The OCD Haze: In My Own Words

Episode 19:

The OCD Haze: 
This terrifying state of mind and being when you are trapped inside of symptoms and it feels like there's no way to connect, no way to ever go back to who you were, and life will never be the same. It's almost impossible to describe and hard to remember when you're out of it, and hard to remember what it's like to be normal when you're in it. 

In today's episode, we have four different accounts of what it's like to be inside the OCD haze. I know the descriptions and experiences are going to make you feel like you are not alone when you are in this space. There is such vulnerability and real reflection of the experience in this episode. I know you will relate!

If you are in need of a community of people who can help you feel more accepted, less alone, and more connected to people who understand, please check out my online community for weekly support, monthly classes and events at https://the-ocd-support-community.co.mn

If this podcast inspires, supports, and gives you hope and you'd like to support us monthly or sponsor us, please visit our patreon page and become a member. Your contribution will help us continue the podcast and help us provide even more resources for our community! https://www.patreon.com/intrusivethoughtsunmasked

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to Intrusive Thoughts and Mask, the podcast where we explore what it's really like to live with intrusions, the emotional landscape that comes with them, and the common experiences so many of us share. I'm Chrissy Hodges. I created this podcast to bring lived experience into the light for those navigating intrusions and mental rituals with OCD. My hope is that here you can finally pick up the map and still often wear behind this disorder. I want you to feel seen, understood, and accepted. Welcome to episode 9. Today we are going to do the segment in my own work, and the topic is the OCD. In this episode, we are talking about in the words, of what it's like to be in the OCD haze. I wanted to take a minute and explain what I mean when we're talking about the OCD haze. This is kind of a nickname of when we're talking about being very saturated in symptoms. This can happen when you first get triggered with something. A lot of people describe it as having this gut bomb moment where you can kind of feel it in your stomach, you feel it tingling in your head, and all of a sudden you feel like life is quickly being stripped away from you and you're no longer connected to it or yourself. You can sometimes experience these intense feelings of doom and despair, shame or guilt, feelings of it's never going to be the same. Why can't I go back before I saw that or I thought that or I experienced that? It very much is this experience of utter isolation and terror about how life is going to be now that I'm trapped in this box that feels like I can't connect to anything else. Now, the haze can be part of, like I said, a trigger, or it can happen with long duration of symptoms, the intensity of symptoms. And you can have this experience for a couple hours, a couple days, weeks, months. And sometimes people can feel very disconnected and in this state of mind for years. People also say that you can experience the haze, which I like to describe as being dissociated or disconnected, almost as if you're buying into 100% of everything OCD is saying. And then you can have a moment of clarity. I sometimes describe it as being in the spin cycle of OCD and coming up for air for a brief moment and realizing, oh my gosh, I don't have to be down there only to get sucked right back down into it sometimes. Now, for me, as I've advanced a little bit deeper into my recovery, I realize that insight is correlated to being in the haze. When I have really low insight, meaning when I can't recognize that what I'm experiencing is OCD because it feels so real, typically high symptoms, high shame. Then I feel like I am in the haze. I feel disconnected from the world. I feel like I'm behind blurred glass. I feel like I can see the world happening around me, but I'm not really participating. I'm just going through the motions. Now, when my insight is high, that's like coming up for air out of the spin cycle. I get that clarity. Oh my gosh, this really is OCD. But then of course I can get pulled down back into it. Luckily, now, because I've been through so many relapses that when I experience the haze, I can recognize what it feels like, even if it feels too real and my insight is low, and I can take steps to move toward gaining greater insight and moving through that really dark and terrifying feeling. So now that I've told you what the haze is, you'll be able to listen to four of us talk about our lived experience of when we were in it and some of the practical things that we do to understand what it is and to get out of that and to gain more insight.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Hi, everyone. I own a uh group practice called Cohen OCD therapy. And I also have OCD. Um, I've had it since I was about seven years old and been dealing with anxiety for as long as I can remember things. So, yeah, today, you know, I want to talk a bit about what it actually feels like to have OCD, especially when OCD hits, because it can be extremely terrifying. Like you feel like your world is coming and your reality is coming crashing down, and everything is just a spiral. And I think a good place to start, I'll just kind of say so. Some of the themes I I've dealt with um, you know, are kind of more harm-related themes coming to myself, harm coming to myself or my family, um, symmetry and just right kind of related themes. But for me, you know, the themes that have hit and stuck the hardest and hit, you know, have taken more of the toll where it got more serious were moral scrupulosity and and um and uh relationship-related themes. So I think it'd be kind of helpful to walk you through two experiences I that really stand out to me. Uh it was my first, I would say, one that really sent me into a spiral and kind of looking back, it was the thing that finally got me to get the right treatment and get diagnosed and everything, but it was the most terrifying thing ever. And then I wanted to talk about the most recent episode that I had, as I recently in the past couple of weeks had a little bit of a lapse for a couple of days, and you know, I I want to uh