Mental Illness: An Autobiography| How is it like to have OCD, anxiety and depression| Part I

I have been suffering from mental illnesses for more than seven years. It takes a lot of courage of me to come out and publish an article about it. Mental illness is heavily stigmatised in Hong Kong, with the sensational news reports of untreated psychotic patients committing murder, it led some people to believe that all mental illness patient are potentially violent (my secondary school teacher admitted she was afraid of her neighbour because he had schizophrenia). In fact, stigmatisation is one of the major reasons mentally-ill patients are not getting help. The vast majority of people with mental illness are not violent; Inaccurate beliefs about mental illness and violence lead to widespread stigma and discrimination. 

Here is my very private and personal story about how it is like to be suffering with OCD, anxiety and depression. I am opening my story so the general public can know more about the conditions in a more accurate way other than the "glorified-TV-and-movies-form".

From a young age, I have had the problem of having a certain image or thought or sound being stuck in my head. It was very disturbing. One of the earliest memory of true OCD symptoms is when I was in primary school. I constantly had the thought of vandalising, and the thoughts were very disturbing and intrusive. I had to compulsively do certain movements on my hand to "prevent" myself  from vandalising. It lasted for many months and was very disturbing. But it went away after I went to secondary school.

After I got admitted to secondary school, I felt depressed and anxious from time to time. I would feel heart palpitations and anxiety out of nowhere.

One day, something changed the course of my life forever.

At lunch time, I decided to drink a cup of coffee with my classmates (note: caffeine is a type of stimulant and people with anxiety should avoid caffeine). After the ingestion, I had terrible stomach ache the whole evening.

At night time, I had difficulty falling asleep. I felt very agitated and anxious. Suddenly, I got reminded that the Floridan death metal band Cannibal Corpse has a song titled "Fucked With A Knife". I suddenly had a thought "what if I stick a knife into my vagina?" I felt very frightened and the thought got stuck in my head (for the rest of my life, I still have this thought). I had a bad panic attack and it scared me so much.

This changed the rest of my life. Like a switch, my OCD switch was activated, and I had to deal with it for the rest of my life.

Let me tell you what is OCD. OCD stands for Obsessive Compulsory Disorder. It consists of two part, the obsession and the compulsion part. A lot of people suffer from "Pure O", which is not having any compulsion, this makes treatment and diagnosis very difficult. The OCD Obsession isn't like the obsession of football game, pop stars, TV shows. It's a kind of unwanted and disturbing thoughts that no matter how hard we try to get rid of them, they stick in our head. We can have an obsession persistently, from the moment we wake up til the time we go to bed. It's very debilitating. Common themes of the unwanted obsessions include contamination, blasphemy, causing harming(to self or others), inappropriate sexual acts, doing socially-unacceptable behaviour, schizophrenia. For more information you can view this website. Most of the suffers know our thoughts make no sense, but we are forced to think about them. I found a description which is very accurate:

"Imagine that your mind got stuck

on a certain thought or image…

Then this thought or image got replayed in your mind

over and

over again

no matter what you did…

You don’t want these thoughts — it feels like an avalanche…

Along with the thoughts come intense feelings of anxiety…

Anxiety is your brain’s alarm system. When you feel anxious, it feels like you are in danger. Anxiety is an emotion that tells you to respond, react, protect yourself, DO SOMETHING!

On the one hand, you might recognize that the fear doesn’t make sense, doesn’t seem reasonable, yet it still feels very real, intense, and true…

Why would your brain lie?

Why would you have these feelings if they weren’t true? Feelings don’t lie… Do they?

Unfortunately, if you have OCD, they do lie. If you have OCD, the warning system in your brain is not working correctly. Your brain is telling you that you are in danger when you are not.

When scientists compare pictures of the brains of groups of people with OCD, they can see that some areas of the brain are different than the brains of people who don’t have OCD.

Those tortured with OCD are desperately trying to get away from paralyzing, unending anxiety…"

The same "what if I stick a knife into my vagina" thought stuck in my brain in a very rigid way for at least 3 years. I didn't tell anyone because I felt very ashamed of it.I didn't know anything about OCD. I thought I must be crazy or something! Everyday life became difficult, I had panic attacks all the time, I find it difficult to sleep or eat or study. Life turned upside down.

Two years after the incident happened, I finally had the courage to tell my mum. But I still felt immense guilt about my thoughts. I didn't dare to tell anyone else besides her.

To see what happened next, please wait for Part II.

Disclaimer: the information provided in the blog is for information purpose only. It is not used to treat, diagnose, or prevent any illnesses. Please consult a professional for advice.