Wordless Wednesday: Worry Bird

Back Pain and my OCD.

I put my back out this week. I struggle with the presence of physical pain and the OCD that swoops in to complicate it. The first time I hurt my back, I was all of 24, and visiting my father for vacation. He asked me to vacuum the floor, and by the next morning, I couldn't get upright without my muscles seizing up. I'd never felt anything like it, but I knew that it had to be my imperfection and general deficiency that caused it. Having compassion for myself was not something that came easily, if at all. I had recurring back pain all through my 20's and into my 30's. I did have some physical therapy finally, when I was starting grad school, and the MacKenzie back exercises helped. But I went everywhere with a back pillow, and sat near the aisle so I could go stand up during concerts or lectures. I lived in fear of situations where my back might go out and there would be no way to get relief, or that I would be humiliated by my weakness.

I planned everything around how long I had to sit. I knew where the straight hard chairs were in any place I went to frequently. Once I graduated, and started a new job, my back seized up to the point that I had my husband drop me off a few blocks early to give me a chance to get fully upright before I got to the front door. I was depressed. I was anxious. Once my health insurance started, I went to a physiatrist, and got a referral for more physical therapy. This calmed my back for awhile, but the flare ups continued for a few more years, and then slowly, as I was doing therapy for my depression with Molly, my back stabilized. It seemed like a miracle.

On occasion, my back would get stiff, but recover quickly. But this week, after many situations of uncomfortable chairs--getting my hair washed at the beauty shop(which I do about once a year), meetings, long car trips--and lots of time in the studio, my back protested. I've started my Mackenzie exercises again and that has given me some relief, but I still have 3 more craft shows to get through, and the place I feel worst is in my studio, which is frustrating me, and I feel sad that what I love to do most, make art, is where the pain is aggravated. My OCD is all over this, and the more anxious I feel, the more I do things that make my back hurt even more, rituals of sitting at the computer too long. Slowing myself down is hard. The perfectionism is always in the background shouting about my need to do everything exactly right(whatever that means, since the standard always changes). I am working on it though. And know I may need to go back to the doctor and ask about occupational therapy.

If you have chronic pain and OCD, what helps you? I'd love to hear.

Wordless Wednesday: Uncertainty

OCD-Stop: Free Online Treatment for OCD in Australia from Swinburne University

I received a message from a research assistant at Swinburne University of Technology in Australia about online treatment they are offering through a study by Swinburne's National eTherapy Centre. Their website mentions Exposure Therapy in conjunction with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as effective treatment for OCD.

More about OCD STOP!

OCD STOP! online treatment is based on a face-to-face Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) already in use. Evidence shows CBT is the most effective treatment for OCD. The online program OCD STOP! is known to help reduce symptoms of OCD. This study aims to find out who can most benefit from this treatment.

OCD STOP is free, safe, completely confidential, and does not use medications.

The 12 week program provides information about OCD, and helps participants learn how to control their anxiety and better manage their OCD. During the trial participants receive assistance in the form of weekly email contact with a qualified therapist.

Participants in the trial will be randomly assigned to one of two groups, those undertaking a cognitive behavioural treatment program called Systematic Treatment of Obsessive Compulsive Phenomena or OCD-STOP, and those completing Progressive Relaxation Training. Irrespective of which program they are assigned, all individuals will be given the opportunity to take the alternative treatment at no cost.

The director is Prof. Michael Kyrios, an academic clinical psychologist.

Note: OCD Stop! online is free. There is also a group that meets onsite, with a nominal fee.



