned me into a better person, which isn't really how OCD works.

The thing about OCD, according to my therapist, is that it tends to attach to the areas of a person's life that are most important to them, and then it tortures them with it. For people with morally based OCD, sometimes called Scrupulosity, those people are already morally upstanding people that are doing their best to be honest, kind, and helpful, but OCD makes them doubt that and then tortures them with intrusive thoughts related to falling short of their version of moral perfection. For people with religiously based OCD, they're already walking in a path of faith and doing their best to live their lives according to that faith, but the OCD torments them with thoughts related to their sins, their higher power's anger at them for falling short of perfection in their religious practice, and terrifying blasphemous thoughts. This aspect of life that the OCD is attached to is so important that the person often feels a crushing amount of guilt and shame. With OCD there is no such thing as "good enough"; it has to be complete perfection or we're complete garbage. 

I was already doing my best to be a good person. I was already doing my best to walk thoughtfully down my faith path. My OCD didn't make me a better person or a more devout Christian. All it actually did was give me an unhealthy dose of moral perfectionism, and it made me hate myself so much that I thought it would be a blessing if I didn't exist anymore. I didn't need all the mental anguish that comes with living with a mental illness to grow as a person or to push me to strive to be the best version of myself. What I needed was to be able to love myself while allowing myself to be as human as possible so that I could learn from my mistakes and grow as a mentally healthy person without the rigid black and white thinking and self-loathing that comes with OCD. 

I'll end with this: Some people think that certain mental illnesses like morally themed OCD and religiously themed OCD make the people that live with them better people. On the surface, sure, it might look like that because the person is really honest and kind or really devout. But...that's not actually how OCD works. OCD actually attaches to an area that is really important to someone and then basically tortures them with it. Since that area was already super important, the person was actually already trying their best to be morally upstanding or trying their best to walk thoughtfully down their faith path. They didn't need to be made into an even better or more devout person by irrational fear, mental anguish, and self-loathing. 

The Balance of Moments

     A lot of the time, living with a mental illness can feel like living with a bully inside our heads. It can feel like OCD and other anxiety disorders hoard our worst fears or our most embarrassing and most shameful memories to use against us when we start to feel the least bit secure or confident. Another way that our mental illness can be a bit of a bully, too, is by making us feel like we're difficult to deal with or a burden to our family and friends. 
    Life with anxiety comes with its fair share of panic attacks and stress crying. Sometimes, I end up catastrophizing in a situation, and all I can see are bad, worse, and end-of-the-world types of outcomes, which, of course leads to panic, hopelessness, and crying. Then loved ones have to deal with me after the crying or sometimes even during the crying. I'm frustrated that I've catastrophized myself into a panicked meltdown when I can logically see that I have catastrophized AGAIN, but I can't stop it once that ball starts rolling. They're frustrated because they may not even know why I'm crying or how to talk me down from that panicked ledge that looks right down at the end of the world.
    After it's all over, I'm left feeling, at best, like I was difficult in a situation that didn't even need to be made difficult by me or, at worst, like I'm a burden that my loved ones probably wish they didn't have to deal with at all. After every panicked meltdown I have that my mother has to witness, I'm so sure she's just going to be so tired of having to deal with me that she kicks me out of the house. In reality, she would never do that, but my anxiety often is not based in reality. My anxiety makes me feel like I'm such a difficult person, that I'm so hard to live with most of the time, that the only logical option is that people must not want to have to deal with me at all. I mean, some days I don't want to deal with myself either, so I get it.
    When I talked to my therapist about these feelings, she told me that just because we have moments that are difficult doesn't mean that we, as people, are difficult or a burden. She asked me if I had a friend who was experiencing something and catastrophizing until they cried if I would think they were difficult or a burden. Of course, I wouldn't. So, she asked me, "What makes you different from your friend? What makes you feel like you're more difficult and that people don't want to deal with you?" I didn't have a logical answer that didn't have to do with my mental illness. 
    My therapist also asked me to think about the balance of the moments. Sure, there are difficult moments. Sure, there are moments when I'm a difficult person to deal with and people get frustrated with me. However, there are also good moments in my relationships with people...moments in which I'm funny, moments in which I'm caring, moments in which I'm the one listening to loved ones and offering helpful advice, and moments in which I make people's lives a little bit better because I'm part of their lives. She also reminded me that it's likely that the difficult moments don't actually outnumber the good moments and that the difficult moments don't take away from the good moments. 
    It's also important to remember that all humans have moments when they're difficult to deal with, whether or not they live with a mental health condition. Nobody is pleasant and agreeable all the time because we all have changing moods, unpleasant thoughts, and days that feel like they're terrible for lots of internal and external reasons. What's important is to view the bad days in the whole balance of good and bad moments and to try to remember not to believe everything you think.
    I'll end with this: Life with mental illness comes with its fair share of moments that are difficult for us and of moments in which we're difficult to deal with. The moments in which we feel like we're being difficult or making a situation difficult can often lead us to feel like we're too difficult so that our loved ones wish they didn't have to put up with us or like we're a burden. Instead of letting that feeling take hold it's important to take the time to view the difficult moments in the whole balance of moments in our lives. Sure, you were difficult in that one moment, but that doesn't mean there weren't moments before and won't be moments after the difficult moment in which you did or can improve the lives of your loved ones by being yourself and being the kind, understanding, funny, and/or helpful person that you usually are.

