When her OCD 'flares up,' self-compassion, medication, and support from her fiancé help She began to acknowledge things she wanted to change, like how she worked through obsessive thoughts about cleanliness, without feeling the need to vilify herself for a slip up, she told Insider. Instead of telling herself she was a "terrible person" for acting on a compulsion, Raskin started "allowing for a lot more gray" in her life. She said that getting older, getting back on antidepressants, and attending therapy regularly has helped her move away from the extreme thinking that would influence her unhealthy behaviors. She'd stay up all night wondering where they were or why they didn't respond to her texts, then convince herself they were injured, dead, or didn't care about her at all. When someone became her boyfriend, Raskin said her anxiety ( which can often be linked to OCD) kicked into high gear. She struggled with sharing the extent of her obsessive thoughts and compulsions with dates, fearing she'd say too much too soon and they would judge her. She couldn't bring herself to have sleepovers with a new love interest because that meant confronting the germs in their homes, or her love interest seeing her act out her compulsions in her own home, Raskin said. She said the early stages of dating were a mental battle. Though she was able to manage her symptoms in her professional life, always getting good grades in school and landing a job at Buzzfeed in 2015, Raskin said her dating life revealed the depths of her compulsions. Doctors told her the infection altered her brain chemistry, and she started to fixate on "debilitating neurosis, self-hate, and depression that followed me into adulthood." In her book, Raskin said she was diagnosed after an extreme strep throat infection landed her in the hospital. Psychology experts have yet to pinpoint the causes of OCD, or why certain people develop specific compulsions, but they believe it could be related to a mixture of factors including environment, genetics, and brain chemistry, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Obsessive thoughts about contamination made the early stages of dating agonizing, Raskin said More importantly, she said she's happy with herself. Raskin told Insider she still has bad mental health days where her intrusive thoughts - "If I touch the dirty floor, I'll die," for instance - seem too overwhelming, but she's also happily engaged to a partner. Raskin wrote "Overthinking About You: Navigating Romantic Relationships When You Have Anxiety, OCD, and/or Depression," a book that's part memoir and part self-help, which was released in May 2022. She told Insider she wanted to document her personal growth for others who could relate, while also offering advice. Now she's able to tell herself, "My fiancé is not his pants," and better cope with the discomfort of her intrusive germ-related thoughts without always having to act on them, Raskin said. But it wasn't until she started taking antidepressants again in her mid-twenties and going to therapy that Raskin was able to challenge her intrusive thoughts and feel confident enough to experience the uncertainty dating without spiraling, she told Insider. As she dated in her twenties, she noticed how her OCD and anxiety impacted her ability to feel secure in romantic relationships. If they don't act on them, they feel extreme distress, according to the APA.įor Raskin, her obsessive thoughts and compulsions revolve around germs and contamination. Someone with OCD feels the need to act on compulsions, like washing hands, checking on something, or counting to a specific number, so much that it interferes with their daily functioning and social life. Obsessive compulsive disorder is a largely misunderstood condition in which a person has recurring and unwanted thoughts, ideas, or sensations that they feel driven to stop through a repetitive action, or compulsion, according to the American Psychiatric Association. She told Insider she's spent most of her life navigating intrusive thoughts and compulsions, mainly about her world becoming contaminated and a fear of being alone. Raskin, a 33-year-old writer and content creator, was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder when she was four years old.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |