How Mindfulness F***ed My OCD
By: Kevin D Welsh
Tags: Mindfulness, Ocd, Obsessive Compulsive, Religion, Cutting

In my early childhood I was diagnosed with OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). I was lucky enough to get the kind of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder that fucks with your thoughts more than with being tidy (though I am very tidy and any form of OCD is just as awful). Self hatred, worrying constantly if I was ever good enough, pleasing everyone around me, chugging medicine in fear of getting sick, punching myself in the nose to punish bad thoughts of hurting people, that I were convinced were mine, along with suffocating myself to blacking out in my bed when I was convinced there were germs in the air around me are just some of the fun ways I spent most of my childhood. School was difficult at times because any project I needed to complete was never quite perfect enough and therefore I would always complete tasks late or not at all out of pure frustration with myself. It has been a life-long journey for me now at the age of 30, nearly 20 years later after being diagnosed, and I’ve tried literally everything to try and get control of it. I’ll get to the whole mindfulness thing, but let me share some personal prior efforts of mine all about controlling my OCD throughout different parts of my life.

In my earlier teenage years, I had been going through more prescribed medicine and therapy sessions than I can count trying to get some sort of relief, though none ever really helped. Sure I would have some instant relief here and there, but eventually the thoughts and paranoia would come pouring back in until I was once again punching myself in the head every time an unpleasant thought surfaced itself. I tried cutting as I ventured into my later teenage years which was also accompanied with some heavy alcohol abuse. No, I wasn’t combining the alcohol with medication, I had thrown medication out the window in frustration by this time. I have the countless scars to prove it up and down my arms, and unfortunately my now 4 year-old daughter asks how daddy got hurt (I’ve stopped cutting for years prior to her birth) and it’s a constant reminder of just how torturing the thoughts & OCD can become each time I look in the mirror. My daughter is also a reason I’ve never quit looking for some kind of help to overcome, or at least have a handle, on this disorder.

So if medicine, therapy, alcohol, support groups & cutting just wasn’t taking care of it, what the hell else could I try? Believe it or not, I even ventured into the spiritual side of things to try and get control of the compulsive thoughts. I dabbled into almost every religion including a very interesting church group that was convinced I had demons ruling my thoughts and tried talking to them directly to “cast them out”. No I didn’t have pea-soup come spraying out of my mouth, nor did I start levitating above my bed, but they were convinced the job was done and any further thoughts were my own as the demons were certainly gone. This did wonders when it came to the guilt mixed with paranoia I already had in fear that the thoughts WERE mine. I delved into another society that based freedom and control around the idea that sex released spiritual growth and opportunity to master yourself and future growth and went all for it. But after that did nothing I went into the complete opposite direction and practiced abstinence for over a year (including with myself) to try and gain back control over the way my mind works. I don’t want to name any religions specifically because I in no way mean to come off as one who does or doesn’t believe there is a greater force out there or that anyone is right or wrong to devote your life to a specific belief, my point is just to explain how I tried absolutely anything to get freedom. The kind of freedom that anyone with OCD desires.

I kept most of this hidden through life until recently as I have always suffered from major embarrassment when trying to explain the uncontrollable thoughts that I have as they normally follow with reactions from people to possibly consider psychiatric institution (yes that’s how bad they can get). Being married and having children have definitely influenced how I can respond and cope with OCD, meaning alcohol and blades just can’t cut it anymore (okay not funny).

EMDR therapy was suggested to me by a family friend a little over a year ago, and this definitely affected me in a way no other outlets had done. The major thing I noticed about this therapy is for once it wasn’t about expressing my feelings/thoughts that I had done over and over already, but rather, it was about embracing my thoughts and letting them run wherever they wanted to go. OCD is all about having control as I’m sure anyone reading this already knows, and to me NOT controlling or taking ownership of my mind with how scary it could be at times was insane to me. But again, I was willing to try anything, and that’s exactly what I did through the EMDR therapy session. It was amazing how light my chest felt and how my mind calmed down for a while. This cognitive therapy also showed how all thoughts connect to each other and how random they can be, but also how they might subconsciously be connected to something deeper you may never have even realized. But as with many of the things I’ve tried before, within a few days following the session my mind, paranoia and anxiety starting rushing back in.

This therapy session, not covered by my insurance, cost about $150. With thoughts rushing back through my head within 48 hours of the session, that would mean I could go back and try it again every 2 days each week. This would be just under $500 weekly, around $2000 a month. With a job that pays a little above the average mean, along with 2 young kids and a wife to care for, there was no way in hell I could afford it. I had to find a way to gain this feeling of freedom again myself.

How hard could it be?

Hard. Very fucking hard.

Trying to lead myself through a similar therapy session had me doubting any question I had for myself, whether or not I was performing the exercises correctly, hell it was hard enough for me to say a positive word to myself in general anyway. I tried this a few times until I gave up, but I couldn’t let go of that idea and exercise of just letting my mind run its course and how effective it was. I did as much research into the topic of EMDR and cognitive therapy as I possibly could. Though I never found online a way to conduct such a session yourself, I guess that’s why people go to school to be certified in it.

