What Trying A New Food Looks Like

It’s a Friday night and I’ve just won a Magic: The Gathering card game draft, which is a tournament among eight people. I’m proud of myself - it’s been six years since I picked up the hobby, and I’ve never managed to win a draft before. My confidence in my performance at the event makes me giddy, reckless enough to agree to go out to dinner with some friends from the event.

The idea occurs to me, as I sit in the back seat of their car, that I don’t know where we would be eating, nor do these friends know about my… unusual eating habits. A polite way, I tell myself, of saying that I eat like a 5’9” toddler thanks to being afraid to try new foods for the majority of my life. The anxiety and obsessive thoughts that prevented me from trying new foods as a child are still there, albeit better hidden (most of the time).

It’s a few minutes past 10 PM, which means most places are closed. We look at a few places I’ve eaten at before, then my friends get the idea that we should go to a nearby Indian place that’s open. Some of the joy of victory slides away from me as I hope that I can be brave enough to try something that will let me keep my pride in front of my new friends.

I think of what usually happens when I don’t. If I just get a side dish or something plain, I get well-meaning but horribly obtrusive questions about my diet, weight, and lifestyle. I feel inadequate when I am asked these questions. Like somehow, even my best effort over the course of over twenty-five years has amounted to me eating a less varied diet than a grade-schooler. It’s a reminder of the roadblock between me and “normal,” even if friends, family, and therapists alike tell me I give too much meaning to that word.

I enter the restaurant anyway and check out the menu handed to me. It’s a pretty big menu, which is a good thing - higher odds I’ll find something I can eat. The sides appeal to me right away - I know I like naan bread and plain rice, but my friends are ordering proper dishes, and I feel ashamed. Somehow, the fear and the remaining joy from winning the draft combine, and I decide to try a new food.

I’ve never had chow mein before, but from the picture in the menu, it looks like it has noodles and onions. I can see from the allergen list that it won’t kill me. I can only pray that my childhood fear of any new food making me throw up is an obsession and nothing more. It’s a gamble, but I order and pay and sit down with my friends like nothing’s wrong. For a while, I live in the bliss of bravery as the food is prepared, not having to eat anything - but soon enough, the food shows up, and it sits there.

I notice immediately that the noodles are very skinny, much slimmer than I had expected. That is the first detail of many that throws me off. I’m used to a different restaurant, a different dish, a different everything. But I do recognize the onions, and force myself to pay attention to that.

My therapist tells me to pay attention to sensory details like this when I’m about to get caught up in my head, and in this instance, it works. It pulls me back to the conversation, which is still about the cards and the draft and the games we played and the games we hope to play in the future. I twirl the noodles around a plastic fork and pretend it’s lo mein or spaghetti marinara. I hesitantly take a bite.

It’s taken years to get to the point where I can do that - and it feels like a huge step to chew, acknowledge the mysterious spices in the noodles that I am utterly unfamiliar with, and swallow. I then look down, the portion seeming monstrously huge as I know each bite will be its own challenge. Nevertheless, I continue.

I gain a little more confidence as I eat more. I’m eating a new food, I realize, and it’s not killing me or hurting me in any way. The negative thoughts were wrong, as they usually are. I have the proof before me tonight - but at the same time, I know that eating a small portion of a new food is not going to make the next experience less scary. I will still have the ingrained fears. I will still need to use therapeutic techniques and positive memories to get through.

And yet, I will. I may not try new foods often, since this ordeal is something I prefer to avoid if possible, but the option of trying new foods has enabled me to participate in more social opportunities than I would otherwise have. It may be a fight every time, but it’s worth fighting to take yet another step on my road to healthy thoughts and eating habits.

Ellie, a writer in 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.

It Came Just The Same

It Came Just The Same

As soon as I saw the second line show up on my COVID test, I felt an inescapable sense of dread. After all, I’d spent two years trying to avoid getting sick - and here was the irrefutable evidence that something bad was going to happen to me.

