OCD In The Age Of Coronavirus
When I was little, every cough or sneeze was enough to set me off on a frenzied panic in which I wondered what was wrong with me and how bad it was going to get. It fed directly into my compulsions of the time, and without a doubt, getting sick was my biggest fear.
It always felt so isolating to worry so much about something that wasn’t on other people’s minds, at least not in the way I was panicking about it. I felt like I was the only one who ever worried about getting sick, who ever toted around hand sanitizer by the bottle and held my breath around anyone who’d been sick in the last while.
Nowadays, it feels like that time again - only in reverse.
Coronavirus felt distant at first - something happening in other parts of the world, something that wouldn’t become a huge deal. And then, it started to spread. As part of my job, I track headlines from around the world, and I’ve watched the panic intensify on a global scale. Locally, my friends and coworkers can talk about almost nothing else. Events I’ve scheduled are getting canceled. The prices of items I’ve used in the past to protect myself against germs both real and imaginary are skyrocketing. And in the back of my mind, familiar thoughts lurk.
Of course, there is a large difference between an actual outbreak (or pandemic, or epidemic, or whatever it’s being called nowadays) and the thoughts of often-imagined illness that infested most of my childhood. But it’s been difficult for me to process everything that’s going on with a clear head and think of logical next steps to take. I feel those old impulses beginning to rise again, especially since there is a legitimate reason to worry.
The two major ways I got past my obsessive thoughts about illness were comparing the thoughts to reality and working to get past my fears of individual symptoms. It’s a process that’s worked out well for me over the years, but it seems completely ineffective against this new threat.
If I compare the negative thoughts that have been popping up in my head lately to reality, they don’t seem too far off. While something like “someone across the room sneezed, therefore I am going to catch a terrible disease” seems far-fetched in most circumstances, it could actually happen now. And the more I see people around me acting with extreme caution, the harder it is to justify keeping my normal routine.
Not to mention, coronavirus isn’t something I’ve encountered before. I’ve had enough fevers and chills, coughs and sneezes to figure out my best response. But with coronavirus, there’s the possibility of a hospital stay, which still terrifies me even after extensive therapy, and enough people have died that I’m not only worried for myself, but also for my elderly grandmother and the rest of my family and friends.
A resurgence of negative thoughts like this is not a problem I ever expected to face. When I went to college, I thought I had “beaten” OCD. I thought my battles were all over, considering the progress I made on the specific things that bothered me. I was reconciled to the things I thought I couldn’t change, and I thought my hard work and years of therapy meant I’d never have to face any challenges from OCD again.
I’ve since discovered, thanks to both major medical incidents and the flow of everyday life, that I haven’t “beaten” OCD. I live with it still, even though the way I live with it looks very different from how I used to. Sometimes, my old strategies work, and other times, I’m in a place like this where I have to feel things out from day to day and figure out new options.
At times like these, when everything around me is telling me to panic, it’s hard to see the progress that I’ve made. It’s even harder to find a balance between taking the necessary precautions to avoid catching coronavirus and not taking things too far.
Right now, I’m working on this strategy: I’m trying to slow things down in my head by limiting the articles I read and the conversations I get into about the virus. I do the CDC-recommended things to stay safe, like washing my hands before I eat and not touching my face, but I’m not doing anything more than what the CDC has specifically said. And if I do hear someone coughing, I try my best to breathe normally, then work with my usual distractions to move forward.
Some days are better than others. Sometimes, the headlines pile up and the alarmism catches up with me, and I have a hard time focusing on work or even video games. Other times, I do things pretty normally and swat away the near-constant interruptions of the virus. Ignoring the hysteria is possible sometimes; at other times, I need to seek reassurance from loved ones that my family and I are going to be okay.
Part of growing older with OCD means that I need to accept things like this, and see the victories where they come. I need to be proud that I can sometimes go a day without thinking about the virus, or ask for reassurance two or three times instead of a dozen. It means not hating myself for the fact that the thoughts still come, but instead, trying to see how much better I am at handling this now than I would have been as a child.
Celebrating my mental health while worrying about my physical health is always difficult, but I hope to find that happy medium. To all my readers, please stay safe, and know that even if you’re having a harder time staying calm, it’s normal, and it can pass, just like the virus itself.
Ellie, a writer new to the Chicago area, was diagnosed with OCD at age 3. She hopes to educate others about her condition and end the stigma against mental illness.