This week, I have a piece written by someone whose acquaintance I made via my blog. She got in touch with me after reading my entries on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), an affliction she suffers from. Since then we have become firm friends, and I have been encouraging her to tell her story, just because. Last week, Utusan Malaysia publicised the achievement of an OCD sufferer who managed to obtain 10As in her SPM exams. She thought it was a good time to share her experience as an OCD sufferer and I figured it was timely too since I have a thesis chapter to write: urgently!

This is her story, not mine, but she didn't want to publicise her email address. So if you have something to say, send it to the usual idlan@idlanzakaria.com and I'll be doubly sure that she gets it.

Her story

When I go into the stadium to watch a football match, I spend 89 minutes fretting about when the stadium will collapse, because I am certain that it should do so while I am sat there, and therefore I need to clearly think about what I should do to get out alive. The other one minute of the game is when I momentarily forget these anxieties, because my team have scored and I'd be cheering. I've lived like that almost all my life, and it's because I have OCD.

What does having OCD mean? It means one hundred and one things, and then some. I'm not here to talk about the medical aspects of the illness, because you can google that and find out for yourself. What you might not be able to google is someone's personal experience, and I want to share that with you.

I've been diagnosed with OCD for a little under ten years now, but I think I've had it since the day I was born. I just didn't know what it was. When people talk about OCD the usual scenarios that come to mind is one of people washing their hands, incessantly. Or stepping over cracks in pavements. Or turning the lights on and off a dozen times before leaving a room. I am more than sure that these images have been helped by the dozen odd movies and tv series that touch on it, like As Good As It Gets or Monk or Scrubs . More compellingly, perhaps, The Aviator , which does away with the idea that it's sort of glamorous to have such an affliction.

Not that I'm saying, all the above scenarios are not OCD related. They are. But the demon that is OCD, comes in various forms and functions. I am not an expert to talk about other people's OCDs, but I've been learning quite a bit about mine. My therapist once described having OCD like having a short in the circuitry of my brain. Like there is a gate that filters stuff, that helps people rationalise what they do; only for me and other sufferers alike that gate is broken.

So sometimes the train hurtles on without realising there is a car on the railtracks. Crash. Cue panic attack. I sweat, my stomach muscles clench, I throw up. My body temperature escalates without warning, and my heart beats a tad faster than it usually does. Because without the gate functioning properly there is no filter to make my thoughts stop, and the faster it goes, the harder I try to make it stop. Head on collision is the result. I just lie there, and wait for it to pass over.

I like the way my therapist put that. It's not easy dealing with an affliction you can't see. When he tells me stuff like that, I can visualise things. It makes acceptance easier. Because acceptance was an issue for me. I didn't like the idea that there was something not quite right with me that I couldn't see or feel physically. Not like a fever or a rash. I hated the idea that this affliction was permanent; that medication doesn't cure it, it only controls. I was about twenty when I was first diagnosed, and it's that age when you're all cocky and confident, ready to take on the world. You don't quite want people telling you that you were 'mental', and that this was not going to go away.

One track mind?

I'll give you an example of how my brain works when it comes to OCD it's very longwinded too, because that's how it usually manifests. I remember someone telling me, when I was 8, that on doomsday the sun would rise from the west. This got me obsessing on two things: a) if the sun would rise on a particular day, and b) if it did rise, did it rise from the East or West? First I'd only 'check' for the above situations on Fridays, because I learnt in agama class that doomsday would only happen on Fridays. Then it occurred to me that while it's Friday morning where I was, in other parts of the world it could already be Friday afternoon; so the checking became Thursday AND Friday. And not just sunrises, but sunsets too because if the sun sets right, and it doesn't appear in the middle of the night, then that creates a greater chance of it rising from the East the next morning.