I already knew I wouldn’t be asymptomatic, because I woke up with a very sore throat and a fever. What I didn’t know was whether I would get severe enough to have to go to the hospital, something I knew would push me out of control in my head.

Ever since my first (and extraordinarily unpleasant) hospital experience nearly ten years ago, I have developed coping mechanisms for anything that could bring me there - and that brings me a sense of control over a situation I feel powerless to fight against. I know which distractions to bring, which medical papers I need, and which people to call to come help.

But the problem with COVID is that no one can come over to help. Whether or not I needed to go to the hospital, there was one unavoidable thing I was afraid of: being alone.

I got angry at my therapist when she suggested I take a COVID test, even though I felt sick, because I was in denial. I didn’t want to face the situation I was afraid of, no matter what that meant. I wanted to pretend that everything was normal even when it felt like the world was falling down around me. I wanted to be the same girl who, nearly ten years ago, went to class instead of going to the hospital when I had a blood clot.

I was so deep in denial that even when I caught a glimpse of the second line on the COVID test signifying a positive result shortly before the timer was up, I convinced myself that the line would go away by the time I was supposed to look at it.

But in the end, I had to face it. None of my denial or distraction could stop the virus from coming. I couldn’t help but think of a moment from “How The Grinch Stole Christmas,” one of my mom’s favorite cartoon movies: “He hadn't stopped Christmas from coming! It came! Somehow or other, it came just the same!”

And once it came, there was nothing I could control or change. I just had to settle in with lots of beverages and soup and prepare for whatever happened.

As things turned out, I was feeling too sick for the first two days to stress too much. I couldn’t talk much, and between my sore throat and fever, I had plenty of things to concentrate on besides anxiety.

As I got better, I started to actually have to face the illness head-on. I spoke with my internist, used medical equipment, and started to accept that everything was real. I even started to pack a bag for the hospital when I used my brand-new pulse oximeter machine incorrectly and it displayed an oxygen level of 94.

In the end, thankfully, I didn’t need to do anything like that. After the third day, my symptoms improved day by day. Even if it was only a tiny improvement, I took heart in that and felt encouraged that the worst was over. And, about a week after I first showed symptoms, I was feeling like myself again. Another few days (I followed the CDC’s guidelines religiously), I was able to leave the house; now, I’m resettling into the rhythm of my life.

Looking back on the week, I can’t believe several things. First of all, I only panicked once - the moment I saw the positive test for the first time. I know part of this is because I wasn’t feeling well, but still, my friends and family were pleasantly surprised at how much my therapist’s advice helped me, that I didn’t fly off the handle.

I was also pleasantly surprised at how many people stepped up to offer companionship (virtually), food, and various other kinds of help when I wasn’t feeling well. As someone who grew up without many friends, I felt like I was part of a loving community and that the help I often give to others was coming back to me.

It’s also hard to believe that I was able to face the truth that I was in a situation that scared me a great deal instead of pretending it wasn’t real. As someone who would prefer to be imagining a fantasy universe instead of living in the real world, the fact that I could live in the moment in a situation I’d built up in my head to be a terrifying thing for the last two years showed me that I can, in fact, be strong in the face of sickness - no matter what my childhood germaphobia would have me believe.

Ellie, a writer in 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.

The First Time In Forever

TW: Blood

I vividly remember one of my worst memories from when I had my blood clot nearly ten years ago: I had requested a bedpan, so Mom and Dad left the room. Just as soon as the nurse finished setting me up, she left too - and that was when I jerked up at the waist and coughed a slick, cherry-red blood clot into my left hand. It was the size of a half-dollar coin, and somehow, between my lifelong emetophobia and new fear of blood, it was the most terrifying thing I could possibly imagine.

