Out of OCD: Adventures in Compulsive Obsessions

By Toi Hershman

Toi Hershman had an almost idyllic childhood. She had a loving family and everything she ever needed. But in second grade, she started feeling anxiety creep in and needed to tap things or make things "just right" to calm down. If she didn't, she was convinced bad things would happen. As she got older, the ur

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Degree Press
• Release date: Jan 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9781637309490

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New Degree Press

Copyright © 2021 Toi Elizabeth Hershman

All rights reserved.

Out of OCD

ISBN

978-1-63730-841-7 Paperback

ISBN

978-1-63730-903-2 Kindle Ebook

ISBN

978-1-63730-949-0 Ebook

I dedicate this book to all those suffering from OCD and their families, friends, and support systems. My deepest hope is that you find your way out of OCD.

To my loving family. We have been through so much. Thank you for always believing in me even when I didn’t believe in myself. Thanks to Scott and my two incredible boys, without whom I would have not had the strength to defeat my mental monster. I love you!

Contents

Author Note

Prologue

Chapter 1: Everything’s Cool

Chapter 2: Give Her an Inch

Chapter 3: OCD Gets Sparked in Middle School

Chapter 4: The Assignment

CHAPTER 5: Gloria’s New Bestie

Chapter 6: Rocky Careers

Chapter 7: Someone Stole My Ford Escape!

Chapter 8: Carl Is Her Favorite Name

CHAPTER 9: Get Your Own Dang Robin!

CHAPTER 10: Having Adam

Chapter 11: The Scariest Thing

Chapter 12: Trying to Work

Chapter 13: Mirror, Mirror

Chapter 14: Dwindling Time

Chapter 15: Pittsburgh Called

Chapter 16: Progress and Setbacks

CHAPTER 17: Talking to Kids

Chapter 18: Taking It Back

Acknowledgments:

References

Author Note

Hi Friends,

This book is for anyone who has ever had their mind held captive by Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, or OCD. I wrote this book because it took a long time, from my diagnosis at twelve years old to the proper treatment for OCD at forty-two years old. That’s thirty years, folks! No one should have to suffer that long with this disorder. I hope this book helps at least one person find their way out sooner than I did.

This book is my own story and my experience with OCD. Yours will not be the same, but the underlying feelings, stress, life hardships, and regrets will be relatable. My goal is for you to find comfort in this book. I want you to know you are not alone. I want you to know great people out there can help and OCD is not a life sentence.

This book will provide resources and tools to help you find your way out of OCD through my own experience. I use my lens because it is the only one I have, but I hope you will draw parallels where you can to your experience and take the tools and resources for your own.

I know you will because OCD people are pretty freaking brilliant, even with 90 percent of our brains tied behind our backs!

This book is for you! You are brilliant, fabulous, extraordinary, and I care so much for each of you suffering from this disorder. So, here is my first handshake and super huggie to you. Hi, I’m Toi. I am a mess. I have OCD.

I recall seeing hints of my OCD future in second grade when I began tapping on desks a certain way and specific numbers of times. Most people and the media have a minimal understanding of this disorder. That misunderstanding makes sense because most of us are masterminds at hiding it. We are James Bond-level super spies who keep anyone from finding out.

OCD is complicated to describe since OCD logic is not logic at all. Many well-meaning people have told me to cut it out; it makes no sense.

I always think sarcastically, Thanks, very helpful, gee, I wish I had thought of that.

Don’t they know we would just cut it out if we could?

Explaining OCD to someone who has never been there feels unbelievably frustrating. You know there is no way they will even come close to understanding. Plus, the media’s comic portrayal of OCD doesn’t help.

To the sufferer, OCD feels like having a sadistic, micro-managing boss-monster demanding you follow a tortuous set of nonsensical rules to ensure the safety of yourself and your loved ones. And, just when you think you have the rules figured out, OCD will change them on you. The OCD rule book is an ever-changing and expanding moving target.

The prevalence of OCD is around one in forty, according to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), (NIMH Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) n.d.), and according to a Harvard Medical School Study, over half of adults with OCD have a severe level of impairment (Ruscio et al., 2010).

In general terms, OCD is characterized by intrusive, troubling thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive, ritualistic behaviors (compulsions), which are time-consuming, significantly impair your life, and cause extreme distress (Lack, 2012). When an obsession occurs, it almost always corresponds with a massive increase in anxiety and pain. Subsequent compulsions serve to reduce this anxiety and distress but are only temporary.

Common obsessions include contamination fears, worries about harming oneself or others, the need for symmetry, exactness and order, religious or moralistic concerns, forbidden thoughts (e.g., sexual or aggressive), or a need to seek reassurance or confess. Common compulsions include cleaning or washing, checking, counting, repeating, straightening, routinizing behaviors, confessing, praying, seeking reassurance, touching, tapping or rubbing, and avoiding (Lack, 2012).

I probably experienced most of the obsessions on the list at some point in time. This is where labeling people as having specific sub-types can be misleading or harmful. For instance, my biggest fear or obsession is death. However, I have also had many other themes that morphed and changed along the way. Plus, my compulsions (what I do to fix it) have also continuously changed. In later chapters, I will discuss some of the more common themes, but again, no one fits neatly into any one theme and probably has experienced several along the way.

