What Do We Need For Recovery From Our OCD?

 (Information for this essay comes from the following source: the website ocduk.org/what-causes-ocd)

 

What do we really need for recovery from our OCD?  We don’t know the exact causes. We may ask 10 - 15 doctors; we may get just as many different answers.  There are many prevailing theories.

We don’t know why some treatments work for some and not for others.

It is believed that OCD is the result of the combination of the following factors:

1. neurobiological

2. genetic

3. behavioral

4. cognitive

5. environment

 

Even though there are certain parts of the brain are different in OCD sufferers than non OCD sufferers, it is unknown how these differences relate to the precise mechanisms of OCD.

 

An imbalance in the neurotransmitter or brain chemical serotonin could be to blame. Medications known as Selective Serotonin Re-Uptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) are used to treat OCD. But it is not known why these meds help some people.

 

Brain imaging has shown differences between the brains of people with OCD and those without OCD. But the scientific community is split whether what they have found is a cause or a result of having this disorder.

 

We just don’t know what the causes are or why certain treatments work for some and not for others.  

 

 

 

But there are things that we do know. I’m speaking for the Greater Toronto (Canada) Area and if other areas are similar, then, we have a long way to go.

 

There is a lack of genuine community support for OCD sufferers. As well as their families and friends. They need help as well.

 

Peer support groups can only do so much. They are places for members to share their pains, their frustrations, gather information.  But nothing more.

 

They have no right offering Cognitive Behaviour Therapy ( CBT) for liability reasons.

 

 CBT is hard to come by. In many cases, it is not free and can be costly. The wait lists are lengthy.

 

With apologies for sounding self righteous, in many community mental health agencies, we are often grouped with others who have more severe mental illnesses. Many are marginalized making OCD sufferers uncomfortable. Many of our OCD members have expressed this concern.

 

We may share commonalities with those who suffer from other mental illnesses but we do have differences that others do not understand.  And, I’m sure, we don’t understand them.

 

We need to address not only the OCD but the entire needs of the patients. Treat the persons with the illness, not just his illness.

 

Support should be available 365 days a year, Not just from 9 - 5 Monday – Friday. Our OCD does not take holidays or weekends off.

 

We need more people who understand, empathize with our sufferings. Those with caring hearts. Something that medications cannot offer.  

 

We need employment opportunities if we are to get back on our feet. We have a high unemployment rate. We need to create work environments that are welcoming, understanding.

 

Overcoming our OCD, getting out into the work force is like a cast coming off a broken leg. Recovery is slow, often terrifying. Like a person fearful about reinjuring a healed leg that was once broken, relapses are always fearfully lingering on the backs of our minds.

 

If none of these are true, why, then, does the World Health Organization, according to the website “ocduk.org”, rate OCD as one of the most disabling illnesses of any kind in terms of lost earnings and diminished quality of life? Why do so many OCD sufferers think about suicide?

 

We have a long way to go!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love, Forgive, Be Kind....Anyway

 In our journey through life, we try to be the best person we can be. We try to be kind, helpful and generous. Only to have people walk all over us.

 

Rabbi Harold Kushner is fond of saying “just because you are a vegetarian, doesn’t mean the bull won`t attack.”

 

The question is with all the unfairness, the injustices in life, why even bother to love and to forgive? Why even bother to be kind?

 

There are words of wisdom that say that we should love and forgive anyway. Here are the words of Mother Teresa:

 

People are sometimes unreasonable and self centred.

Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motive.

Be kind anyway.

If you are honest, people may cheat you

Be honest anyway

If you find happiness

People may be jealous

Be happy anyway

The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow

Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have

And may never be enough

Give the best anyway

For you see, in the end, it is between you and God

It never was between you and them anyway.

 

And a quote on a refrigerator magnet reads: “Dance as if no one was watching; love as if you`d never been hurt.”

 

So the question needs to be asked why even bother loving, forgiving, being kind? Everything seems so futile.

 

 

 

I think before we criticize others for their negative behaviour, we should look within ourselves. We should take a look in our own hearts to see who we have offended and violated.

 

I learned a long time ago at a 12 step program, when we point our index fingers accusing someone of a fault, three fingers are pointing back at us.

 

Our weapon is our silence, our apathy. We allow peoples’ pains and anguish to continue by our silence.

 

We need to forgive. Former president of the University Of Notre Dame, The Reverend Theodore M. Hesburgh summed it up nicely: “Why should we be forgiving and merciful without measure? Maybe the simplest answer is that we are all in such need of mercy and forgiveness that we can ill afford not to be merciful and forgiving of others.”

 

And, of course, the words of Jesus Christ when He had asked a crowd who was about to stone a woman for having committed  adultery: “he who is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her” (John 8:7)

 

If we were to look at those who have hurt us, their lives are not to be admired. We need to walk in the shoes of those that have violated us. Maybe we would not be so hard on those that have hurt us.

 

Wrote Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: “If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”

 

Those who have hate and do harm, I believe, must have more hatred for themselves. Those people are incapable of loving and are more disabled.

 

And our first reaction is to get even, demand vengeance. But in the words of Buddha:  “Hatred does not cease by hatred. But only by love; this is the eternal rule.”

 

But if we are to reach out to the hurting, we have to find the right way to our enemy’s heart. Wrote clergyman Henry Ward Beecher (1813 – 1887): “you never know until you try to reach them how accessible men are but you must approach each man by the right door.”

 

I think that everyone is accessible. We just have to find the right way.

 

We have a 50% chance of being welcomed. Those aren’t bad odds. We don’t know how far our compassion will go.

 

In a society of rugged individualism, there are more hurting wounds. We need to love, forgive, be kind more than ever.

 

I think if we refuse, the only person we will end up hugging is our self.

 

We have a duty to love. In the words of the late Dr. Leo Buscaglia: “man has no choice but to love. For when he does not, he finds his alternatives lie in loneliness, destruction and despair.”