I remember trying to convince myself to breathe long enough to go to the bathroom. I remember how the nurse didn’t seem to care at all as she helped me get off the bedpan and back in bed. And I remember how Mom, who had been trying to hold things together when I was in the hospital, rushed in when she saw the look on my face and heard my sobs as I finally let loose everything I was feeling.

Ever since that day, I feared that I would have another recurrence of this incident. I knew that it was due to the medication I was taking at the time - t-PA, a drug so powerful that I had to be in the ICU to receive it - but still, I feared that somehow, my blood thinners would make it happen again.

It became the demon of many of my horror stories, the one thing I couldn’t watch on TV, the most horrifying intersection of my fears that I couldn’t get out of my head. It was etched so deeply in there that I figured I would always remember the feel of it in my hand, the way some of the blood ran in the lines of my palm, the pit in my stomach as I thought it was the beginning of the end of my life.

I’m grateful that it didn’t happen again when I shoved my feelings and fears under the rug for years, ignoring my trauma until I couldn’t anymore. I’m grateful that it didn’t happen again when I graduated college, or went to grad school, or moved to small-town Pennsylvania, or moved to Chicago. I’m grateful that it at least waited until six weeks after my dog died, as I’ve been starting to feel stronger.

I needed that strength when, after a particularly unpleasant projectile nosebleed, I felt the urge to cough and I felt a clot, just as slippery and bright red, fall out of my mouth and into the sink.

I was on the phone with Mom, and had been ever since I sneezed blood so hard across my laptop that it took a significant amount of effort to clean up. With no provocation, my nose had been bleeding for about fifteen minutes. I knew to tilt my head forward, to keep the blood from flowing down the back of my throat, but as it turned out, I must have missed some.

Never before have I had anything like this from a nosebleed, even the somewhat explosive ones I started to get after I first went on blood thinners. And in that moment, even though it had been nine years and ten months since I last coughed up blood, all I could see was the ICU room once again.

Thankfully, it’s been years since I experienced invasive flashbacks, but I couldn’t help it at that moment. I remembered the details, every terrifying one, and somehow I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the clot as it stuck to the side of my sink. It was the size of one of my fingernails. It was just sitting there, a nightmare come true.

Here, in my own apartment, no one else was going to clean it up. I blubbered to Mom what had happened while I sprayed water at it, eventually making it go down the drain. My tongue was a bloody red, my teeth tasted like copper, and even when I started spitting into the sink repeatedly, the saliva kept coming up red, and no amount of reassurance was enough to convince me that it was over.

Just like when I was in the hospital so long ago, my heart was pounding, and my trauma felt as immediate as if it had just happened for the first time. But luckily, I had far more resources. I texted a few friends, all of whom immediately called and asked if there was anything they could do to help. I decided to put my to-do list aside for the afternoon and practice self-care, which I don’t do often, but it helped me find my equilibrium. I was able to stop the building panic attack from actually happening, and thanks to some especially helpful texts from my therapist, D., I started to feel like I had done something brave.

Instead of this fear only existing in stories or on TV, I had witnessed it, while being alone in my apartment, and knew what to do. I was no longer the helpless nineteen-year-old thinking about how she’d never hit twenty or get kissed. I’m ten years older, a lot more experienced with my brain and how my OCD can fixate on trauma, and I know what to do.

It didn’t help much when, later that night, I had another nosebleed - and another the following day. I’m still half-convinced it’ll happen again, but now, I have an example of a time blood has come out of my mouth and I’ve been totally fine. No hospitals, only a phone call to my hematologist (who did say I should get checked out if I had a nosebleed for more than fifteen minutes, but I fudged the time a little to get out of it). Aside from the moment when I leaped ten years in the past uncontrollably at the sight of a blood clot coming out of my mouth, I stayed in the present, used all sorts of techniques from therapy - and now, a few days later, I can say that I’m feeling okay.

I never thought I would be able to deal with something like this related to my traumatic medical experience and not spiral out of control. It’s just like how, when I was a kid, I never thought I could have a life where OCD doesn’t control everything I do. I’m proud that I’ve reached this point, and hopefully, the next time I inevitably have a “first time” related to trauma, I can remember this lesson and carry on being strong.