share about that and how it was a bit similar and also different. So first one, you know, I was in 2014, I want to say. I was studying for finals and and at UCLA, and I remember being in the library uh with my my girlfriend at the time, and things were really great. I was feeling really happy, things were really going well with friends and school and my relationship. And then I remember going to the bathroom and just kind of I was literally just using the restroom, and all of a sudden I just got hit like a freaking ton of bricks. It honestly I like to, you know, for me, I call it like the OCD whoosh, if you will, where it's almost like things are I don't even know, in like movies, they'll do like shots where they're like zooming in and moving close or zooming out and moving closer with the camera at the same time. And it was very much that kind of surreal feeling of you know, getting bombarded by these obsessions related to my relationship and the feelings of needing to confess, and it was like this this blackness poured over me and this extreme heaviness, and it was like everything was wibbly-wobbly, and it was this this immense heat going through my body, and an insane wave of nauseousness that came over me. And you know, I I I didn't know what the hell was going on. And I remember, you know, going out of the bathroom, going back to my partner at the time, and I I I felt the need to confess stuff, but I was like, I don't want to have to confess this. This is ridiculous. I don't need to do this is too much, and and and then just this overwhelming heaviness and pit, you know, in my chest and my stomach. And I remember like that was that was probably February, I want to say, of 2014, maybe March of 2014, and about from February from when that hit, I was kind of stuck in that state for until about July of that year, once I got diagnosed and got treatment, because I had no idea what the fuck was going on. I was constantly spending every day, all day analyzing what was happening, trying to figure out, researching, trying to get out of it, ruminating, trying to do anything that I possibly could to escape that feeling state. And lo and behold, now looking back, that was the exact thing that was keeping me in that state. That hypervigilance, that, you know, perceiving that fight or flight response and those intrusive unwanted thoughts as threats and doing everything in my power to try to rid myself of it was digging, sinking deeper into the quicksand, just training my brain that all those things are not okay to have. And the more that fight or flight response happens, the more those fearlings happen, the more analyzation happens, and just over and over and over again. And you know, thankfully, with good treatment, I was really able to get through it. And you know, I I did a uh episode on real recovery here where I go a little bit a little bit more into detail about what that looks like. Looking back in my life, there were definitely other times where I experienced that like OCD whoosh. But that was when I was 22, I think at the time, that was by far the most intense, terrifying, life altering experience I've ever had. And um it was uh it was hard. And recently, a couple weeks back, um, I had a bit of an OCD lapse. Um, a newer theme, if you will, kind of emerged. Kind of this, you know, what if I get stuck in a dissociated state, or what if my whole life is it was just, it was just it was it was getting very existential. But anyways, regardless of the content, what really freaked me out was I experienced very similarly that whoosh, if you will, that haze, that fogginess that hit me when I was in the bathroom, um, you know, studying for finals. But there was a very big difference because I've been through a lot of treatment and I specialize in this and do this work all day, every day. And there's a very big difference because I was aware of what was happening. I had the knowledge and the know-how to understand what was going on. And this is where it was tricky because I knew all that, yet I still took the bait. And you know, I was kind of in a bit of a lapse for about you know, three to four days, uh going in and out of kind of ruminating, but then also being able to catch myself. And I would notice kind of the the haze would kind of fade, and then another obsession would pop in, and the haze would re-emerge, and I'd want to ruminate and analyze. And as I was, you know, going through that, it got better and better because every time that I recognized it starting to happen, the analyzation, trying to figure out, I was very compassionate and kind of myself, and at the same time, also really leaned into my ERP skills of leaving those questions unanswered, coming back to reality, coming back to the moment and really connecting with what's important to me. And I talked about in the other podcast, you know, a moment that I had with my son in a bowling alley, you know, where I got I got hit with kind of like a mini whoosh, if you will. And it was frustrating, really scary, and I was feeling very similar sensations to what I experienced back at, you know, when I was uh you know 22 in college. And thankfully having the skills that wosh that could have lasted months or you know, whoever knows how long lasted a couple of days. And I'll still say, like there are times just throughout when I'm not in like a more bigger lapse. This is definitely the probably the biggest lapse I'd had since treatment. But there's times where just sometimes day to day there'll be you know a a whoosh that happens that I get a little sucked in for maybe a minute or two. But nowhere near, you know, like it once was. And I think um it's really scary. It's not dangerous. It is your body perceiving threats that are, you know, it really truly believes are dangerous that aren't. The best thing that you can do is, you know, step back into that observer role and and kind of notice and name the processes that are happening and being able to coexist with those uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, sensations, and come back and be able to do what's important to you. So I hope that gives a little bit of insight into the OCD whoosh dissociative kind of experience that is truly terrifying, especially when you don't know what's going on. But when you learn, it starts it it turns from terrifying into uncomfortable. And what's really cool is we can learn that discomfort doesn't equal danger.

