My OCD Experience

My name is Elizabeth and I suffer from OCD.

I'd like to share a little bit about myself in this first entry.

My first severe symptoms OCD started when I was about seventeen years old. I had an experience that left me with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In turn, I developed horrible anxiety. To cope with this anxiety I started to perform 'rituals' to lesson my symptoms. My main irrational fear was that someone was trying to poison me, and that the result would be a complete mental breakdown on my part. For the most, my fears had to do with things I used, touched, and ate.

I began to organize everything. I started to choose things in threes. I set up 'traps' in my home to see if things were moved. I stopped going out socially. For example, I could not consume any food unless I was sure that the package it came in was airtight. This meant I was living off of pre-packaged food. Even so, if I opened it and it just didn't look or 'feel' right, I would need to dispose of it. I also developed the need to have everything I consumed shared by people in my life, mainly my mother and father. They quickly grew accustomed to having to 'test' my food and drink before I could. And forget about taking any medication! I was positive that what was being given my the pharmacy was tampered with.

That is just the tip of the ice berg with my experience, more later!

So, that was the basic beginning. It got allot worse. My symptoms began to effect my family life. I had just turned eighteen and was forced to leave my parents house again. (For full life time line, check posting, MY LINE.) I found a very small studio apartment and moved in. I did not leave the apartment for three months. I was too scared to go out. I honestly felt like I was losing my mind, and I was having panic attacks constantly. They would wake me up from sleep and I was sure that someone had broken in while I was sleeping, and 'contaminated' things around my apartment. I couldn't eat anything in my home. For example, I would open a bag of chips, and if after I took a shower, or nap, or any time when the food was out of my sight, I went back to the chips and they didn't 'feel' right, they were garbage. I just could not get past the highly unlikely possibility that when I wasn't looking, someone contaminated them, even though no one was ever in my house. Well, that is right about when I started throwing up, I told you before, it gets allot worse. Like I've stated, I was mostly concerned with food. I struggled with bulimia and anorexia since I'd been thirteen. I'd gotten help and was better, but now, I could not help myself. Everything I ate would lead to a debilitating panic attack. Everything I ate got vomited up. As I said, this went on for months, then a friend who missed her 'party' buddy suggested I start drinking again, that maybe then I'd be able to go out to party's and bars with her. I had stopped drinking because my anxiety was always unbearable the morning after. I drank to get drunk, and then I drank more to forget everything. My life was falling apart. Well, I was ready to take my own life, so I figured, I'm eighteen, I know I'm a drug addict and an alcoholic, but, I just cant feel this way anymore. I started drinking again.