The holidays are a soup of stress that stirs up and intensifies my OCD: travel anxiety, socializing, pressure to make holidays special, and obsession with catastrophes
It is a few weeks until Christmas. I’m sitting at a table with my hands clasped at my chin. I probably look like I’m meditating, praying, or just deep in thought. But I’m gripping and releasing, gripping and releasing my hands in rhythm with clenching my jaw as I think about the lists I need to make and the events I must control to get through holidays.
I remind myself to try to enjoy the season, let happier thoughts diffuse the seriousness and the desperate gripping. But this is life with obsessive compulsive disorder. Every person with OCD has a unique experience, but for me it boils down to obsession with order and correctness, intrusive thoughts about catastrophe, and rituals to maintain an illusion of control.
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