Swinburne is also offering a 12 week STOP Group for OCD, starting April 2012, at Swinburne's campus in Hawthorne VIC, Melbourne.The program cost $420 for the 12 weeks. You may be eligible to receive Medicare Rebates. Medicare rebates are only available for sessions attended. A Mental Health Care Plan and a GP referral for psychological group therapy are needed to obtain a Medicare rebate for the cost of the group. The next STOP therapy program is planned to commence in April 2012. To find out how you can register to participate in this group please contact the Clinic's Project Officer by phone (03) 9214 5528 or email psychprojects@swin.edu.au

OCD and Serenity

I've been thinking about the Serenity Prayer this week.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

A lot has been going on and I am dealing with it. My skin biopsy came back benign, and I didn't have the backwash of figuring out whether I'd made a mistake in calling the dermatologist, and being "oversensitive." I took my best guess, and the moment before calling was worst, but I also was accepting that I couldn't diagnose cancer by checking my ear constantly, and that felt so much better than standing in front of the mirror, holding a handmirror and a flashlight and contorting myself to get a glimpse. My mother was back in the hospital for the second time with fluid under her lung, and although I was concerned for her, I didn't research the procedure.

The challenge I always had with the Serenity Prayer is the last line, the "wisdom to know the difference" between what I can and cannot change. In my obsessiveness, I would attempt to definitively figure this out, because I had to be right, or I was a failure as a human being. I had the illusion I actually could have a 100% success rate in predicting whether I could change something, or whether I needed to accept it. Over the last few years of ERP treatment for my OCD, I've come to see that this prayer actually ASKS for the wisdom to know the difference, and this implies that at times we will fail in distinguishing this.

There are some aspects of the 12 Steps that I really resonate with, particularly the idea of life becoming unmanageable when in the power of the disorder. Part of me really hoped that I wouldn't have to deal with uncertain symptoms, health problems, or my mother getting older, and my despair when these things happened was overwhelming. I ritualized to try and make the anxiety go away. Research heart surgery. Research skin cancer. Check my skin. Over and over. But we are embodied creatures, and our bodies are not immortal, and can be injured. The enormity of this is catastrophic when you aren't getting any help for the OCD. The compassion of my therapist, my husband, members of my support group, and blog readers helped me see how much of a burden this can be, and encouraged me to find some kindness for myself.

Wordless Wednesday: OCD This Way

Review of Zelah Green: Who Says I'm a Freak? Young Adult Fiction about OCD

When the publicist for author Vanessa Curtis contacted me about possibly reviewing the young adult novel, Zelah Green: Who Says I'm a Freak? , I was intrigued, because I was a voracious reader as a teen, but do not recall any books about characters with OCD.

Zelah is in the confluence of pain between her mother dying, her father remarrying to a woman who doesn't like her, followed by her father disappearing, and her persistent need to keep germs away, and elaborate routines of cleaning, counting and physical gestures. My OCD, although present from age 9 or 10, flared when my father left and my mother was depressed, when I was 16, so I resonated with the overlap of the traumas and the rituals and the flood of anxiety, and the fear of being a freak.

Zelah is from the UK and through various twists in the plot ends up in a group treatment home for teens, run by husband and wife behavior therapists. I don't know how representative this is of the British mental health system, but it does provide a setting for Zelah's growth as she discovers other kids who are "freaks" and finds commonality of experience, and also is guided into exposure therapy for her rituals--purposely touching faucets, and toilets and not washing and moving at an incredibly rapid pace.

My main ambivalence about the book was the tendency of the therapist to dictate what step Zelah would take next in combating her OCD, and her relative quickness in doing what was asked of her. On the other hand, I did appreciate that the therapist understood Zelah's thought process, her fear of bad things happening if she didn't do her routines exactly right, and the focus on addressing the compulsive actions directly, rather than assuming that if everything was made right in her family, then her fears would magically disappear.

I remember at age 13 or 14, noticing that all the young adult novels I read were about unpopular kids, outsiders, with lives in turmoil or chaos. I wondered about that, how the characters seemed on the margins. Of course, I was on the margins as well, and I kept reading the novels, hoping for some company, some acceptance. A book like Vanessa Curtis's could have helped me feel less alone with my anxieties, and my OCD. The closest I came to having this was when I read The Best Little Girl in the World by Steve Levenkron, about a teenage girl with anorexia.

Here is a page from my list of books. I recorded the title of each one, which was probably a compulsion.