SPEAKER_03 14:15

The haze. When I think about being in the haze, which is what most people refer to as witnessing OCD symptoms, I think about how we're seeing life uh through the lens of OCD. And even though I'm not there right now, when I revisit some of my memories of it, um that that is one of the hardest parts of having OCD is being in that haze. And if I was there now, I think I would have a much greater detailed and probably more troubled and negative outlook on how things look to me. When I think of the haze, I think of how isolated and alone I feel at how my perception of reality is so much different than when I'm not in the haze. So when I'm seeing things through this lens of OCD, almost every part of my day is being processed through multiple questions, different emotions, things that I'm not used to dealing with or spending so much time concentrating on can be extremely exhausting to know just how stuck you can feel. How things just don't make sense like they did previously if you weren't experiencing OCD symptoms. Something that often comes up when I'm experiencing OCD symptoms and I consider myself in the haze is the dichotomy between not feeling symptoms and feeling symptoms. So being in the haze is almost like I can't remember what it's like to not experience OCD. And inversely, when I'm not experiencing OCD, like today, it's very difficult for me to relate to that person that is living in that OCD lens. That's a maddening thing at times because it feels like there's a switch that I have no control over whether or not this switch is pulled and I'm experiencing life through this OCD lens. I think the worst part of the haze for me is knowing that I'm there and feeling like I'm hyper-aware that whatever compulsions or obsessions are going on with me, that I'm actively aware of them. Um, so much so that they're they feel painful. They feel like an acute struggle, an acute distressor. And that changes based on the content, of course, but something that keeps coming up for me is this awareness of how I'm experiencing OCD, and it's so forthright and in my face and ever present, and it's everywhere, yet nobody around me has any idea that it's going on. And that's a very troubling thing to experience when you're aware that people around you have no idea the struggle and grief and the absolute different reality being experienced. And most of that comes from this negative place. So I think that one of the things that has been difficult and hard-earned is the chance to experience OCD symptoms and start seeing them in a different light. Rather than being in the haze and just being in this constant struggle, there's a time which I think is different for everybody, in which they can start to shift their experience there as something that isn't forever. It isn't going to keep you there. You're not doomed, you're not stuck forever. You can start touching on the idea that spending time in the haze or in OCD symptoms, you can start to form a different relationship with it. You can start to learn how a lot of these things that you're experiencing seem very urgent and they seem very forever. They seem like you're going to always feel that way. But starting to learn how that part of OCD is a lie, and that you can make it through these periods. That you can start to practice how you use your time there, and then you can start learning bit by bit that you will develop skills on how to push back and start regaining where you want to spend your time. For me, pushing towards things that I value. So, how do I get out of the haze? A lot of times I just try and let it be there through mindfulness, experience it, but not judge that I'm there, which is a difficult thing to do. There's almost a show it till you grow it or fake it till you make it sort of mantra where I start to realize that the things that are going on in my head are OCD, and the way that I'm behaving around them is dictating some of how I'm staying stuck. So fake it till you make it, show it till you grow it, just noticing glimmers of normalcy in daily life. Like the ability to talk to somebody, have a conversation, maybe tell a joke, laugh at something, find something funny or interesting. For me, noticing that those are still possibilities when I've been inundated with this haze and OCD lens, I try to hold on to those things as things that feel good for a reason. They feel good because they're not analyzed, they're organic, they're authentic. So I try to embrace the ability to keep experiencing things without thinking about them, which can be slippery. But I eventually find myself there stringing together moments and stringing together minute by minute, and then maybe 10 minutes, and then maybe a half hour, and before you know it, maybe I'll even find myself engaged in a workday for half the day before I notice that I haven't been experiencing OCD symptoms. I haven't been experiencing things through the haze. I've been what I would consider myself as myself. I think it's important to remember that this takes time. That every time you experience OCD symptoms, there is a possibility for you to start forming a different relationship with it. And it's it's so much easier said than done. And it can take years and years. I think ultimately the best tool I have is patience. The best tool I have is patience and perseverance so that I can make it through the next inevitable time that I experience OCD symptoms.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

