I have been thinking a bit about OCD - since a friend's son suffers very badly with it. All the "useful advice" I have been giving her to help him cope with this, is the product of my own experience, but not with OCD.
Attentive readers may be aware that since before I started this blog in 2011 I have been trying to get over a dose of unrequited love, which has been quite disruptive. I think I have got "over" it now, to the extent that I do not feel it much any more. If the said love turned out to be requited and active, that would be another story - but I am no longer sick with it.
Looking back at how I got over it, I see, that, as is so often the case, it happened through time and circumstance. Chiefly, time passed and I found other fulfilling and distracting things to do. It helped that I was no longer working on the novel that related to it, so I was not constantly being "triggered". It helped more when I was deeply involved in something else, work, dealing with students and domestic issues, Christmas is always a big distraction, going out to work, seeing groups of friends and NOT talking about it helps. Doing sociable things with my husband which enable me to see him in a more positive light help.
These things are pretty similar to the advice I have been giving my friend - telling her to get her son out of the house, remove distracting stimuli, reminders of the obsessions, get him out seeing other people, doing something, working. And in his case, keep medicating! I don't think there was a medication against the LO - the citalopram certainly helped the depression but didn't seem to remove the desire to see him, be with him, talk to him etc.
I realise that in some ways psychiatrists might regard unrequited love as a form of OCD - it has many of the same traits - there are triggers which immediately provoke the thoughts (mention of the city he lived in on the radio for example, or a country he worked in) - as one of the favourite songs says There is always something there to remind me. Of course, it isn't as stuctured as OCD, it doesn't have its rituals... but it definitely has that sort of sense of being in a loop of stimulus and response, where you cannot escape. I have "automatic memories" - for example seeing a harvest moon in September over a newly cut field in the dusk ALWAYS makes me think of one of the last walks James and I had before we began to talk about divorce. However, that scene can also fade into the more generalised nostalgia I suffer, where certain scenes provoke a non-specific sense of longing. This non-specific longing turns back to become attached to the LO... and then, crazily, things that have nothing to do with him, are attached to him, and I sigh.
Rationally unpicking one's responses is helpful - but like therapy, it is not a quick fix. As in therapy, you may know why you feel a certain undesirable way, but it does not necessarily stop you feeling it. The answer is, keep analysing, keep unpicking. If you find yourself slipping into it, find yourself at it and say "No, you are only doing that because you read about someone with the same name" (or whatever). Getting rid of these feelings is difficult, not straightforward, especially if you are of a romantic, idealistic disposition. Those feelings seem to suggest something better, finer, than grim, sweaty reality, one wants to cling to them, they seem to be a tenuous contact with the numinous, or a higher sense of oneself.
Is this higher sense of self a delusion? Does our reach exceed our grasp - we can never have this thing - this life-improving objective which will make everything so much better. Is this what OCD people are trying for - the completion of their system that will give them peace.
Anyone who has lived into middle-age and thought about the world knows that there is nothing that comes into your life without a new set of problems attached - even a £13m lottery prize! Age makes everything a little less efficient, especially our idealism. I ought to feel glad I have recovered from love, but in a sick way, I miss it, the brief contacts with a higher form of joy... will I ever experience them again? Is that why people long for grandchildren and like pictures of cats on FB. Life is duller without unrequited love, but it is certainly less sickening and depressing. Perhaps it isn't quite the same when people recover from OCD.
Attentive readers may be aware that since before I started this blog in 2011 I have been trying to get over a dose of unrequited love, which has been quite disruptive. I think I have got "over" it now, to the extent that I do not feel it much any more. If the said love turned out to be requited and active, that would be another story - but I am no longer sick with it.
Looking back at how I got over it, I see, that, as is so often the case, it happened through time and circumstance. Chiefly, time passed and I found other fulfilling and distracting things to do. It helped that I was no longer working on the novel that related to it, so I was not constantly being "triggered". It helped more when I was deeply involved in something else, work, dealing with students and domestic issues, Christmas is always a big distraction, going out to work, seeing groups of friends and NOT talking about it helps. Doing sociable things with my husband which enable me to see him in a more positive light help.
These things are pretty similar to the advice I have been giving my friend - telling her to get her son out of the house, remove distracting stimuli, reminders of the obsessions, get him out seeing other people, doing something, working. And in his case, keep medicating! I don't think there was a medication against the LO - the citalopram certainly helped the depression but didn't seem to remove the desire to see him, be with him, talk to him etc.
I realise that in some ways psychiatrists might regard unrequited love as a form of OCD - it has many of the same traits - there are triggers which immediately provoke the thoughts (mention of the city he lived in on the radio for example, or a country he worked in) - as one of the favourite songs says There is always something there to remind me. Of course, it isn't as stuctured as OCD, it doesn't have its rituals... but it definitely has that sort of sense of being in a loop of stimulus and response, where you cannot escape. I have "automatic memories" - for example seeing a harvest moon in September over a newly cut field in the dusk ALWAYS makes me think of one of the last walks James and I had before we began to talk about divorce. However, that scene can also fade into the more generalised nostalgia I suffer, where certain scenes provoke a non-specific sense of longing. This non-specific longing turns back to become attached to the LO... and then, crazily, things that have nothing to do with him, are attached to him, and I sigh.
Rationally unpicking one's responses is helpful - but like therapy, it is not a quick fix. As in therapy, you may know why you feel a certain undesirable way, but it does not necessarily stop you feeling it. The answer is, keep analysing, keep unpicking. If you find yourself slipping into it, find yourself at it and say "No, you are only doing that because you read about someone with the same name" (or whatever). Getting rid of these feelings is difficult, not straightforward, especially if you are of a romantic, idealistic disposition. Those feelings seem to suggest something better, finer, than grim, sweaty reality, one wants to cling to them, they seem to be a tenuous contact with the numinous, or a higher sense of oneself.
Is this higher sense of self a delusion? Does our reach exceed our grasp - we can never have this thing - this life-improving objective which will make everything so much better. Is this what OCD people are trying for - the completion of their system that will give them peace.
Anyone who has lived into middle-age and thought about the world knows that there is nothing that comes into your life without a new set of problems attached - even a £13m lottery prize! Age makes everything a little less efficient, especially our idealism. I ought to feel glad I have recovered from love, but in a sick way, I miss it, the brief contacts with a higher form of joy... will I ever experience them again? Is that why people long for grandchildren and like pictures of cats on FB. Life is duller without unrequited love, but it is certainly less sickening and depressing. Perhaps it isn't quite the same when people recover from OCD.
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