I know this blog is primarily about religion, and why I loath it so, but it is also meant to reflect me. I also don't think you could understand my relationship with religion unless you understood more about my relationship with my own brain. I'm sure most of you know to some degree, but, I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. As far as I can work out, most people think this illness is kind of hilarious, because it seems to manifest in such unusual ways. Numerous movies have made it out to be an ammusing thing that eccentric people have. However, it's not really like that. It can actually be extremely debilitating. OCD is essentially a disease of doubt. Once you get an idea in your head, no matter how hard you try to get rid of it, you can't, and you perform actions in order to try and releave the anxiety it causes. However, it doesn't work for very long, and they usually return quite quickly. The best analogy I can think of for those who don't have it is imaging a computer with a virus. The scan detects it, and then proceeds to delete it. However, the scan is faulty, and it keeps reading the viruses as being there, even when it isn't, and tries to delete it again and again and again, continually sending error messages. That's what OCD is like.
People get stuck on all sorts of things, from the mundane to the down right weird. I've read about people obsessed with the likelyhood of dying in earthquakes, or tornados. In my case, my OCD has focused on particularly, cleanliness, religion, sex, habits, and my health. As bizzarre as it sounds, my mind tells me that I'm going to become a terrorist (or even worse, a self-righteous "ex-Atheist" like C.S Lewis), that other people can't touch my stuff (they'll make it dirty - I used to wash my books as a kid), that I'm going to have to sleep with my family members or co-workers (that's a particularly pleasant one), or that I have a host of diseases (my favourite was motor neurone disease - I perfected the art of tickling my own feet in order to test for the correct response that would prove I wasn't going to go the way of Lou Gehrig). What is most annoying however, is, I know all these thoughts are insane. I know none of them are ever going to happen (except the dying one, that WILL happen one day).
Needless to say, I'm not asking for sympathy or anything. I just think that people with OCD tend to stay in the closet as it were, because they're afraid that others will judge them, think they're insane, etc. Well, we're not. We just have bad thoughts. And if the shame goes away, then people will seek treatment, and the estimated 2.5% of the population who have it won't suffer in silence and can get some real help. So much research is being done and has been done in the last couple of years, that the treatment options are really much better today. Who knows, a cure could be round the corner. But, regardless, the more we talk about mental health as an illness just like we do other diseases, the healthier the world will be.
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2 comments:
Simon, your comments on the need to talk and open up about mental health/illness ring true. While I myself can speak from experience, my 3 1/2 years of med do suggest that addressing mental health is the way of the future, as it continues to climb to become one of the most debilitating 'health problems' in the developed world (3rd or 4th I believe). However, my question centres around confusion that I have with how much public attention it has received! Apparently, mental illness, on many occasions, has supposedly been brought to the fore in the media and other communication mediums, however, I don't feel that the stigma has been broken. Your thoughts?
I think it has been brought to attention in some mediums, for example, I can recount many times it being discussed on various shows on ABC radio. But I do think the mediums that discuss it are in the minority. Your average teenager that watches big brother and.. Gordon Ramsay or whatever his name is probably doesn't have a huge amount of contact with correct education about mental health, outside of Home and Away and maybe school. My experience with school's education about mental health can essentially be described as patronising. Aside from that our society even seems to be creating subcultures around pseudo mental illness, like emo's.
When you look at the controversy around Brooke Shields and her *gasp* admitting to taking antidepressants for post natal depression, a quite common illness, I think it is quite indicative of how far we have to go. And well, Scientology's attack on psychology and denial of mental illnesses all together, but I think I will let Simon address that one...
Something is definitely amiss. There is some media attention from the more "high brow" sources but its not mainstream enough to break the stigma and raise awareness.
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