Ellie, a writer in 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.

From Every Challenge What Can We Learn?

From every challenge, what can we learn? This has been a motto or mantra I have used my entire life…

Let me begin by telling you a bit of myself.  I am Wendy. I live in the beautiful metropolis of Skokie, Illinois. I am a wife, a mom of two wonderful daughters ages 9 and 12, and have two loveable dogs.  I’ve had a robust, fulfilling career working in the nonprofit world. 

When I was 24 years old, I was in a challenging job. My role and job description changed several times in a short few months.  I became so anxious that I could not sleep, eat, and experienced my first panic attack.  I felt like my body was on fire. My face and chest were hot and burning for what seemed like days on end.  I sometimes remember feeling like I was not even inside my own body.  Why was this happening to me?  Why did I feel so sick?   At the time, I did not have the perspective that I would get better, and I felt as if I was destined to move back home to live with my mom in Pittsburgh. I had visions of working at the video store on her corner for the rest of my life and living in her dark, damp basement alone.  I left the job where the panic attacks started.  I felt even more anxious about what I would do next.  How would I pay the bills?  When would I ever be able to have fun again?  I remember going to one therapist who had me fill out a form to determine how anxious and depressed I was. There was a scale, and I checked off feeling the worst for all the questions, except for the last question.  It asked, do you feel like killing yourself?   I checked no…. but in the notes, I wrote.  “I could not do that to my mom, but if she was not here, it might be something to consider.”  I thought that I was broken, and this was the new me for life.  I soon found a therapist that I connected with, and after trying one medication that gave me strange side effects, I was prescribed something else, and within two weeks, I felt like the cloud was lifting.  I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder.

I found joy again.  In a few short months, I found a new job and thrived. From every challenge, what can we learn?  I learned life is like riding a wave. There are ups and downs.  But being down does not mean it will last forever, just like the waves in the ocean.   I learned how to own my anxiety.  I shifted my mental model to appreciate that my anxiety is a tool that allows my body to tell me when something is not right or pushes me to be the best I can be.  

My anxiety reared its ugly head a few more times in my life.  I remember having my next panic attack when I was 26 and my twin sister Dana got engaged.  In my head, I thought all of a sudden,” I’m not ready to get married!  Does this mean I need to get married!?”  I called my boyfriend over and broke up with him in a panic.  He said he understood and did not want to get married right now either.  We got back together two hours later.  I married that wonderful man two years later, and we have been together for 21 years!  From every challenge, what can we learn? I’ve learned I can be on my timeline and be my authentic self.  Also, talking things out always helps me.  

A few years ago, after 18 years of a fantastic career at JCC Chicago, I had the incredible opportunity to work for a museum.  I put in 120%. I was hired for my soft skills.  I wanted to learn everything I could. I would stay up late and work every weekend, reading textbooks articles and watching documentaries.  I was going to do whatever it took to be a success.  Just under a year after my start, the world was hit with Covid -19.  At first, my family embraced the shutdown.  It would only be temporary, after all.  The shutdown was G-d’s way of telling us we all need to slow down a little.  It would be like an extended snow day, I thought!   Well, one year later, I couldn’t take it anymore.  I found myself one night in bed talking to my husband Mitch or rather crying hysterically to Mitch, saying, “Something has to give.”  I felt like I was failing as a professional, mother, and wife.  My kids had been homeschooled for the entire year.  My one daughter needed constant support with tech issues, snacks, and motivation.  My other daughter, who always had an anxious side, was in a full-blown mental health crisis, and I felt like I could do nothing to help. I felt as if my life was falling apart.  I could not continue.  My body would not allow me to continue.  My anxiety would not allow me to continue.  Two days later, I put in my resignation.  I was leaving the museum to focus on my family.  I felt like a failure and felt alone, but I was not alone. An article came out that exact same week from the New York Times.    According to the report, 69% is the number of mothers who said they’ve experienced adverse health effects to worry and stress during the pandemic compared to 51% of fathers.  Both numbers are shocking but are reality.