I was watching TV one night when a commercial happened to come on that had an image from nature with a circle that counted down from 30. That’s all it was. I stared at it wondering what the hell was going to happen, and nothing did. After it hit 0 the show continued. I jumped on my phone and looked it up and found that it was done by the company known as “Calm”. Basically, like many of them, its a company all about mindfulness. I had thought since I already tried so many religions, including meditation, that it was another dead end. But something about that commercial made me curious, so I signed up for a trial and, like my perfectly driven self, went through every single exercise, course, and sound that the app had. I eventually stumbled on one that was all about sitting still and accepting your thoughts as they were, very similar to the EMDR session I had. But the difference was you didn’t need to say anything. Nature sounds played in the background as I sat there and tried my best not to judge myself, but just let my thoughts run their course again.

The outcome was similar, but within 48-hours things started pouring back in again. So I went back and did this same session again and again and again. Hell I was doing this almost 10 times a day, but eventually I noticed my mind start to rewire itself to the point that when an uncontrollable thought popped in my head, it was accompanied with those nature sounds and a reminder that it was okay to let the thought run its course. Does that mean I kept thinking about the thought? That sounds confusing I know. But no. I simply observed the thought. I let it exist, and then I moved on.

And that was the beauty I started noticing about this single session in the hundreds of others that I went through, this one simply let my mind be. I stopped trying to force other thoughts in my head or make the current disturbing ones go away. I just let the thought be. And when I did that, the guilt and frustration that normally accompanied my original actions of control moved on. This had me seriously perplexed. I then did more research into the mind and how repeating something (like training a dog almost) could rewire the very way the brain works including the chemicals it can produce in reaction to thoughts in the mind.

At this point I was sold. I started chasing after mindfulness with the theory of letting my thoughts be what they are, embracing them and the moment. I tried to journal every thought I had and then I also wrote a response to every thought that said “I let this thought be. I’m still okay.”

It has been almost a year since I first saw that commercial and started practicing this way of mindfulness which includes meditation, breathing exercises, keeping a journal, listening to different sound frequencies to focus on the moment, and basically anything else that embraces the moment. Am I going to say that my OCD is cured?

No. Fuck no.

Hell I don’t believe anyone with OCD or any disorder for that matter can ever really be free from it. But what I’ve learned through mindfulness practices is that I can live a little easier with myself and OCD. These practices have taught me to love myself a little more and have compassion on my inability to control my mind which even has led me to try medication again and other healthy ways of maintaining an easier life with OCD. What I will say is that I’ve yet to have anything else in my life have quite the effect that Mindfulness has had on me. I still have thoughts rushing back to me and my OCD flares worse at certain times than others which causes me to practice mindfulness multiple times every day, but the work is worth it. It’s like exercise. I completely understand how body builders train their minds into living and breathing weights and breaking down their muscle only to rebuild it again stronger. At first, mindfulness seemed like a chore for me. It was hard to find those 5 minutes to reflect and let my thoughts run their course. But the more I did it without missing a day, the more natural it has become. My mind is slowly learning to automatically respond to the thoughts that once drove steel across my flesh with reflection and relief. There is one major truth that has come from all of this mindfulness shit and that is simply…

You are NOT your thoughts

But wait, doesn’t how you think effect how you perform and the achievements you make in life? Isn’t that the entire point of mindfulness? To think your way to a greater attitude and life? Not to me; no. If how we think determined our fates we would all be royally fucked because we are naturally negative, judgmental and unhealthily narcissistic. Instead, I believe mindfulness is more like stoicism, meaning it’s how you react to your thoughts. And how you react, how you observe these thoughts, is what changes the long-run outcome of your mind. The thought “I’m such a failure at everything in life” (to use a G-rated reoccurring thought of mine), instead of being responded to with anxiety and control of never wanting the thought again and wondering if it is true, has turned into simply observing it and letting the thought be. Not forcing it to go away, nor accepting it as identity, just letting it be. And once I do that with a thought, I’m able to see it more clearly along with my own reasoning towards it. At the very worst? I might fail at things in life, but that doesn’t mean I’m actually a failure at life. And being able to see this changes the entire way my physical mind and body reacts.

Okay that’s great for a thought, but what if I have thousands of uncontrollable upsetting thoughts throughout the day? Like I said, it has been some hard work and tiring at times, but I’m learning more and more to observe each one that really gets to me and approach it with the same sort of mindfulness. This has even changed the way I take things that are said to me from people, especially my wife. I’d go as far to say that this practice of mindfulness is beginning to help my marriage.

I could go on and on, but my whole point with this article is to express my own experience with Mindfulness as it continues to gain traction in today’s world. And those of you that struggle with OCD, I’d challenge you to give it a try and commit, really commit, to practicing mindfulness. Everyone I believe will have their own approach to mindfulness and the exercises it entails. For example, many apps and recordings start with “Sit comfortably with a straight back” which is supported by research that proper posture even influences the brain (like I said I’ve done extensive research) but I HATE sitting still. I find walking or driving to be my best physical state for mindfulness. Something about movement calms me and always have, so why not do all the same thinking, reflecting and observing this way? To me, it has done just as much, if not more, than when I actually do try to sit still and be mindful.

My OCD has definitely fucked me over plenty of times through life, and still does and always will. Like I said, I’m not free and don’t believe I ever really will be from OCD, but mindfulness has definitely had its turn fucking my OCD back well enough to make me smile.