OCD, or self-diagnosing

At the beginning of the week I went on a Mental Health First Aid course. Thought it would be useful for my volunteer work – Street Pastors and St John Ambulance – plus might also give me some tools myself for dealing with depression, should it strike again in the way it did 2 years ago.

(As an aside, I’ve finished my CBT for looking at how to deal with my bottomed-out self-esteem, and things are looking up. Though I’m slightly nervous about doing it on my own, without a therapist to talk it through every week. But I’m confident I can manage, and am not putting too high expectations on myself – which was one of the problems!)

One of the things I discovered during the course – well, looking through the course booklet, was a condition on the OCD spectrum called CSP – compulsive skin picking. That and TTM, trichotillomania (or hair pulling) seem to be what I’ve been doing since I was a kid – more intensely since I was 18/19.

CSP – it has a name! That means other people do it! That means I’m not the only one in the world. That means although it’s a problem, people have recognised it and thought up ways to help people stop it. That means I’m not a lost cause! That means I can stop – after all, others can and have. Woo hoo!

It’s not just a form of self-harm, which I thought it was, though I didn’t think it was quite that, as there was something rather addictive – compulsive – about it.

I’m wondering if I suffer from Body Dismorphic Disorder in some way. According to OCD UK:

BDD obsessions may manifest themselves as excessive, disproportionate concerns about a minor flaw, or as recurrent, anxiety-provoking thoughts about an entirely imagined defect. The obsessions are most frequently focused on the head and face, but may involve any body part. When others tell them that they look fine or that the flaw they perceive is minimal, people with BDD find it hard to believe this reassurance.

Some of the ways it can manifest (relevant to my behaviour):

Checking the appearance of the specific body part in mirrors.
Excessive grooming, by combing, shaving, removing or cutting hair, applying makeup.
Picking their skin to make it smooth.
Picking the skin around the perceived defect.
Comparing the appearance of the perceived defect with that of others.

It’s amazing how giving something a name makes it a lot less scary.

I’ve always picked scabs and bit my nails since I was a kid. Not excessively, but was always told off about it, like it was a major deal. I remember when I first started growing the body hair we all grow, you know, the normal stuff. It was dark, dark, dark! And I’ve never really been able to control it: even when I shave I miss some (and take a good proportion of my skin off at the same time).

The hair pulling – with tweezers from my legs – started at uni. I remember the moment with clarity. I was trying to wax my legs and my roommate came in and couldn’t cope with me doing it when she was there, so I ended up with half-waxed legs, which I then had to shave. Of course I missed loads! And so out came the tweezers. Because hairy legs is SO unfeminine. (I think I mentioned one of my self-esteem issues is a feeling of not being feminine enough.)

I’ve seen and heard the lie that a ‘proper’ woman has a clear complexion and is totally hair-free, apart from long, luscious hair on her head, and realised I don’t live up to that.

And so it began in earnest. And 14 years later I’m still doing it. I can’t cope if there’s a dark hair growing. It MUST come out. It’s even worse if it’s growing under the skin – that’s where the tweezers get dug into my skin to get it out. Then it forms a scab, which is ripe for picking. And if there’s a hair growing out of the centre of that scab… well, that has to come out.

The thing is, I KNOW that picking the scabs, or pulling the hairs make my skin worse. They bleed and don’t heal quickly. They get infected and scar. My legs are a mass of scabs and scars – so the very thing that is supposed to remove the ‘defects’ I dislike creates more, which look a lot worse.

But there is hope!

There’s a treatment called habit reversal therapy – replacing the bad habits with good. For example – instead of picking I could rub moisturisers into my legs instead. I’m waiting for a book about overcoming OCD to arrive, so hopefully with the experience of having had therapy, and the buffer of the anti-depressants to keep me from going under again – I can work on reversing this. If I can’t do it by March, when I’m looking at starting to come off the pills (the doc suggested I keep taking them during winter, as winter can cause its own depression), then I’ll go to the doc and ask for some help.

Fulfilment

I’ve been thinking about fulfilment recently. Below is a short stream of conciousness on it.

I’ve been enjoying volunteering as a first aider with St John Ambulance. I feel fulfilled through helping people: I feel I’ve maybe found a place to be, found my gifting.

But… is it wrong to get my purpose from that?

Only if it becomes the sole centre of my purpose.

How do I stop it becoming the sole centre of my purpose, my fulfilment?

By giving the glory to God. By being thankful for the gifting He has given me. By not taking for granted these new skills I have learned and am using. By remaining humble, not becoming prideful.

I’m off out again tomorrow. I have the week off work (what bliss it was to wake up on a Monday morning and not have to get up!) and have chosen to spend one of those days doing first aid. Or at least sitting around waiting for people to injure themselves!

Oh, and there’s a guy… I know, there’s always a guy. But I’m saying no more in case I jinx it. Not that I believe in that,  it’s more I don’t want to obsess TOO much, and if I put it down in black and white it becomes ‘out there’. This one I’m keeping to myself.

For now…

Men and mental illness

[ARGH!!! I'm not sure what I did, but I just deleted 15 minutes writing on this!]

I’m not implying, by my title, that I believe men are the root cause of mental illness (though they do play a part in mine), but if you choose to believe that…

Rather, the two major things playing on my mind (other than job and house issues, but another day for those) are men and my own mental health.