From every challenge, what can we learn?  I learned that my family always comes first. I learned that it is ok not to be ok.  I learned that I have an incredible network of family and friends who rooted me on and lifted me.   I learned that having an attitude of gratitude made me feel good.  I learned that work does not fully define me.  I learned how to meditate and take time for myself.  I learned that a three-week summer road trip, including visits with family and camping in national parks, filled my soul.  I learned that I could come back stronger.  I learned that human beings are resilient, but it is not always easy. I learned that when one door closes, another door opens.  

After my “sabbatical,” I started to network for my next professional adventure.  And like manna from heaven, I quickly landed a position with No Shame On U as their Director of Programming.  I could not be more grateful for this opportunity.  No Shame On U is a local nonprofit created in 2014 dedicated to eliminating the stigma associated with mental health conditions and raising awareness in the Jewish community and beyond. Our goal is for people who need help to seek it, for family and friends to know how to provide proper support, and to save lives.  No Shame On U was created by an amazing woman named Miriam Ament.  Miriam began the organization because she experienced her own mental health journey, including three hospitalizations over 15 years ago.  Miriam faced a lot of stigma.  The most telling example that she has shared is that during her 2nd hospitalization, one of her closest friends called her and told her not to call her again until she was happy, and then she never heard from that friend again.  This was devastating to Miriam and led her to keep her hospitalizations a secret from family and friends who were not in her innermost circle.   I want to share some interesting statistics I’ve learned since I have started. 61,500,000 is the approximate number of Americans who experience a mental health disorder in a given year.  That is 1 in 4 adults.    I also learned that over 80% of people that have symptoms of clinical depression are not receiving any specific treatment for their depression.  Studies have shown that one of the key barriers for people not seeking treatment is stigma.  

From every challenge, what can we learn?  When people have asthma, they should seek help.  When people have a disease, they should seek help.  When people suffer from mental health challenges, they should seek help.  In all of these cases, we turn to experts to guide and help us heal.  Those with mental health struggles deserve just as much compassion from others and ourselves as if the disease is a physical one.  

I continue taking medication, meditate almost daily, and see a therapist.  

From every challenge, what can we learn?  Remember, you are not alone.  

Our guest blogger is Wendy Singer, Director of Programming for No Shame On U.  

A First Time For Everything

Most people, when they hear that I have OCD, assume that I am someone who organizes compulsively or that my apartment is as clean as an operating room. These people tend to be surprised when they hear that I’m a piler, my bookshelves are far from alphabetized, and I only remember which chores I need to do by looking at a chores app I put on my phone.

It was, therefore, very surprising to me when, on a recent trip to Florida, I first felt the need to compulsively clean.

I was visiting a friend, Nina (name changed for privacy), who I hadn’t seen since DragonCon. After five months without seeing each other - and especially since I’d hardly seen anyone since my beloved family dog passed away - I was thrilled to see a friend who spent so much time and effort to help me feel comfortable at DragonCon.

I was surprised when she picked me up in a messy car, since I stayed with her at DragonCon and her half of the room was very clean, but I figured that it’s a pretty common thing to have a messy car. However, I was horrified when we got back to her apartment building and she opened the door to the filthiest place I have ever been.

If you’ve ever seen the show “Hoarders” on A&E, you’d get a good idea of what I walked into. Floor-to-ceiling boxes spilled clothes and plastic containers and action figures on top of two couches coated in a thick layer of cat hair and crumbs. The TV had a film of filth, it was impossible to even get near the couches since the paths were too slim for a human to get by and I was unwilling to climb on the boxes, and more video games than a Gamestop poured out of collapsing shelves. Food streamed out of shelves in the kitchen onto the grimy stove, and was stacked so high in the fridge that it almost didn’t close. The second bedroom was so filled with boxes that there wasn’t even a way to reach in a hand and turn on a light - let alone walk in there - and the bathroom floor was crunchy with cat litter and various debris that turned the bottoms of my feet black when I tried to take a shower there later.

