What OCD feels like

To start, I want you to imagine a ghost that hovers around you every day, every hour, and every second. Now, this ghost, it can control the physical movements of your body and put thoughts in your head. The ghost knows all about you, even more than you know yourself. The ghost only cares about one thing, and it's what you fear most. For different people, this fear might be different, like losing their career or falling ill. For me, it's losing my skills and having the closest around me forget who I am.

At this point, you might be thinking, "No one is going to wake up one day and just forget how to do everything and have everyone lost memory about who they are."

That's the thing about OCD. You know your fears are irrational and implausable. You know the probablity of X happening is close to zero. But you still fret and ruminate over such beliefs. Worst part is, you can't do anything about it.

Now, this ghost, it's really good at catching "stimuli" from the outside world to aggravate this fear. In my case, the stimulus and the fear doesn't even have to be remotely related. The most arbitrary thing could happen (like a light flickering) and the ghost will catch it and place your fear in your mind. I don't know how these seemingly unrelated connections form.

Now, what the ghost will do is take control your body complete the act that alleviates this fear. For the flickering light, you might get up and flicker the light again. Remember, at this point, you feel the absolute need to complete this act in order to allevate the fear. You might even think,

"Why am I doing this? I know that doing X will not prevent Y from happening, but I'm still doing it. This is so silly, but I know that flickering the light will make my worries go away."

I know why. Because the fear of not being in control overcomes the obstructions that stem from OCD. This event reoccurs multiple times within a day. Some with a more aggravated form of OCD might even find difficulties with the most mundane tasks like drinking water or walking.

The truth is, you always have the power to break the chains that bind you to the ghost. You can always choose to let the thought pass and simply not do the compulsion. Some people, like me, however, find the illusion of control to be far more valuable than recovering.