My mental health

Last Friday I went for an assessment to see if I was a suitable candidate for a new group CBT session there were setting up for people with depression. My initial referral suggested that I was; spending time with the therapist revealed that I am not. I am no longer showing signs of depression (hooray!), but am still showing signs of significant lack of self-esteem and need to know how to manage this so that I will not be reliant on the antidepressants for the rest of my life. I’m back on the waiting list for one-on-one CBT.

We did, however, discover 2 rather fundamental trains of thought that underly my low self-esteem:

• I do not believe I am particularly intelligent.
• I do not believe I am very feminine

However, I do know that these are negative thought patterns and in themselves are not true (though there are elements of truth in all of them), but I am unable to break out of them myself. And they are a fundamental part of my shyness around new people, and my struggle to relate well to men.

Intelligence

I was always the ‘clever one’, while my brother was the ‘arty one’. And then I went to Uni and realised some things are just beyond my comprehension. The guys at work can talk politics and sociology and other things I don’t understand: I feel thick, and considering most of them are younger than me, I feel stuck, forever to be tied to jobs that require no particular intelligence, and imagine myself at 75 still unable to live on my own, stuck in a house share with people I don’t particularly like, because I can’t get a well-paid enough job because I’m stupid.

And the only way I can see out of this is to move in with a man. But we’ll get to that in a bit.

I have a 2:1 degree in Microbiology from a very good London university – I am clearly not stupid.

I can do things with spreadsheets, Word and PowerPoint that make some of my colleagues weep with envy. I am clearly not unintelligent.

I am learning First Aid and have already put it into practice. I am clearly not a political geek. My intelligence is in a very different area to that of those I spend a lot of my time with, which makes me feel rather insecure. I’m surrounded by those that think deeply about things: politics, faith, life. I don’t think so deeply, so abstractly.

This does not make me unintelligent. Comparing myself with others is understandable, but detrimental. And when it’s a guy I have feelings for as well, I feel doubly inadequate, as not only can I not match his intelligence, but I’m not a ‘proper’ woman!

Femininity

I was a tomboy growing up. I didn’t like skirts or dresses – they made it difficult to climb trees. I was probably too competitive – being smaller and skinnier than the boys I could climb higher.

Boys didn’t like me. Depressed from an early age I was moody. I went to an all girls school; then co-ed at A-Level. I blossomed. Girls are bitchy. Boys liked me; boys are week; girls ’stole’ them from me through gossip and bitching. I became a pariah, a joke. Only the freaks and geeks went out with me.

And then they left me because I wouldn’t put out.

And all the while I don’t feel girlie enough. I look better with short hair. But I still don’t like how I look. I look like me Dad. I look at me and see man’s features. I have dark hair, particularly on my legs. I have man’s legs!

The self harm started as a result of getting rid of these man hairs. And punishing myself for having them. And the more I do it the less feminine I feel. And so I continue in the hamster wheel of self-harm.

And now it’s a habit. And I’m trying to stop.

I have not wanted to burn myself since before Christmas – that was the last time I did it.

I have stopped biting my nails. A friend bought me nail files and nail polish and I remembered how much fun nail polish is! I’m now a little obsessed, but I have nice nails now, and with moisturiser and discipline, I’m healing the skin around them that I used to pick.

I still pick my legs. But I’m working on a bargain with myself to stop this. I’m giving myself 2 reasons I am allowed to pick, and 2 only:

• If I cut myself shaving. Which is rare only because I epilate mostly. But sometimes it takes too long to do that, and when I shave I usually take a portion of the back of my knee off. Those I can pick. There’s something I rather like about picking scabs. I know it’s gross, but I have that kind of morbid fascination with that. And I also like scars. They tell a tale, a history.
• My feet. It’s summer. Summer shoes attack my feet. I can pick them because shoes hide them.

It’s a start. It’s like moving from 2 packs to 1 pack of fags a day. I can’t do it all at once. In fact, I’m struggling to limit myself to just that. But each day I pick (pun not intended there) myself up and try again.

Men… well, I’ve gone on a bit much in this post. Shall leave them to another.

Lent

Aphra posted about Lent yesterday, with a link to this prayer guide (it’s a pdf). I thought it interesting and it has got me thinking.

I had already planned to look at the issues of grace, guilt, forgiveness and repentance (just a few little things!), to try and see how we as Christians can let go of unnecessaryguilt. So many of us are wracked with guilt that I think the Humanist Society has half a point with their athiest bus campaign.

Some Christians worry so much no wonder those who don’t believe can’t see what the benefit of Jesus in their life would be. After all, when most Christians they know have more hangups than then, why are they going to believe that Jesus makes life so much better?

I also thought about giving something up, but in a time of recession, I’m already cutting back. So I’ve decided to give up something that isn’t material or financial (though I might fast on luncthime a week to focus on the study, and give the money somewhere): I’m going to give up talking so much and take up listening; give up focussing on me so much (don’t laugh!) and take up focussing on others.

Sticks and stones

“Sticks & stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”

Well, that was a pile of crap (not carp, as I just wrote, though stinks just as bad!), wasn’t it? Not only do we get beaten up by others who talk us down, but we get eaten up by our own negative self-talk, and end up believing the lies, comparing ourselves to others and not living our lives to the full.

I bet you remember some of the shitty, nasty things people said. And some of the things people didn’t realise would hurt you, the labels they gave you.

“You can’t sing.” Uh, yes I can, but it’s taken me over 15 years to pluck up the courage to do so, so thanks.

“She’s the grumpy one.” she wasn’t, but life sucked and she didn’t know how to handle it at such a young age, but the label stuck, and now she IS the grumpy one, the depressed one.

Learning to love yourself