OCD comes in many forms and is personal to each sufferer, but the process is the same. Intrusive thoughts that won’t stop, anxiety and fear from the thoughts, the idea/compulsion that doing something and thinking a certain way can somehow fix it, and the practice of being stuck in this terrifying loop to the detriment of your well-being, family, career, and happiness. We all want the same thing—freedom from this menace!

Fellow OCD sufferers, this book should resonate with you and provide the tips, tools, advice, and strategies to get out of OCD. For those who love someone with OCD, this book will help you understand, in a realistic context, what your loved one is going through. I have read many excellent books that have helped me out of OCD’s clutches. I felt the pull to write this book because I know my particular manifestation of this disorder can help many of you find your way through the pain, anxiety, and mental torture that is OCD.

Coping with OCD isn’t as sexy as the James Bond analogy I gave earlier. If you are dealing with OCD, you are living a double life. You are desperately trying to be present for the important things but constantly fighting a battle in your mind.

When I began to let go of OCD, everything changed. With the help of a therapist who knew how to treat OCD, I started seeing my mental captor as just a noisy neighbor screaming at me from across the way. In time, I eventually didn’t care what that noisy neighbor said because it wasn’t me.

The most important thing you can understand is that OCD is not you! You have a broken part of your brain that is quite fixable but sends you scary information because it is confused. The excellent news for all of us is we have a way to fix it—a simple method in theory but tough to implement in practice. However, I know we can do it and beat this thing.

Thank you for reading this book.

Huggies,

Toi

Prologue

After getting my boys to school, I returned to my empty house. The tension of the day, week, month, and year had built so much that a break was inevitable. On my way upstairs for a shower, I walked through the kitchen and into my dining room. When I hit the dining room, Gloria was lurking in the corner, lying in wait for me with an empty wine bottle. Whack!

I fell to the floor in a fit of numbers, death, destruction, and carnage. She bellowed that I am a stupid whore who did not do anything right. I got the boys to school wrong. Bam! I filled up the water bottles wrong. Slap! I walked out of the house all wrong. Crash! She roared at me that all of it was wrong and I had ruined everything! I ruined everything as I had always done. The agony and pain brought on by this monster thundered over me.

I fell to the floor sobbing, unable to move. For the first time in my entire OCD experience, I thought it would be better for everyone if I disappeared or died. Consumed with terrifying thoughts of death, destruction, carnage, numbers, ages, pain, and all the shame, guilt, and regret that came with it, I felt helpless. I had allowed myself to be weak. I let my children, my precious boys, see the crazy. I felt, at that moment, they would be better, saner humans if I disappeared. I was in trouble. I was in big trouble. I cannot say I was suicidal, but I was one step away. I was living my worst nightmare, and Gloria was the star character.

If only death wasn’t so scary.

Chapter 1:

Everything’s Cool

My early childhood was pretty normal. Idyllic even. Norman Rockwell could have painted the scene.

In second grade, I lived in Dudley, Massachusetts, a small rural town near the middle bottom of the state. We moved there from Boston right after my youngest brother was born. My dad worked for Ford (the car company) as a leasing and financing manager. As a child, I remember thinking that Boston was a fantastic place with so many people and things to do. Friday nights were the best! My dad would take my brother and me to get milkshakes and then hit the museums—either Boston’s Children’s Museum or the Science Museum. My dad and I loved to drive around the city and crank up the Commodores’ Night Shift song on the tape deck in the car. We had a great bond, and that was our song. We were both, and still are, on the night shift—we never sleep.

Moving to Dudley was a significant change. I rode the bus to school, something I had never done before. The bus stop was at the end of our very long street. So long, in fact, the neighbor parents took turns driving us there and picking us up each day. We only had one car at the time, a Ford Granada that we affectionately called the grenade, so my mom was not always able to drive when my dad took the car to work.

Our entire neighborhood consisted of that one street. It was relatively new and a work in progress. Most of the home builders lived on the street as construction was occurring. They were all from Poland, which I thought was cool because they spoke this mysterious language I couldn’t understand, and they were so friendly. There were a few kids my age on the street to play with. My best friend, Mandy, lived across town and would join us from time to time if we could arrange transportation. There were no playdates in the eighties; you just went outside and did stuff.

Life was mainly free of worries, except for Demon. He was the terrifying, appropriately named beast of a dog who lived across the street. I think he was part monstrous creature and part pit bull. His secret power was striking fear into the hearts of children. Demon just seemed mean—constantly barking with foam at the mouth, as if to threaten that if that chain ever broke, you were sure to be torn limb from limb.

Once we managed to escape from Demon’s eyesight, we could relax and have fun. We found an endless number of small ponds where the builders had cut trees to build new homes. Construction equipment sat unmanned to our delight, and we could always find stacks of wood or building supplies for makeshift forts. Rainwater made the ponds swell, and we collected tadpoles to watch them develop into tiny frogs.

Sometimes, on garbage day, my mother would flag down the driver so we could ride on the back. So fun! Again, it