I want to talk about a particular time that I experienced the haze. Now, this was a time of my life where I was making a huge transition into my career. I had actually owned a clothing store for many years, went through the recession, and realized that retail was not where I wanted to be, and I just wasn't passionate about it. So I closed the store down and took a couple of years to do odd jobs and marketing jobs, things like that. And that's when I discovered I wanted to be an advocate. Part of that story was becoming a peer sport specialist. I'd also just moved down to Denver pretty recently, took this new job, had a career change. And was working in a drop-in center, which was very new to me. It was very difficult work, even though I loved it. Those many changes, of course, brought on a huge OCD relapse. I was sitting in the drop-in center one day and I knew that I had been experiencing some resurgence of OCD symptoms, but of course I ignored them because I thought there's no way I could get bad again. And I had made a friend who is a lesbian and I had had sexual orientation OCD and then got treatment for it. However, just because you get treatment for OCD does not mean it's going not going to come back at some point. I really liked this friend. She is so cool. And I loved hanging out with her. And I had texted her earlier and said, Hey, we're doing karaoke tonight at the drop-in center. Do you want to come by and hang out? There's going to be a bunch of us. It's going to be cool. And she said, Yeah, of course I love seeing you. And that was it. That trigger. Why does she love seeing me? What does that mean? Why would I message her? Why do I want her to be here? Is it because maybe I'm a lesbian? Do I like her? And then of course I got a groin on. Because that's what happens when you get OCD and sexual intrusions. And that just set me down the path. I had that gut bomb. I had that moment of, oh my gosh, what does this mean? Wait a minute. I haven't had sexual orientation OCD in a very long time. And now all of a sudden it's back. What if that means I never had it to begin with? And before I knew it, it is like I zoned out from the world. I had this very narrow myopic view. I mean, literal, like I could barely see anything peripherally. I could hear people talking in the drop-in center all around me. I could see them laughing almost as if they were blurred in the background. But I had no way of connecting to them. I had no way of connecting to myself. What had I just thought? What does that mean? I managed to get through the evening and I managed to see my friend and act normal. I am a good actor when it comes to OCD. I have plenty of experience. So I know even when I'm in the haze, how to shut everything down and be socially perfect. So no one knows what's going on. That doesn't mean though, it's not painful. When I'm in the haze like that and I'm in social situations, I'm fighting for my life. I am fighting to look normal. I am fighting for people to not know at all anything is wrong. What I really want to do is go home, throw myself under the covers and ruminate and ruminate and ruminate to see if I can solve this. At that time, obviously I knew it was OCD symptoms, but then creeped in that secondary fear of, gosh, you've had this fear for so long. There's no way it can be OCD. Why would it come up again if you actually got treatment for it and it got better? I wasn't thinking of all the circumstances working against me. I wasn't thinking about all of the huge changes I'd just endured. I wasn't thinking about how susceptible I was and how for weeks I had been experiencing health OCD and everything else to boot, and I still couldn't believe it was OCD. I went home that night and called into work immediately. The next two days, I was quote unquote sick. I knew if I had two days and then two days of the weekend, maybe I could figure out how to get through this. Maybe I just had to quit my job now that I thought this way. But nonetheless, the next four days was absolute torture. The first thing that happens when I'm in the haze is just constant questioning. How did I even get here? How did I let this happen? Is this really OCD? Why would I even have this theme? But it doesn't matter because it feels