Overcoming OCD: The Mental Bully

Both my father and my uncle are overcomers of a deadly mental illness called OCD. Three simple letters that make people go insane by disrupting their routines and their life. It’s an abbreviated form of the name of the illness that ranks number 10 on the WHO list of top 10 crazy obnoxious mental disabilities.

Let me introduce OCD = Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Most people bandy around by saying I have an OCD and so I clean but that is not how it works and there is a lot more to it. It is literally like living a nightmare of a life constantly driven by fear.

Imagine waking up at 3 AM in the morning and washing your hands, rubbing off the skin only because you are deluded by thinking that your hands aren’t clean… moreover, the thought with which you may have woken up may very well be – a stranger who touched your hands while they were walking on the footpath a month ago.

OCD is reading that one sentence again and again and a part of your brain wonders “why to repeat over and over again” when you already have understood it and know it. One doesn’t know why, but they keep doing it just to stop the voice of fear in their heads. They even wake up sweating with a waking fear to check the door to see if it’s locked properly or not and they do this several times in the night. Once, twice, thrice till its morning already and it’s time to wake up. Such is their life.

These vicious obsessive thoughts rule their lives and for them, it is like being in an abusive relationship with their fears (IT IS ALL IN THE MIND.) Finding a moment of peace feels heavenly. Since it is all in the mind and FEAR IS NOTHING BUT A STATE OF MIND, it too can be beaten but it may be tougher as mental reality is the reality that one sees, lives in, and experiences on a day-to-day basis.

Both my dad and uncle beat their OCD in their own ways. It claimed their childhood and teenage days.

My father turned to faith, as it gave him the strength to face his fear and it simply shut down, cold turkey OCD left him. That voice in his head just disappeared the day he chose to believe in Jesus. For him, faith helped him heal during his teen years.

My uncle on the other hand, believed in the power of the subconscious mind. He used positive mental affirmations to wage the battle of the mind. As Buddha once said, “THE MIND IS EVERYTHING, WHAT YOU THINK IS WHAT YOU BECOME.” He embarked on a journey of learning and overcoming. By first becoming AWARE. Then he needed to ACCEPT. He had to ATTACK his compulsive obsessive thoughts by choosing to FIGHT them off with POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS.

Both struggled but THEY OVERCAME knowing well that NOTHING IS FINAL. NEVER GIVE UP IN YOUR JOUREY TO OVERCOME.

AWARENESS IS KEY to dealing with whatever it is that you are faced with.

WITHOUT ACCEPTANCE you may not be able to constructively work on the issue that you faced with. ATTACK your irrational thought processed. ALWAYS LEARN AND KEEP GROWING. With time, work and effort, anything can be achieved and any mental illness can be beaten.