... as a person with Homosexual Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. (Gave you a bit of a start there, huh?)

I must state this: I am NOT homophobic, I have NO issues with homosexuality. Although, if I say "I am not homophobic" too much, it will begin to sound insincere...! But in all honesty, duh. I'm about as homophobic as I am clever, which is not at all. ;)

I'm tired of this. I haven't talked to or seen any of my friends from high school since a birthday party thing in June. (It was June, wasn't it?) I've been going downhill since graduation and I haven't made any serious attempts at getting together with anybody. I'm going to try to arrange a get-together sometime in the near future, and when I do, I'm going to have to explain what I've been doing all this time.

I'm tired of thinking "Well, no one will get it. This isn't an obsession you talk about easily, because it's so easy to take the wrong way or be misunderstood.". I'm hoping that I'm wrong, and that I'm just very pessimistic, but... well, the obsession *is* hard to explain coherently. It's an obsession - you live in your head. You create your own logic. When you try to explain it to someone else, words tend to fail you. I write a bit better than I talk - I can articulate my thoughts more fully and can make more sense than if I were just chatting.

I've told myself that I wouldn't talk about the obsession until I got it under control, until I could claim victory and say "Well, I've beaten this thing into submission. Here's my story." It's never going to happen like that. Every day is a victory. Not a big one, but a victory all the same. I'm damn proud of myself for putting up with the shit my head comes up with. I'm going to talk about the obsession *now*. When I'm doing a-OK and feel very confident that I have a good handle on it, I'll post about it. But I'll post now, too. I'm going to post when I feel like nothing can get better. I feel like that a lot, but every day something's better. Not much is better, but little things. I can be myself again - I can be the Scarlett (well, ok, Deanna, as that's my *real* name for those who don't know!) I was a year ago. I can be the same Deanna who got the British Comedy Club going (I can only assume it's petered out now...). I can be the same Deanna who designed the Art Department section of my high school's website (it was pig doots, but you know). I can be the same Deanna. I'll just have the added knowledge that I can get through anything and that I'll always have to deal with OCD, but I can do it.

OK, enough ego-inflating.

I wrote this in an email to the wonderful and spangly Egret:

"This form of OCD is commonly referred to as Homosexual OCD, or HOCD. It doesn't actually have anything to do with one's sexuality - it's an irrational fear and can be managed, not cured, with proper medication and therapy. I started therapy for the obsession with my current therapist (I have a psychiatrist and a therapist - my psych can prescribe meds, my therapist can't. My therapist is trained in CBT, my psych isn't. It all balances out. :) ) in the fall of 2002 and went through a week of intensive CBT in February of 2003. I welcomed every "bad" thought that came into my head and did the things I wasn't able to do before therapy - get into bed while thinking of a girl and just shrugging it off and getting my mind on something else. Without medication and therapy, it's debilitating, because you spend every moment of your life doubting your own thoughts and becoming convinced that you're gay. You're not able to step back and be objective about it - you're not able to see how irrational you are and how your thoughts and compulsions are classic OCD. The only thing you can think is "But it might be real, what if I'm gay and I'm just figuring it out now? What if I've just repressed it my whole life? What if? What if? What if?". Your thoughts seem so real and you can't figure out what's real and what's not."

I had a fantastic senior year with only mild OCD symptoms, all unrelated to the HOCD. If I did have thoughts of the HOCD, they were along the lines of "What if I start worrying about that again?"

Then I graduated from high school.

Also from the same email...

"Transitions are hell for people with OCD or any sort of anxiety. I started going downhill after I graduated from high school, and it makes a lot of sense that this obsession has flared up again - I'm nervous about college and I don't have anything to occupy my mind like school. (After I get this under more control, I'm going to get a part-time job.) I thought I was cured of the obsession - I didn't think it could ever come back. Come to find out that's the worst thing you can think - it will only make any relapse you have more difficult. It will hit you harder than if you just kept it in the back of your mind that your OCD could flare up. That way you'd be able to recognize the thought/anxiety as OCD-related and handle it with techniques you learned in therapy. My therapist hadn't told me about this... that it's a lifelong thing (I know OCD is a lifelong thing, but I hadn't realized that the gay worry form was going to be there forever), and that the HOCD could come back, and that during extra-stressful times I need a little extra help so that the OCD doesn't catch me in a bad moment.

The week before Christmas (this year), I woke up terribly anxious, with the thought "Well, I may not be OK, but at least I'm not worrying about being gay again!". Cue anxiety attack. Since then I've had OK days and horrible days. Having been through it once before helps a little, but not enough. Studies have shown that people with Tourrettic tendencies (I have a touch of Tourrette's) tend to have far more vivid imaginations than most people. That's what made this bout of the obsession very difficult in the beginning - I was (am) able to vividly imagine graphic situations with women (touch, sensations, images) and that scared me. I hadn't been able to imagine such things the first time around, probably because I was still relatively young and hadn't seen very many "naughty" things (R-rated movies and the like, not porn!).