like time is ticking by slowly, but I can see life going on in front of me really quickly. I just can't engage. It's like I'm talking and I can hear the words, but everything is muffled. I'm objectively watching myself interact with people. Oh my gosh, did I just smile? How could you smile when you feel this way? It feels like climbing up this humongous brick wall and scaling the surface, exhausted when you get to the top and you look over and you can see life happening. There's rainbows and there's flowers, and people are laughing and drinking wine and enjoying everything, and you are stuck behind this wall, hanging on for dear life. You just can't get there. I woke up the next morning, and as soon as I opened my eyes, the fear of doom punched me in the face. It was overwhelming, and I thought, oh no, it is real and it hasn't gone away. I am susceptible to depression and suicidal ideation when I get deep into a relapse. So I knew that this was serious, even though I was scared it wasn't a relapse. However, it did feel the same. I was having groinals and I was having that impending doom and despair that I always have with OCD, in particular sexual orientation OCD, because I'd had it for so long back in my teenage years. I thought to myself, you just have to get through the day. If that means scheduling things hour by hour, but the haze made me want to just sit in the bed with the covers over me, rocking back and forth, trying to solve some question that I knew had no answer, and presenting all kinds of doomsday scenarios that I was never gonna get out of. But I thought, no, Chrissy, you know what to do. Let's get up and brush our teeth. So that's what I did. Then I got back into bed. Get up and go walk the dogs. I did that, and then I got back into bed. And all day I had to plan what I was going to do in order to just engage as little as I could with life. I wasn't ready to challenge this. I was too scared. I felt separated from everybody. I didn't go anywhere that day. The next day I woke up, same thing, doom hit me in the face, and I thought, you have to call someone. So I messaged people in my support system. Here's what's going on. I think it's OCD this time, but I'm not sure. I'm never sure. Here's what I need, here's what I don't need. I'm not in the place to talk right now. But I remembered having a schedule helps. So I scheduled out when to brush my teeth, when to go to the store. Oh god, I have to go out in public today. How's that gonna be? I'll probably get a groinal to every woman that I pass by, but I've done it before. I'll do it again. I have to start getting out and doing something because I can't sit in here for the next four days. That's not okay for the haze. I get in the car and I put the dogs in the backseat and I drive to the store knowing I'm gonna cringe every time I see a woman and I'm gonna feel something and I'm gonna worry and it's gonna send me into a spike. But I thought, you gotta go in and get some food. So I get into the store, I start gathering things, and I remembered being in there with my roommate a couple weeks earlier, and he said something hilarious in the vegetable section. And I remembered that and I laughed. And for a brief moment, it's like colors came back. I could breathe. It was like the veil came down, and I saw everybody around me, and I thought, oh my God, oh my God, I'm alive again. I'm I'm breaking free of this. And I spent the rest of the time in Sprouts happy and talking to people, almost like I wanted to skip down the aisles, and I thought it will never be this way again. And I got in the car and I put the bags in and I turned the corner and boom, I looked at someone and got the groin on thought, oh no, we're back. And the world shrunk around me again and it looked cloudy. So I went home defeated, crying. Oh my gosh, what if this is the time? It's never gonna get better. I drank that night. I had some wine, and all of a sudden I felt the clarity again. This is not a remedy for OCD, by the way. It just happened to happen this night. It does not always happen. In fact, alcohol tends to make the haze worse for me. But in that clarity, I thought, let's take advantage of this before it goes away. I told myself, when this comes back, you're not gonna