Then I remembered that 40 days and 100 days seemed to have some significance in Islam, so I started to check on days that were 40 and 100 days prior to a Friday, because maybe the sun would rise from the West 40 or 100 days before doomsday. I also checked the day before and after that day, too, just to be sure. And then Saturday and Sunday were added onto the list of days to check on as well, because Saturday was Sabbath Day for Jews, and Sunday was the Christians days of rest, and Islam, Christianity and Judaism all came from the Abrahamic tradition.

Yes, soon enough, I was checking for sunrises and sunsets every day. If I was at home then I'd get up really early. If I was at school then I'd check to make sure in between classes. At university it was in between lectures. Check check check and if I didn't see the sun rise (perhaps it was raining), or reflections from clouds were from the West. Almost instantly, my body would react. I would start getting a cold sweat, I would get nauseous, and my heart would beat twice or three times its normal speed, or at least it felt like that. If I was in class at school, I'd just sit tight at my desk, frozen, not being able to do anything, until I could convince myself that no, the world was not going to end. And then, the next morning, it begins again.

Sounds stupid, silly and totally pointless, doesn't it? Yes, it does, and I know it does, but what is painful is that while I am so, so aware of all that, it's almost impossible sometimes to fight it. I tried very, very hard not to check. I'd calm myself down, try to rationalise things by telling myself the logic of it all: for instance, the sun rose already in Japan like 5 hours ago, so if the world was going to end, it would have ended already. Simple logic that a child could accept. Only knowing is one thing, for me. Believing, is another.

Checking the sunrise is just an example. If it's not one thing, it's another. The OCD will always find something to latch on. Lumps as cancer. Late periods as pregnancy. Muscle pains as heart attacks. Beef burgers and mad cow disease. KFC and bird flu.

There are two points that I am trying (valiantly, but in vain, perhaps) to make. First, that the OCD latches on to anything and everything. Maybe you've managed to rationalise one thing, but another comes creeping up. It never goes away. Second, is that I don't know about other OCD sufferers, but for me, I am fully aware of the nonsensical nature of it all, and that is what is most frustrating. I know it wastes time, I know 'normal people' don't do it, but I can't stop myself. And that's how spiralling into depression comes really easily.

Salvation

What was the way out for me? Medication. That, and finally coming to terms with the illness. I have resigned to the fact, or perhaps, accepted the fact that medication will help me by providing a 'bridge' to close the gap in my brain's circuitry. Therapy will help me cope with my thoughts, deal with them and manage them. I hate therapy, I personally think it's a waste of time, because I get told things that I already know. I mean, I read about this stuff, I do research on it too. I just.. don't believe it. Or maybe, I just don't trust it.

The meds are not all good, though. They make you numb, like you don't feel anything. I think that's the way it is supposed to work. It doesn't make the thoughts go away. It just makes me not care about the thoughts. I still have the urge to check sometimes. But if I tell myself no I don't get into a panic attack. You don't know how good that feels. Like when I went to a concert at a stadium this year, and for the first time I could sit back and enjoy the music, instead of thinking for three hours, bila ya stadium ni nak runtuh, and panicking. The thoughts were there. I just didn't care if everything collapsed or not.

I have been skeptical about getting into serious relationships, though. I am not quite sure how the world at large perceives me, and I am scared that if I tell my other half about this, he will run away, or think that I am crazy (okay, maybe that's not so far off the mark but anyways). I told my best friend about this, once, and she wanted to take me to see a bomoh. If only the bomoh had a cure, I'd be the happiest person on earth. She refused to see it as an affliction. I am scared that whoever I end up with will be freaked out by my need for constant reassurance. Yes darling, the sun will rise tommorow. Yes, baby, you take the plane and it will not crash. Yes, honey, the car is safe and there are no bombs. How long will that last before you finally decide reassuring me is so not worth what I am to you?

So that's my story. I am a person with OCD. All I wanted was to share this with you, and I am using this platform because I know there are many others like me out there. This is my feeble way of reaching out to you, trying to say that you are not alone. And also, I wanted to try and explain what it's like inside my head. Why the things I do the things we do make no sense to you, but it's very real for us.

IDLAN ZAKARIA can be found here on the Internet.