I’d been feeling stressed ever since I saw the place, but once I felt so filthy coming out of the shower, I finally broke down. I told my friend how hard of a time I was having in such a filthy environment, and we had an open and honest conversation where she told me how her own mental health concerns were preventing her from cleaning the endless amounts of nerd paraphernalia that I would have been so jealous of in any other circumstance.

Still, the fact remained that I was due to stay there for four nights and five days, and I wanted to attack the apartment with so much Clorox and Windex that it would smell like a hospital. I wanted to scrub the floors and the walls and collapse all the boxes and push a strong vacuum all over the place until it was sparkling clean.

I knew this was not something I could do, but I was still impressed that it took me to this point to feel my hands twitching at my sides with the urge to clean. I felt like, in some twisted way, I finally earned my OCD stripes, if the stereotype is to be believed. And I started to brainstorm if there was anything I could do, short of leaving immediately for the airport or a hotel, that would help me keep my friendship and any small level of comfort accessible to me in such an environment.

In the end, I talked with Nina about what I would need - a space with a door I could close, where I wouldn’t need to worry about cats crawling on me when I slept - and she agreed that I could sleep in her bed and she would sleep on the couches. I still didn’t feel like I could keep my suitcase open, eat anything that came out of her kitchen, or truly relax, but I was at least able to vocalize the way I wasn’t feeling safe and advocate for what I needed.

Most importantly, I listened to the voice of my therapist, D., who tells me to think of something I can control when I feel like my whole life is out of control. When my dog died, for example, she told me that I could control how I was going to handle my grief and remember him, and I ended up buying and filling out a remembrance journal.

In this case, I didn’t feel like I could leave before the day I’d planned to leave, but I was able to change my flight to make it about twelve hours earlier. Even that little change made me feel like I could control my surroundings somewhat, and I started to pull back from that edge of panic when I felt like my whole life was uncontrollable.

It’s a technique past therapists have discussed with me - negating my “all or nothing” thoughts by creating a contradiction. If I control one thing, after all, then it doesn’t mean that my entire life is out of control. It might be more than I would like, I told myself as I prepared to go out with Nina the following day, but soon I would be back in an environment I could control more.

Since I knew I was going to be there for the next several days, I did my best to get out of the apartment, whether that meant a walk outside or a very exciting trip to a local grocery store. I convinced Nina to go on a road trip since her car was cleaner than her apartment, and I took a tour of her aquarium workplace. Somehow, petting a shark felt easier than staying in her apartment!

There were other things I could control, too. I picked my own food, insisted on getting takeout instead of eating out in a state with far fewer COVID precautions, and texted my friends back home and my family. I watched too much TV, read nearly constantly, and played so many games that my fingers got sore. I even allowed myself to feed into some of my more obsessive tendencies when I spent two hours unpacking and repacking Nina’s amiibo figurines, tapping each one on my Nintendo Switch to get benefits in various games.

At the end of the trip, I can’t say I would ever visit Nina again if I was unable to stay in a hotel, but I was able to make it until the wonderful moment when I spread out the contents of my suitcase across the floor of my clean apartment, took out a bottle of Clorox wipes, and wiped everything - including the suitcase itself. I put in the laundry on the highest heat, took a long shower, and finally felt like myself for the first time in five days.

Although I’m pretty amused that it took me up to this point to indulge in such a common stereotype, I am also very proud that I was able to accommodate to far-less-than-ideal circumstances and pull myself back from the panic. As I continue to take steps towards normalcy after losing my dog, I hope I can keep fighting like this as I work toward the future I want for myself.

Ellie, a writer in 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.