I come from a religious family and basically, Christianity is very important to me. My faith is very crucial and it starts when I go to bed at night. I would obsessively pray and I had to have everything right.

Every prayer has a specific way and if I forgot something or someone in the prayer, I would have to re-pray. Sometimes this ritual would take me 15 minutes to an hour. It affected my sleep as I had to make sure that my prayer is right. 

It was an obsessive-compulsive disorder. It’s when you have this ritual or obsession that you have a compulsion. It’s a loop and it kind of goes round and round and round. As a kid, I grew up in the early nineties. So I didn’t have a great upbringing or great parents. There wasn’t any support for OCD at that time. 

It was very shameful in relationships.

 A lot of times, I had to hide my compulsions from people. – a lot of times, you kind of feel that you need to these compulsions. It’s a very stressful environment. It was a constant feeling of fight and flight mode. It basically affects everything. 

One in 100 children can get OCD and One in 40 adults have it.

For a long time, I was very unhappy with myself due to these rituals and compulsions that I have. So, I resorted to eating. I write down what I would eat, and sometimes – I just go on periods where I’d eat maybe two things in a day – after that, I’d hit the gym and burn those off. 

That’s where anorexia bulimia came into play. – it was a separate mental illness from OCB. Bulimia and OCD along with trichotillomania, it’s obsessive pick that picks out eyebrows or skin or your hair. A lot of people with Trek also have anxiety or OCD. 

Usually, with trichotillomania, it comes along with OCD along with the body. It’s a dysmorphic disorder and it’s a common comorbidity to obsessive-compulsive order. 

There are a lot of people that are not aware of OCD. At this point, there are a lot of biological components to it. For children, it’s what we called pandas. And it’s a real thing.  Not knowing what it was as a child back then was the hardest thing. I had to hide a lot of those ritual compulsions until I got home and feel comfortable. 

It was hard to control. There were a lot of times were in a compulsion, let’s say I touched something, I always have this thought of being contaminated. And at that time,

I would have to go back home and wash my hands. Sometimes, I get to the point where I couldn’t even function – and that’s where you know that people have severe OCD. 

It’s almost like a depression that kicks in. You don’t want to leave the house – and sometimes, it’s not even related to contamination. It’s the thought of once you leave, you’ll be ruminating about all the things that you need to do. 

Before, I was diagnosed with depression and GAD or generalized anxiety disorder. And at that time I knew that wasn’t it. I don’t feel depressed – I think I had an obsessive-compulsive disorder and I was misdiagnosed. 

I was probably around 19 or 20 when I was officially diagnosed with OCD. It’s an anxiety disorder and kind of goes hand in hand with depression. There are a lot of people with OCD that are misdiagnosed as bipolar even though those two are separate diagnoses. 

People with OCD kind of go under the radar. Sometimes, we lay in bed for hours because our rituals are too much to handle. For people with OCD, we have intense thoughts. Whereas a normal person can take the thought and let it go. 

Rituals or compulsions can be mental. It could be only in the mind. Let’s say someone has cemetery OCD or a theme of OSPI, everything had to be just right. In their mind, they have to walk in a certain way or hit their arm regardless of whether it’s left or right. As to a normal person, they would have no idea why you just walked to the right and then walk to the left. 

For people with OCD,  if you don’t get to do those things it gets very distressing. But now that I have a family, they accept all of me. My husband knows my rituals and he knows the things I have to do at night. I have to tap the stove with ERP, which is the number one best treatment for OCD. 

You’re never recovered from OCD and ERP therapy is expensive. however, I was able to reduce a lot of my compulsions. I feel like I have a solid ground to stand on. ERP is called exposure response prevention and is the gold standard treatment for OCD. 

The average cost of ERP is $175 per session up to 200 per session. It’s hard to have access to treatment but luckily in Dallas, there are three or four specialists that specialize in OCD and do active ERP. 

ERP works by exposing your fear and you respond to that fear to prevent that fear from happening again. With that cycle, it’s a large part of recovery for people with OCD. If they don’t get ERP, they’re probably not going to see a lot of resolution from cognitive behavioral therapy.

Being open to accepting treatment and help support is huge.

If you’re interested to know about ERP, you can go to the IOC app. It’s an international obsessive-compulsive disorder foundation. They have a lot of information regarding ERP. You can also put your zip code and they’ll tell you where ERP specialists are in your area. 

I met a woman named Kimberly Quinlan and she is a California-based therapist that focuses on ERP. She developed a course for those that can’t afford ERP. Her course range around $200 and you can take it home.  

It’s a big help to people who do not afford ERP. Not everyone has the option of therapy yet it’s an important thing to do.

If you can’t afford to access therapy, getting books for OCD or other mental health disorder is a big help. You can also try online treatment and join a support group. It’s also important to take care of yourself through exercise. Yoga is a great example and for me, it has been a huge component. It helped me see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

But the most important thing to do is to be transparent. Not everyone is open in sharing their story as they feel ashamed. Be open to what you’re feeling and accept what you’re dealing with. Being open to accepting treatment and help support, that’s the best thing you can do for your self-care.