OCD and anxiety symptoms--past and present

When I was finally diagnosed with OCD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) in 2005, it was my "Aha!" moment.  So many feelings and thoughts and experiences finally made sense to me.  I had just thought I was terribly weird.

While my symptoms as an adult were fairly severe, requiring medication and therapy, the ones from my childhood were manageable.  Weird--definitely.  But some of them even had some benefits.

For example, I recopied my notes in school over and over and over.  If I made one little mistake, I would tear out the page in my notebook and start again rather than just using White-Out.  Yes, I used a lot of paper, but I also memorized my notes because of rewriting them repeatedly which made for excellent retention and test scores.  I started this in 7th grade and continued it throughout high school.  I stopped doing it in college.  

The strange ones....well, I'll just list them:

1. I would type letters with my toes in the air.  So if I was laying on the couch watching tv, I would get a random word stuck in my head, like potato.  And then my toes would "type" as if an invisible typewriter was under them, the letters of the word potato over and over and over.  I still catch myself toe typing letters.

2. Chronic hand-washing.  Still have this, although it comes in very handy in the winter, especially with H1N1 floating around.

3. Hypochondria.  Only since getting on my antidepressant have I been able to not think that every little thing is cancer.  I spent most of my life having my mother, and then my husband, look into my throat and answer the question, "Do you think it's cancer?"  Nowadays, I still catch myself wondering whether a minor ache is cancer, but I can usually talk myself into a rational explanation of the symptom.  

4. I went through a phase where I would read every comic strip in the newspaper, even the ones I didn't like, because I felt that if I only read my favorites, the other ones would get their feelings hurt.  (Yes, I recognize that comic strips are inanimate objects, but we are talking about OCD here.)

5. General obsessing.  I distinctly remember being a pre-teen and having a boyfriend.  I tried calling him (and this was in the days before answering machines).  I would let the phone ring literally hundreds of times.  And then I would keep calling over and over and over.  Probably 50 times.  I could not just let it go.  And this was not a one-time event.  Every time I didn't get an answer I would do this.  This obsessing was even worse when I was waiting for someone to call me back.  I simply could not stop obsessing over when the other person was going to return my call.  

6. When I was in high school, if I was out late and didn't take a shower before bed, I had to change my sheets the next day otherwise I could literally feel the dirt and grime on my sheets.  I was unable to sleep on sheets if I hadn't bathed prior to sleeping on them.  

7. Checking the door.  My parents would be in bed, long asleep, and I would get up and check the doors.  Multiple times.  (As an adult, I used to do this with my car.  I would walk halfway across the parking lot and have to walk all the way back to check.  Another thing I would do is turn my car around and redrive the same route I had just come, thinking I had possibly hit someone with my car but didn't feel the impact.  I have wasted many minutes of my life worrying that I'd hit a pedestrian and driving in circles until I felt certain that I had not hit someone.)

8. Irritable bowel issues.  My worries took their toll on my colon.  I would experience bouts of diarrhea whenever my anxiety got out of hand.  Which was often.  Since I have been on antidepressants, my bowel issues are a thing of the past.

So, yes, more or less, I was like Monk (although I can't speak for Monk's bowel habits).  

When N was about 7 months, I developed the following symptoms and was put on Zoloft 50 mg:

1. Uncontrolled crying

2. Excessive guilt and feelings of ineptness

3. Inability to eat

4. Insomnia or waking from sleep with panic attack (heart palpitations, sweating, shaking)

5. Obsession with death/dying

When N was 14 months, I began having intrusive thoughts about me stabbing her with a knife, throwing her down the steps, or molesting her.  And these weren't just occasional.  I would have streams of thoughts like this throughout the day.  Suffice it to say, I got into see a psychiatrist immediately because I knew this was not normal.  It was at this point I was diagnosed with OCD and GAD and told that I required 4 times that 50 mg Zoloft dose.  When Zoloft caused stomach upset, I was switched to Lexapro 20 mg and have been good ever since (thank the gods)!

In my case, I have never been diagnosed with depression because any depressive symptoms I have are because my OCD and GAD become out of control.  If those are under control, I do not have feelings of sadness or worthlessness.  

So that, in a nutshell, is my experience with OCD.  I'm sure there are other symptoms I had as a kid that I just can't recall right now.  Somewhere I read that OCD has a lot to do with memory failures in the brain.  A person with OCD can't remember unplugging the curling iron which therefore leads to the checking, rechecking, etc.