Barefoot

I’m excited to actually have something upbeat to blog about this time. I hate writing dark posts because I don’t want pity. I write them because I want to be honest and give a full account of what it is to fight OCD. It’s not pretty. But I also want to give people hope. Every time I beat a compulsion, my first thought is sharing it with all of you to show you that it’s possible. Unfortunately, I usually fail at actually posting because of OCD, but I’m working on it.

So much has happened since I last updated. I’m still struggling with the dark cloud, but I’m not depressed; it’s not constant.

In May, I increased my dosage of Prozac to 60 mg/day. The previous dosage, 40 mg/day, had begun to take the edge off general anxiety but had not yet helped with OCD. This current dosage, though, has been amazing. I’m doing so many things that I never thought I’d do. It’s too much to cover in one post, so this will be the first of a series of updates on how Prozac, OCD, and I are getting along

First up: my fear of being barefoot

I have been unable to be barefoot for years. Yes, this includes at home and in bed. I have been terrified of leaving my feet unprotected from contamination. I have been for years, but this particular fear got a lot worse a couple of years ago when I got a fungal infection in my toenails that took forever to fight off. I didn’t understand it at the time. I am SO careful about my feet. I regularly took the girl I babysat to the pool. I didn’t swim (that’s a whole other fear), but I walked around the pool area in sandals. As soon as we would get home each day, I’d ditch the sandals for my socks, thinking they would offer more protection.

I was wrong, though. OCD completely misled me. Surprise, surprise, right? Wearing socks 24/7 actually helped the infection along. If I had just suffered through being barefoot a little, I would not have had to deal with all of that crap.

ANYWAY, the point of all of this is to say that I am getting better about being barefoot. A couple of months ago, I started a barefoot exposure on my own. Instead of putting on socks immediately after showering, I had to walk downstairs into the living room before I could put my socks on. I didn’t always make it all the way down before caving. However, the past couple of weeks, I have been sleeping without socks EVERY night. I don’t remember exactly when I started going without, but I have not worn socks one night since. It’s amazing.

It was really hard the first few nights. I kept a clean pair of socks in my pillow case just in case I couldn’t make it through the night, just in case I panicked. But I never used them. I don’t even get nervous about getting in bed now. I habituated SO quickly.

I was really skeptical about trying Prozac, as I’m sure many of you remember. I almost quit so many times during the process of building up to this dosage. I’m so glad I didn’t, though. It has made ERP therapy so much easier. Doing my homework doesn’t seem like such a tremendously impossible chore anymore. This sock thing wasn’t even homework; it was just something I decided to try on my own.

On the other side, I’m still majorly struggling with stupid little things like TV remotes and steering wheels and kitchen counters. I’m still paralyzed when it comes to cleaning my house, which is infuriating, but I’m hoping that will loosen up soon.

A Taste of Freedom

As most of you probably know, I tend to beat myself up a lot, especially over school work.  I also frequently beat myself up for failing so miserably at my ERP (exposure response prevention, for newer readers) homework.  I like to drown in self-pity over wasting my time and my therapist’s time.  I spend lots of time focusing on my failures.

But I realized something today.

I am free from a couple of compulsions that used to have serious control over me.

Before, when I finished showering, after turning off the water and pulling back the shower curtain, I had to turn the water back on to wash my hands because the shower curtain seemed so contaminated.

Then, after drowning my body (except for my feet) in lotion (because contamination OCD leads to super dry skin), I had a very ridiculous and complicated process for putting lotion on my feet.  I would grab new clean socks and tuck them into my pajama pants.  Oh, this is embarrassing.  Then I had a towel that I would use to wipe off my feet.  Immediately after wiping off one foot, I would quickly put lotion on it and then the put a sock on it before putting that foot down.  Then I’d repeat with the other foot.  I looked extremely silly hopping around on one foot at a time, trying not to fall over, trust me.  I just couldn’t handle being barefoot because floors are dirty.

I don’t do either of those things anymore.  I haven’t done those rituals in months.  I don’t even think about doing them anymore.  I completely forgot about them until today.

And I don’t even have to thank my meds for that.  It’s all me and my hard work.

It’s easy to forget these things because that is the goal, after all.  The purpose of ERP is to erase compulsions from the brain, so I didn’t notice when these two disappeared.  It’s easy to forget about the things I have accomplished when there are still so many hurdles in front of me.  But today I want to look back and reflect on what I have conquered.

So therapy is working, slowly, but that’s ok, and it will keep working if I keep up with it.  I have proof for myself that it’s worth it.  Now I just have to get back to work.

Medication

Part of the reason I have not been updating is that I have not been doing well.  It was fun to post when things were going well.  But things have not been well for awhile and so I haven’t really felt like sharing.  I should anyway, but I haven’t.

I haven’t been doing my therapy homework.  I haven’t wanted to.  I haven’t wanted to do much of anything.  I have just been giving in to OCD and feeling really helpless.  I just don’t feel like I am making any progress.  When I look at where I was when I started therapy in June and then look at where I am now, I see there is progress. But it’s so little and so slow that it’s less than encouraging.

Anyway, so I had a therapy session today and I told my therapist how I have been feeling.  She asked how I felt about trying medication.  I have been against taking medication, so  I related my past experience with OCD meds to her.

When I was diagnosed about 11 years ago, I tried Paxil and Celexa (not simultaneously).  I hated both of them, especially Paxil.  There were too many bad side effects.  At the time, my OCD was not so bad that I couldn’t manage it on my own, so I decided to forgo medication.

But now I am having trouble dealing on my own.  Medication would help me make better and faster progress in therapy.  It would take a bit of the load off of my back.  I always thought I could manage on my own, but it has gotten so much harder over the years.  I thought I could do therapy without medication, but I had no idea how hard or how slow it would be.  It can be difficult not to get down on myself on a regular basis.  I am tired of feeling like a failure.

So I have decided to give medication another try.  My therapist said the ones I tried when I was 12 years old are no longer prescribed for OCD because of the side effects.  She wants me to try Prozac.  She said it should not negatively affect my schoolwork.  She thinks it will, instead, make school less stressful.  The only side effect she thinks I should look out for is sleep problems.  This makes me nervous because I have had trouble sleeping for years, on and off.  But I’m going to give it a try.  She wants me to start at a really low dose, 10 mg.

Part of me feels like I’m giving up.  Part of me feels like this is just another form of failure.  I am trying not to think like that, though, because it’s not defeat.  I just need help.  And that’s ok, right?  Hopefully I will feel better about this decision.  Hopefully it will help.  I’m just afraid.

So we’ll see.  I will try to write more once I start taking it.  I will have a lot to process.  So I hope to be around here more.  I have to go get a prescription this week.  I hope this is not a mistake.

Have any of you OCDers taken Prozac in the past or do you take it now?  If so, what do you think of it?  How has it worked (or not) for you?