(I'm explaining the thoughts because I just want to make it clear that this really isn't a sexuality crisis, but a mental thing. One of the worst things, if not THE worst thing, to do with this obsession is to reassure yourself (or to seek reassurance from others) that it's just OCD and that it's not real. You have to learn how to function through the anxiety and with the thoughts. I'm not asking for reassurance, so please, don't post back with assurances that it *does* just sound like OCD or whatever. It would relieve my anxiety for a few minutes, but as my therapist says, "we want to stretch it to hours!" - which is only possible by not seeking relief from anxiety. I have to learn how to just let it wash over me (I was able to the first time around) and to recover from the anxiety by just getting my mind on something else, and not from an "artificial" source - someone telling me it's just OCD, me telling myself it's just OCD, etc.)"

My imagination is very vivid and in fact continues to be a big factor in any difficulty I have at this point. I can distinguish between Tourrettic tics and OCD thoughts, but that doesn't help. It is a huge leap forward though - now, instead of being in fear of the thought "What if it's REAL?", I'm just terribly, terribly frustrated that I have to deal with this crap. Yes, I do have anxious moments when the OCD takes hold and I start doubting everything, but I get through it. It sucks. It sucks mightily. (I'm making progress though, and the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel is in sight. Things are getting better.)

Why is this all so bad? Take a look at the Brainphysics OCD Bulletin Board and read what other people are going through. They're experiences aren't too far off from my own. I've done my fair share of posting there.
Again, why is this all so bad? Why can't I just get over it? I'm sure these sort of thoughts are running through your mind. I simply can't. It takes work and time. I hit rock bottom two months ago. I mean *rock bottom*. I was in such a bad way that I experienced depersonalization - "... a feeling of detachment or estrangement from one's self . The individual may feel like an automaton or as if he or she is living in a dream or a movie. There may be a sensation of being an outside observer of one's metal processes, one's body, or parts of one's body." It's common as a full-fledged disorder, or as a one-off type thing, which is what I had. I have never felt anything as bizarre and frightening as that sensation. But now I'm sitting here, writing about it. That's another victory, isn't it? :)

Some people understand OCD and some people don't. Some people think that all it takes is a bit of elbow-grease and then you'll be fine. Just get over it already! So what if you're gay?

They are the ones who don't get it.

The ones who get it realize that it's a mental disorder and cannot be cured. They get that things that cannot be cured are pretty bad. They realize that it can be managed, so it isn't that bad. But they also understand that when it's not being managed, it's very bad.

They get that it isn't a question of "accepting one's sexuality" or some crap like that. They get that it isn't about something real. They get that it is irrational but very very real to the person with OCD. They just get it.

HOCD is a bitch. I hate that it will forever have an impact on my life. I hate that it took my sophomore and junior years of high school away from my life. I hate that it's taken as much of my life as it has. I hate that I'll never be able to make anyone understand how painful it is to deal with at times. I hate that probably, in the future, I run the risk of someone thinking I'm just some insane closeted homophobe. I hate that probably, someday, someone I tell will think I'm overdramatizing my experiences. I hate that I will have to deal with HOCD and OCD for the rest of my life and that I will have to make a conscious effort all the time to manage it. I hate that I had to defer my first semester of college because I was doing so badly with the obsession. I hate OCD. I want it to take a physical form to kick it in the shins and smash it round the face and kick it in the nuts (assuming OCD has male genitalia in physical form).

I can't do that. But I can keep doing everything I can do get better, and damn it, that's what I am going to do. Fuck you, HOCD. Fuck you.

*cue dramatic music*

Feel free to comment, ask questions, whatever. Tell me what you really think. I'm sick of wondering what my friends would think if they knew that I suffered from this obsession. I'm ready to be better and I won't feel better at all if in the back of my mind I'm worrying that my friends will think I'm crazy.

Sorry for such a depressing post. But then, I'm a bit depressed, so... yeah.

Here's a bit of happiness - visit Egret's Somebody To Blog, because it's brilliant and I love it. I owe you an email! Happy Birthday Sarah - I had no idea it was your birthday and I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to post a greeting on your actual birthday... Nina, that whole thing about the comic was so weird. Some people can be really rude - your name sounds fine. ;) Sari - in all honesty, your teacher sounds creepy. :/ Your talk of Queen slash has me intrigued though... *scratches chin* Have any links? :D David - hope things are going OK for you and all that. You get to watch the new Who - I hate you very deeply for that. ;) Best of luck with your play(s?)! Morgeil (yep, I read your blog even though I can't say I know you at all!), I enjoy reading about your adventures in Who-dom. The First Doctor is excellent and gets no respect, I tell ya. Addison - I miss ya! Don't you wish we could go see Kylie? We could wear tiaras and lots and lots of glitter! :D

OK then...

Cheery bye, Scarlett/Deanna

PS - If you wanna learn more about HOCD, you can't do any worse than Googling it or "gay OCD". This piece by Dr Fred Penzel explains more about CBT, which is what I'm going through to defeat this shit.