I hear it all the time; "I like things organized, I'm so OCD" or "I have to have a clean house, I'm so OCD"
You don't hear people casually saying things like "I'm going bald, I'm so cancer" or "Im gaining/loosing weight, I'm so diabetic". Why do we think we can casually use OCD as an adjective?!
If you know me well, you know my story. You may even be one of the few people who know the deepest darkest parts of my story. You may be one of the people who sat with me while I cried or waited out one of the compulsive monsters that I battle daily. You may be a person who doesn't understand me. You think I can just "snap out of it" or that I'm crazy. Maybe you are the person who casually says "I'm so OCD" like it's a changing style or honor badge. Maybe you love someone with OCD and you have asked me questions about how to support them, (I love when you do that by the way).You might even be the person who notices silly things like how I always sit in the same place or go in a certain door. You laughed at/with me as I label things. You see my love for organization. You may have even noticed all the bible verses on post it notes I have in my car and in my house. Maybe you don't understand how someone who looks like they have it all together could be paralyzed in fear of people coughing and sneezing.
When you have boxed up an entire apartment to help your sister move because counting has overtaken her brain you might understand how paralyzing it is to be "sooo OCD." Until you have bandaged split, raw, picked at hands or come into your daughters house to open the blinds and make her walk around the block, you don't know what it's like to be "soooo OCD." The day you hold me while I sob on the couch afraid to go away for a weekend. Or when I'm away on a trip and warn others about not touching my bed, might be the moment when you start to understand the exhaustion of being "sooo OCD". Or when you are frustrated with me because all I do is sleep. Or when you have to drive me home because I can't handle the mall. When you eat at the same place for weeks because my brain is stuck. You don't know what it's like to be "sooo OCD" until you have sat across from me encouraging me to take just one bite and then another because the fears are suffocating me. Unless you can't shower for days or shower 4 times a day, you don't know how time consuming it is to be "sooo OCD." When you arrive early to counseling in case the right parking spot isn't free and you have to drive around the parking lot till your spot is open, you don't know how frustrating being "sooo OCD" feels. It's when you love your wife so much that you can sit across from her while she explains all the bad things that happened because she didn't eat vanilla yogurt for breakfast and say you don't understand it but it's going to be okay.
I am thankful for a husband, brother, parents, counselors, cousins, aunts and friends who support me while I fight the OCD monstor that can easily consume me. They know why it hurts me when I hear people flippantly say "I'm sooo OCD." They also know I am not defined by OCD.
For me and the estimated 1 in 100 people who really are "sooo OCD" please think before you speak.