Therapy Doesn't Work?

    Sometimes when I bring up therapy, people tell me that it doesn't work. I hear this from people who have never tried therapy at all, sure. However, I also hear this from people who have gone to therapy for a mental health condition who feel like therapy didn't help them, or worst-case scenario, that therapy made their mental illness and/or trauma worse than it was before. 
    I get it. I've been there. Through no fault of her own, my first therapist felt like she made my OCD and panic disorder worse. While I was in therapy with her, I probably would have been a person that was extremely hesitant to recommend therapy to other people because, at the time, I felt like therapy didn't work. Then I met my current therapist, and I finally started to manage my mental health conditions well enough to truly improve and begin a real wellness journey with the things she was teaching me.
    A lot of people think that just starting therapy sessions with any licensed mental health professional is the most important thing about therapy. It isn't actually. The most important part of starting therapy is actually finding the right therapist for you. This means finding a therapist that matches you in certain areas like their area(s) of expertise, the therapeutic techniques they use to treat clients, their treatment plan for you as a client, their ability and willingness to be available when you need them for regular sessions as well as emergencies, and their goals for your treatment. If you don't match with your therapist on these key elements, then, of course, you're not going to get what you need to improve from that therapist, and you're going to have the idea that therapy doesn't work because you're not improving. 
    My first therapist, although I was attached to her because she was the first professional that ever told me there was a name for the thing that made me hate myself and that it was a treatable condition, was not the right therapist for me. I needed more frequent sessions that she was able to offer me. She also didn't have the experience she needed to be able to adequately treat my subtype of OCD. So, of course, if I wasn't getting the treatment I needed from her, my mental health was going to continue to get worse. 
    It also seems like a lot of people expect therapy to work faster than it possibly can, and then they start to think therapy doesn't work because they aren't getting "better" fast enough. Therapy is a slow process. It's literally rewiring your brain and forming new neural pathways to make your brain healthier. You can't go to a month's worth, or even three months' worth, of therapy sessions and expect your mental health condition to magically disappear. If that's your expectation, of course it's going to seem like therapy doesn't work, and you'll be more likely to stop going to therapy before it has the chance to truly work. (Medication can generally help chemically rewire a brain faster than therapy alone for some conditions, but that's an option that people need to discuss with their treatment team.)
    I should also point out that some mental health conditions can be medication-resistant in some people. This naturally means that treating mental health conditions in those clients will be more difficult and will take longer. This doesn't mean that therapy doesn't work for them. It just means that it doesn't work as quickly as it does for clients that have medication as part of their treatment plan. 
    I remember when I first started therapy with my current therapist. I cried every week in my sessions for at least the first two months, and I cried more at home as I was learning to process and manage my anxiety and my other emotions in healthier ways. Even after I stopped crying in my sessions, it took a few more months to notice myself feeling, thinking about, and interacting with my OCD and panic disorder in a healthier way. I had to learn to let go of my expectations about how quickly I would get better and actually give the things I was working on in therapy time to change my brain. That's when I was able to let therapy do its job without judgment and impatience, and that's when I was sure therapy was working for me. But, before I saw that progress, man, did I want to give up a few times. (I'm really glad I didn't.)
    I'll end with this: Some people think that therapy doesn't work. They're not completely wrong, but they're not completely right in thinking that either. Therapy with the wrong therapist, the wrong treatment plan, the wrong treatment goals or expectations, and/or the wrong medication(s) will be therapy that doesn't work. When one of those things isn't right for someone, it can be discouraging, and it can make anyone want to give up on therapy altogether. It can even make us feel like it's our fault that therapy isn't working for us even though we desperately want it to work. However, therapy DOES actually work when you find the right therapist for you, and you actually give the therapy the time it needs to start working on your brain. If therapy hasn't worked for you before, or it currently isn't working, it may not be that therapy doesn't work at all; it could mean that one of the key elements doesn't match for you and something needs to be changed in order for you to get the help you need.