believe this is OCD, but we have been here before. We're going to be here again. You've had sexual orientation OCD before, I don't know how many times, and every time when you do exposure response prevention, it works. Let's do this starting tomorrow. No matter when the haze comes back, no matter how bad you feel, you're gonna feel like this for a little bit. So get as comfortable as you can in being uncomfortable. That became my mantra. I had two days before I had to go back to work and before I had to face the trigger, my friend, who I was by the way, devastated that she was my trigger because I just adored her and thought there's no way I'm giving up this friendship because of OCD. So I got to get this shit under control and figure out how to push through this haze. So the next two days, I woke up with a schedule on how to get out into life and how I needed to do ERP. And I fluctuated between the haze and clarity. Every time the clarity would come, the world opened up again. It was like being stuffed up and then using using sinus medication and all of a sudden being able to breathe again. I could see the colors, I could feel the sun on my shoulders, I had energy. I thought that I could do anything. And then when the haze would come back, I wanted to retreat. I didn't want to be be seen. I didn't want to talk. I felt small and disconnected from myself and everybody. But I knew if it's fluctuating, we're making progress. By the time Sunday night came, I was scared to go back to work. What if the haze happens while I'm at work? It's probably going to. So what are we gonna do? All the things that we've been doing this weekend and all the things that you know work. You have gotten through this before, you'll get through this again. And I also planned to talk to my friend. We worked in mental health, she knows that I have OCD, but she doesn't know that I have sexual orientation, OCD, and I was scared. What if I tell her? What if she thinks that I have something against her being a lesbian? I don't. It just happens to be my theme. But I wanted to tell her, not in a confession way, I evaluated my intention. I wanted to tell her because I wanted to prioritize that friendship. She was important to me. OCD was not as important. So I went to work the next day. I woke up scared. I woke up feeling depressed. The haze was on and off most of the day, but I knew she was coming to the drop-in center a little later. And I said, Hey, when you come in, text me and I'll come up. I want to talk to you. So we sat down and I said, You know I have OCD, right? And she said, Yeah, what's going on? And I said, I'm just relapsing right now. And she didn't have OCD, but she understands mental health. So she was very supportive. And I said, I need to tell you something. You were a trigger. And she said, What I do? And I said, Well, unfortunately, you were just you. I explained everything about sexual intrusions and about my past having sexual orientation. And but I just said, I'm so sorry that you were the trigger, but I didn't want OCD to win. I want our friendship to win. And I said, No, I also don't want you to think that I have anything against you. And she sat there for a second and she said, I understand a little bit about OCD. And she said, I also understand that you would make a terrible lesbian. We just started laughing. And then I tried to argue back with her and said, No, I wouldn't. But it was the laughter, it was the connection that helped so much. Now the relapse wasn't over. I battled that lapse in and out, but continuing to do my work for the next week or so, and then I was okay. But one of the things that that that relapse taught me, and that the Haze teaches me and teaches me something different every single time is the hardest part is recognizing it. The hardest part is not buying in to the lie. The hardest part is saying, I've been here before, I'll be here again, and we can get through this. But every time that happens, I gain confidence, I gain self-trust, and I gain a deeper place in recovery because each time I choose to believe, regardless of the insight, regardless of how strong the haze is, I choose to believe I have this disorder, it's going to show up, and I can work through it. I believe in myself.

