Missed Signs

 So, the main part of my story is the fact that I got sick when I was five and wasn’t diagnosed until I was twenty. It’s a lot for me to take in and something that doesn’t make me feel great, to say the very least. I have had a lot of anger towards certain people for letting this happen and blamed them for taking my life away. Of course, I know that no one would do that on purpose, but it still hits me every once in a while, and I have to remind myself that it’s no one's fault individually. My point in saying all of this is that there were clear signs of this disease that I wish could’ve been seen. None of this ever needed to happen. So, I just wanted to list some of the clear signs: some serious and some not. I hope that if I share what has happened in my life, someone will see and prevent another child from going through all of this. 

As we all know, this disease is ugly. At least it can be. Depending on the person of course. Everyone’s different, and as much as it sucks for everyone, I do have to say that the worst part for me personally has been the anger and rage, not because of how it has been for me but because of what it has done to all of my relationships in life. When you are filled with so much anger, that is all anyone can see. They can’t see past that and see how much you are suffering inside. So, the first clear sign was this sudden anger. I plan on having conversations with people around me at the time so we can see their point of view on all of this, but from what I’ve heard, I was a very kind, respectful, overall just good kid, and then things changed. I was told that it wasn’t so much a clear overnight shift, but it was more of me fighting back and doing the complete opposite of what I was supposed to. For example, from my memory, if I slammed a door and was told not to, I would slam it three more times. If I told someone to shut up and was told not to, I would tell them to shut up three more times. Of course, I don't feel great about this as I’m writing now, but I couldn’t tell you why I would do that. I just would. There wasn’t a thought in my mind telling me to do that, I would just do it. And we have to remember that at times, I was just being a kid, so that was definitely mixed in there at times, but especially when punishments were involved, there was no reason for me to do these things. I just did. This divided the people in my life, too. At such a young age, I lost a lot of people because they just assumed that I was a horrible child. There was no question in their mind as to why I was acting the way I was. They just assumed that I wanted to do whatever I was doing. I will say that even though in the house it wasn’t pretty, once I would go to the doctor, my mom would make it a point to say that she knew this wasn’t who I was and didn’t know why I was acting the way I was. It makes me angry thinking about the doctor hearing that and then coming in to talk to me about why I am so mean to everyone, and they never put any more thought into it. That along with how sick I always was you would think that someone would put two and two together. I mean it is what it is but it still hurts a little. 

Other things were clear signs of OCD. One that is not serious at all but was a clear sign is how I ate my Lucky Charms lol. And I just want to say that no one was supervising every single bite of cereal I was taking on busy mornings before school so this isn’t to blame anyone, it’s just funny to think about now. Anyway, I would not only separate the cereal and marshmallows, but I would then separate the marshmallows into different groups, and I would put so much thought into how I ate it from there. I would take one from each group or two from one group or a bunch of the same ones at once. I couldn’t have it if anything was out of place. It would drive me insane if any of the marshmallows moved into other groups, too. So much stress over such a small thing as cereal. Story of my life lol. 

While on the topic of eating breakfast, I just thought of another thing. Like a lot of houses, our kitchen has those signs with sayings on them. Some people love them, some hate them, some think they are cringy, while others think they feel homey. My opinion is that they are a little funny, but a home wouldn’t feel like a home without them. So the three hanging in the kitchen that haven't moved once in the past twenty years have the quotes “family is forever”, “live well, laugh often, love much”, and “family, faith, friends, freedom”. Ironic. In a house full of so much hate and anger (because of me), I would read these signs at least fifty times every morning. Like everything else, this was all just in my head. I never said any of this out loud. No one had any way of knowing. Every time I sat at the counter, I would have to read these over and over again in my head. I would look at them a certain number of times and then have to say them perfectly without looking a certain number of times, and it would drive me insane if I didn’t get them right. I can’t tell you what the exact numbers were or anything like that, but I know it was not normal. Even though I don’t live there anymore they are still running in the back of my mind a lot of the time. Again, this isn’t anything serious but it is very interesting to look back and see things make so much sense. 

The last one I am going to talk about right now should’ve been a little more obvious for the people around me to notice. To be fair I do have to say that at this point, it had been many years of me just being a horrible child so it makes sense that no one was trying to look more into things. So this last one is basically how I was never able to keep my room clean and how I would try to clean it. It’s funny because with OCD you would think that my room was completely spotless but boy is that so far from the truth. Hahaha. When I say my room was a mess, I don’t mean that there were toys or clothes that I didn’t put away. I mean, you literally could not see the floor. And it wasn’t just one thing covering it. It was like my room was flooded two to three feet with crap. Whether it was clothes, toys, hair stuff, papers, art supplies, literally anything. And I did not enjoy this at all. This wasn’t a choice. I know that’s a load of crap to most people, but it wasn’t. I don’t know why it was so difficult for me to put things away. It still is, to be completely honest. I will eat my breakfast and have my coffee and the mug and bowl won’t move from the table all day and when I’m more depressed than usual it will pile up so fast. When I’m not, it will just not get done until so much later in the day. I would love for someone to please explain the reason behind that to me because it drives me insane, but I just cannot not do it. So back to my room. With having OCD, I think it was more living in a mess that made me so anxious and unable to function than it was feeling the need to clean everything. I would want to clean everything though. But when I cleaned, I cleaned. I couldn’t just put things away. Haha yeah no. I wouldn’t be able to put away the stuff in the middle of the room until I went into the back of my closet and pulled out buckets full of crap that I was hoarding for no reason and went through every single thing. Now you might be thinking “That’s ridiculous but at least you got to clean those things out too.” No. If you think I got to go through those buckets, you would be incorrect. The second I dumped those out, it was over. Remember the three-foot flood of crap that is already there? Now add on these giant buckets of more crap being dumped on top. Too much. Way too much. I would just sit there and cry. I couldn’t do it anymore. I would give up immediately and who even knows what happened from there. As annoyed as my mom was, there were times when she would help instead of fighting, which I was grateful for. Very rare, but when it happened, it was great. I felt so stupid that I needed my mommy to clean my room for me, and I know that is how everyone in the house, including her, felt, too. No one knew why I couldn’t do it. I didn’t know. I was already seen as a needy, selfish little girl who didn’t want to do anything, and this fits into that perfectly. I was just so overwhelmed all of the time. Once everything was off the floor and I could breathe I would have to do a deep clean. I would dust, vacuum, clean the windows, everything. That is great and all and I would feel so much better once it was done except for the fact that it would only last that day. Immediately, the second I pulled something else out, the mess would start again. And this would just be on repeat for years and years and years. As I got older and could drive, things would get much worse because now I could get food and drinks at drive-throughs, so on top of all the clothes would be empty Dunkin bags and half-drank coffees. Disgusting. Also humiliating. If anyone came into my room, I would be mortified. I remember going away for a few days and having someone watching our cats and they had to look in my room for one of them and I just knew what they walked into. Believe me when I say it wasn’t a choice, or else it never would’ve happened. As I said before, I would go through the same process over and over again of having a spotless room that would last only a couple of hours until everything would fall apart. I was seen as careless and ungrateful for having a space to myself and destroying it when, in reality, something in my brain just would not let me keep it together. I wish I knew why. 

That is all I have for now. I hope these examples may help you understand yourself or someone else a little better. Not just with this disease but with people and mental disorders in general. From what I’ve learned in my own experiences, no one is trying to be a negative or ungrateful person. If someone is acting in a way they shouldn’t be, they are more than likely struggling a lot on the inside. I could’ve gone on for pages and pages of examples for this one, and I plan to do many more, but I thought this was a good place to start.