I can remember being emetophobic as young as 5 years old when I was worried about the anaesthesia making me sick when I had elbow surgery. My emetophobia must have manifested around age 3-4 and was the first theme of my OCD. I had anxiety and issues with being particular as a child. I often felt overwhelmed and needed things to be perfect and experienced a lot of DPDR surrounding big events and holidays. I spent a lot of my youth stuck in my own head, over thinking.

While I definitely had OCD as a young child, it got significantly more severe when I was 12 years old. I remember the second it happened, I was a TA for my math teacher in 7th grade and spent a lot of time alone in my teachers room during electives helping with preparing assignments and even grading some papers. I remember thinking “what if you’re terminally ill.” I was convinced that it was a sign that something was wrong with me and quickly spiralled into health OCD.I felt like I was loosing my mind and spent hours googling, seeking reassurance from anyone who would give it to me. I was also afraid to tell my mom what was going on in my brain, as I didn’t really understand it myself. My OCD would live there throughout high school, but it existed largely in the background. I remember a panic attack once begging my mom for reassurance that I wasn’t going insane. I had quirks here and there that were definitely compulsions but just brushed them off as routine. Schizophrenia themed OCD reared its ugly head then and followed me to college.

My OCD spiralled out of control in college. I dealt with schizophrenia OCD, health OCD, religious OCD, and relationship OCD. All at the same time. I went to a Christian college and was triggered at every turn, so badly that even though I am a Christian I would wear headphones during our required chapels so that I wouldn’t have to hear the speakers. I would compulsively pray and read bible verses. I compulsively sought reassurance from my boyfriend (now husband). I had constant recurrent obsessional doubts about whether my boyfriend was the one that God wanted for me, whether I really loved him, whether or not I was really attracted to him and what all of those things meant. I also was constantly googling and seeking reassurance about my health, convinced I had some sort of cancer or something dangerous. I distinctly remember a panic attack after watching the movie Shutter Island convinced that I could be schizophrenic and that I could be imagining my life. I had another panic attack after a bad sermon where the speaker essentially told an entire body of college students that if you sin God will kill you. At some point during freshman year of college I was at my work study in the library reading the DSM-IV for fun and came across the diagnostic criteria for OCD and realized that that is what was wrong with me, it wasn’t GAD like my GP had suggested. 

 

It was eye-opening to realize that compulsions can be mental. I felt immense relief finally knowing exactly what was wrong with me. Through sheer willpower, and a lot of grace from God, I was able to mostly control my OCD by setting limits on what I allowed with my health obsessions. If it was a sensation I had felt before, I dismissed it. If it was new, I gave it a week and if it got worse or didn’t go away, I would go to the doctor. I found that I had usually totally forgotten about the sensation long before the week was up. As for my relationship OCD, my boyfriend and I did break up junior year but ended up getting back together senior year and by that point I accepted that no matter what OCD said, he was obviously the one for me, obviously the one God had chosen for me, and I was no longer going to doubt it. My religious OCD did still hang around, but got much better once I graduated, which I did manage to graduate from college cum laude with a double major in forensic science and biology despite all that OCD threw at me.

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I went on to marry my college boyfriend despite ROCD, and haven’t had an issue with ROCD since. We have 3 beautiful children together and pregnancy and childbirth are my favourite experiences of my entire life despite my emetophobia. Religious OCD obsessions about the end times and centering around when good things happen its because God is trying to make my life easier for a bad thing coming. These are much easier to dismiss now. My OCD was fairly quiet while I was pregnant and nursing, I attribute that partially to hormones. I know its not everyone’s experience with pregnancy and OCD, but I’m here to give women hope that pregnancy doesn’t always make OCD worse. Mine was significantly better when I was pregnant, and pretty much stayed mostly gone (with a small flare up here and there, usually health related) until my youngest was about 16 months old.

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But then this emetophobia woman sent her kids to public school. And they started bringing home illness after illness and my emetophobia was triggered, I was severely traumatized from having to take care of sick kids and deal with it and then catch the illness myself. This made me absolutely terrified of my own children, constantly on edge staring at them convinced they’re going to fall ill at any second. I am afraid to be alone with them, I am afraid to cook them food (I do all of this anyway) and I was spending a lot of my time largely in my own head ruminating and memory scanning instead of being present with my children.

 

About two years ago I met a group of wonderful people with OCD on discord and actually lead my friend from there to her diagnosis of OCD. She eventually went on to try ICBT therapy when she wasn’t feeling fully herself after ERP. Out of desperation I tried ERP therapy only for about a month and quickly realized it was not for me. I am already so exposed and traumatized by my emetophobia that extra exposure is not helpful. I am already very functional, I just spend a lot of time in my own head and miserable. So my ICBT friend helped me find an ICBT therapist and I have been meeting with him for about 5 months and have almost finished the ICBT modules. ICBT has made such an instrumental difference in my life already and it only gets better the more you practice it.

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I created my Instagram to share my story and spread awareness for OCD and particularly for ICBT because it isn’t as well known but is a very evidence based and effective treatment for OCD. I feel like if people knew that there were other effective treatments out there for OCD more people could get help. Especially those who are resistant to ERP or that ERP hasn’t worked for, or even those who are still struggling after ERP. I hope my story can give those struggling with OCD some hope, lead those who don’t know that they have OCD to a diagnosis, or a even new treatment.

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-Crystal (Check out her Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/functionallyocd/) (7/20/24)

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