Others find that you can fiddle with the mind without having to drill a hole. Nancy Wallick, a clinical social worker at Suncoast Center for Community Mental Health in St. Petersburg, uses a combination of cognitive therapy and SRIs to treat OCD.
"Old-fashioned psychotherapy is not very effective in reducing repetitive thoughts and behaviors," Wallick says. Instead, she starts with supportive counseling, which isn't necessarily aimed at reducing thoughts or behaviors, but just "getting people feeling comfortable talking about them. One of the defining features of the repetitive thoughts is that they are repulsive to the person having them. Until you can admit the fear, you're not going to be able to go anywhere."
From there, Wallick usually prescribes an anti-depressant, but that's not a catch-all solution either. "Most people don't find that the medication makes the problems evaporate," Wallick says. "But they do make the urges easier to resist."
It's a challenge sometimes to know whether or not you're afflicted. "Everybody has some intrusive thoughts," she says. "Everybody has some repetitive behavior. But if the behavior is extreme, distressing and interfering with your life — if you're washing your hand 50 times in a row — you should seek an evaluation."
'I've been fortunate enough to meet more people with OCD since I wrote Devil in the Details," says Jennifer Traig. "I can't understand them at all! They seem so weird to me! Mine I understand. Like, why would you be afraid of your keys? They're just keys! Doorknobs? I totally get you."No doubt, OCD is an interesting disease, apparently even to other OCD sufferers. Few conditions have such an array of unique personality-centric symptoms — which, again, makes it great grist for the media mill. However, that same quality too often leads many to feel they're alone in the world, even among other OCD sufferers.
"I couldn't believe that anyone else in the world had this," says Traig. "Had I known that 'You're not so special,' and that there's these miracle drugs, it would have been much easier to take. If I could say something to anyone reading this who finds that the descriptions sound a little too familiar, it would be that you just have to bootstrap it along to your doctor and you can really make some inroads.
"After I got better, I was angry about it for a little bit," she continues. "This was a disease, and I couldn't help it. It wasn't just acting up. I think [my family] did me a favor by insisting that I could help it. Which, in the long run, probably did help it. I gained a certain mastery over my compulsions."
For some, a combination of drugs and mindful thinking seems to work well, with the drugs taking the sharper edges off the disease and making compulsions seem somewhat more manageable. Others still disdain treatment altogether, and get Martin Scorsese movies made about their suffering.
As for me? I was able to overcome my OCD-like symptoms — at least my scrupulosity — with a little thought and (non-repetitive) prayer. But first I had to realize that the Creator probably didn't give two shakes one way or another if I repeated something two times or 200.
