October 18, 2022
A Realistic Scenario— The Beginning
The past was always in denial—an imperceptible reckoning that leashed on & off to provide comfort if need be and sometimes turn into an aggressive warrior if the need solicited the same. The restlessness did not last long—the chemicals hallmarked by the Machiavellian Serotonin crisped & crashed forging a battle that left me incapacitated to dwell on the justification of my belief; rather misbelief.
Sleep eluded me. The images of the shattered past positioned a reckless regime bludgeoning a morbid fear of repetition and re-surfacing. How relentlessly I tried, the fear of going through the same experience sardonically pestered me to alienate myself from the real ‘belonging’— I could not afford to be a slay fox. Time and test failed, and finally the sleeping demons awakened to laugh on my melancholy. They were not merely a wayfarer but ensconced firmly in my mind creating an object of mayhem. The object—not of desire or salutation—but something I started seeing everywhere; in my closet, my food, in the hands of every awkward and no so awkward person I knew and embalmed as a heavy-duty stamp on my mind.
The object was a ‘knife’; how it manifested is still a mystery of a no-man’s land but it became a part of me. I prayed hard to get it off my mind and also tried to substitute it with an appeasable object but it came back with a vengeance. Anxiety crawled my skin like the scabrous ants frolicking on the dry dunes. My mind pierced—apoplectic and full of validations—it had become a nest of intermingled twigs tied up bravely, not even a strand to fall off if shaken briefly. But, it shook me. I was no murderer to have the butcher’s knife hanged up by sleeve. I momentarily looked in retrospect; the grieving past had nothing to do with ‘knife’—neither the beginning or climax. I lost 10kg in 3 months accompanied by feeling of nausea and loss of appetite. Tucking myself in the quilt and praying was the only succor otherwise life was an intemperate mammoth cloud ready to break away any time.
The answer lay at the Psychiatric ward. Thank God! The diagnosis was not a criminalized mind obstreperously in violation but a mental disorder characterized by obsessions and the contemporaneous compulsive behaviors. I had OCD – Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
THE END
A relatable example of OCD for many is a repetitive behavior of washing hands, checking the door knob or switches or being a cleanliness freak. But, OCD goes beyond all this. It is a debilitating scourge of chemicals making you feel feather-brained and a conspicuous drudgery of emotional collapse. It is different from being delusional. In OCD, the person knows that the invasive thoughts are abysmal and no close to reality but the patient does seek it as an aberration at the rudimentary level.
Reasons are numerous but eventually it’s the minds adaption to some grief or trauma, not to filter out the genetic predispositions and lifestyle anomalies—ultimately leading to a farrago of distortions and misinterpretations.Life sometimes throws us into deep gallows with darkness seeping inside like a poisoned arrow stick in the chest slowly taking away the breadth out of life. The mind is then trapped in sorrow and thereby releases a figment of dead emotions. The invasive objects or thoughts are an inventory of fearful contraindications. The mind is not happy and transpires its annoyance through fear.
Superstitions form a pivotal part of OCD. The thought of being harmed by someone, if a confrontation has ensued, may be troubled by the same thought re-surfacing again and again. One may adopt compulsive behaviors of tying a prayer thread to ward off any dystopic excrescence. One may stop venturing out to curtail the temptation of a trigger where heedless thoughts become the ‘BOSS.’ The thoughts can sometimes be involuntary railing furiously on a metal track abrasion by toxitymaking life seem as a saprophyte—smelly and disgusting.
Many people with OCD will relate to be over protective towards their children. A small task of giving water to your child may become a very disturbing event. The thought that you have poured unclean water scares you to throw the water and then replenish the glass over and over again till the mind in bridled with a validation of water being clean. The repetitive process is taxing both in terms of time and energy. There is no distortion in the mind of water being unclean but the entire process is to justify your obsession with protecting your kid, forming a gallimaufry of compulsive behaviors to keep the child out of danger.
Low levels of chemical Serotonin are a mass of blunder which propels obsessive thoughts and irrational behaviors.
How about falling in love and then getting betrayed? Leaves a mark, isn’t it! Some move on conveniently while some are in grief for life. Women falling in love and facing a whiff of dejection are more prone to obsessive thought of “what if I am betrayed again’. Their sensitivity to the stimulus is a predominant factor for thoughts nestling in mind as a spider’s web. The very experience—a perfidy—will saunter this ineluctable thought amounting to uncanny compulsions like avoiding men and being suspicious of their intentions. Women usually don’t come out in the open to express and act as a savior faire. Gradually, the fear effects domesticity, and their subservience is regarded as a revered portfolio when it is actually the morbid fear of men scaling back to a traumatic past. The same too happens with women who have been harassed by impertinence of rape and acid attacks.
Every individual has their own OCD but the thoughts that make you bite your nail to the extent of tearing it off require medical intervention. It’s not a disability of the mind but out of proportion chemicals with their own reasons to perpetuate. It’s important to get it treated so that human functionality can be synchronized with belonging to life rather than running away from it.