SPEAKER_02 36:07

Hi all, my name is John. Um I have OCD and uh my topics have changed throughout the years. I wasn't officially diagnosed until I was 29 and 30 or 30, somewhere along those lines, with a really bad episode or spike when I was 31, which kind of pushed me into uh treatment. So thankfully, I mean I say thankfully, but I'm thankful for that experience because it did get me treatment, it gave me a name to this disorder, and it kind of explained what was going on in my head for the last 30 something years. Um Chrissy asked me to talk today just pretty quickly about the OCD haze. Um the OCD haze is probably something that I find most difficult. Uh, I constantly am frustrated by it. When it comes in, it takes hold. And no matter what kind of ERP you've done in the past, or no matter how many therapists or psychiatrists tell you that this is OCD, you forget it. I've recently had an experience and with the OCD haze, and what's so frustrating is that it's just you have no insight, and it doesn't matter the amount of times. Like, I went through an intense program at Rogers, and I did hours of ERP, hours of like being sad and just disgusted and shameful, and and all these different emotions, and you would think that these would be ingrained into my mind by now, that when I'm stressed, or there's times where there's a lot on my plate that when OCD comes up, I should just be confident that this is OCD, but each time it gets me. And the OCD haze, I think, is the biggest I guess culprit or or or the biggest reason that that causes me to go into these spirals or relapses. Um so just last week, and not to go into too much detail, um you know, a theme came up that hadn't really come up in a bit. Um, it's it's always been a constant in my life, but it came up, and at this time, regardless of the fact that I had just had surgery and have and was pretty much housebound for a couple weeks, and you know, I'm studying for the bar exam for for my law degree um or my law license, and you know, I just have life happening, just you know, the the everyday struggles that that everybody has, and OCD just kind of snuck in and it hit and it hit hard because you know my guard was down, but what I say is that the haze just completely erases any kind of you know, any of the experiences that I had in the past, and it tells me that this time is different, that this time is something that I need to pay attention to, that this time my worst fears are going to come true, and it usually takes me about four days to cycle through. Uh, we had a group, thankfully, uh, through Chrissy, who's our lifesaver. Um we had a group, and and you know, I brought up this this point to the group, and you know, it I guess I just don't realize that when this happens, I need to be kind to myself, or I need to like just take a break because my mind is so alert and anxious that my body is also going through those same emotions and feelings, and even when I want to just lay in bed all day and just I mean, I don't want to believe my thoughts, but I just want to succumb, I guess, to the OCD thoughts about just being like, Yeah, you are a terrible person, not like actually doing the thoughts, but just the just I don't I don't know, just sit there and just kind of like dwell in it. Um I have to remind myself that like I need to do things that are gonna get me out of the house and that are gonna help me get my body and my mind back in sync. Um and I find that that that's just so hard to do when you're in the haze. And it's a scary place to be. I mean, you know, the first day you're just filled with all these different fears and and and thoughts, and you know, like I'm I'm like constantly looking towards compulsions, like reassurance, and and Google and Reddit, and and anything that I could get my hands on. And then as as time goes, you know, the other emotions kind of just sink in, which which I have like a really hard time with when it comes to shame and guilt. Um it's just a four-day cycle of sadness. I think that's the best way I can put it. And that's probably how I would describe the OCD haze for me. It sort of just erases my mind and I restart all over, even though, even though I know I'm not starting from the beginning, I know I'm not starting from the beginning. I want to believe that this is OCD, but in that haze, I am just so blinded, it is so frustrating, it's sad, but you gotta keep going, and the only thing that I can do moving forward is learn to trust myself, learn to trust the diagnosis, learn to trust the multiple therapists and psychiatrists and uh community members that I've talked to that share the same things that I do and trust that this is OCD, and or even if I don't trust it, just make myself for that moment surrender and be like this is OCD. Because if you don't, from what what I've learned is that it just goes longer and the feelings don't get easier. So I I hope this helps. I it's a tough thing for me to talk about because I haven't mastered it, and like as a perfectionist, I like to like master concepts before I like can even begin to speak about them, but the OCD haze is real and it resets your mind and it makes you feel like this time is different, that this time this is the exception, that you are what your thoughts are, even though it's so far from the truth.

SPEAKER_00 44:27

Thank you so much for being here and for unmasking with me today. It is so good to be able to share these stories in my own words of living in the OCD hate. I know that many of you experience the hate, and there is such a level of desperation, doom, and despair. We feel isolated. We feel like it's not OCD this time. We're scared things won't ever be the same. What I really want you to walk away with in this podcast is to know all of us experience this. It is one thing that we can hang on to. When everything seems cloudy, when we feel like we're not connected, this will help you feel connected to all of us that have experienced this and probably will again, in knowing that you're not alone. And if we can get through it, so can you. If this podcast supports you, inspires you, or helps you feel a little less alone, I'd love for you to support it on Patreon. Your monthly pledge helps me to keep these conversations going and create even more resources for this wonderful community. You can join us at patreon.com slash interest of thoughts and masks. And remember, when you're here, you do not have to wear the mask. I want you to feel seen, understood, and accepted exactly as you are. See you next week.