OCD: Aspergers' ugly cousin

Obsessive compulsive disorder or OCD is a mental illness with which I am intimately acquainted. I was diagnosed with it when I was 13 and it was a major part of my life until I was 18. Before I even knew about Aspergers I had studied OCD in my psychology A-levels. Coincidentally, it was the years of therapy that I received for OCD and depression which enabled me to ace my exams, so I guess there really is a silver lining to every cloud. For anyone unfamiliar with OCD, it involves the sufferer experiencing obsessive thoughts. They attempt to deal with these overpowering feelings by enacting rituals. This can be as simple as repeatedly washing, or as unusual as counting to three out loud and then knocking on a surface three times. It may sound ridiculous, but I assure you that this example can and does happen. The nature of the ritual revolves around the obsessions. My particular obsessions were cleanliness, which is quite common amongst OCD sufferers. I was petrified of being sick and would go to any lengths to avoid it. I wouldn’t eat meat for a while, washed my hands so often that I suffered from chemical burns and cleaned all surfaces that I might touch with disinfectant. Any time anyone in the family even got the sniffles, I went into overdrive.

I knew my fears were irrational and I loathed washing my hands, and yet I was absolutely compelled to do it. The best was I can describe it is for you to try holding your breath for a while. Feeling the need to breathe yet, that overwhelming urge to fill your lungs with air? Well that’s what it feels like when those obsessive thoughts creep into your head, only instead of breathing, you enact your ritual. It took many years of therapy for me to finally beat OCD and I’m not going to pretend that it was easy. However, the sense of relief when I finally did was enormous; greater even than enacting my rituals when I was still ill. I still like to keep clean, but it is no longer obsessive.

Many Aspies suffer at some point in their life from OCD. Our obsessive nature makes us especially susceptible to it. There is little to stop a special interest from becoming an obsession that absolutely dominates your life. It is important to be aware of this and to watch for the first signs of OCD and to seek help if you believe you are in trouble. Aspergers may not be an illness or be curable, but OCD is. What’s more it is highly destructive. Know your enemy and you will be stronger for it.

For more detailed information on OCD as well as symptoms, I would recommend starting here:

http://www.ocduk.org/1/ocd.htm

The Pain of Loss

Recently my grandfather passed away. I’ve experienced bereavement before, even the suicide of a member of my extended family and I’ve been to plenty of funerals. Being an Aspie, logic tends to trump emotion when it comes to dealing with the loss. Long ago I learnt to accept that death is an inevitable part of life and that as in the case of my grandfather who had suffered from a severe illness for several years, it can be a release. Wherever he is now, he is free from the pain and suffering that plagued his last years. So logically, I should be happy for him right? Well yes, and yet no. Grandpa’s death really hurt me, I mean physically as well as mentally. We had been expecting it for years, and yet it was still a shock. I felt as if someone had swept the rug from under my feet. To me it represented a massive change in my life; it seemed as if things would never be the same again.

My relationship with my grandpa was one of the most stable in my life, out of my entire (and pretty large family) he was the only one who truly understood me, and it seemed that in turn I saw him differently to everyone else. We had one major aspect of our lives in common: we both had Aspergers. We also shared roughly the same special interests and could talk for hours. He was an incredible source of information and intelligence and had an almost encyclopaedic memory. I looked up to him and respected him more than anyone else in the world. It was from him that I inherited my gifts and whilst I also inherited the curse, I didn’t blame him. He suffered for his gifts too and I always believe that the gifts of Aspergers outweigh the curse.

He wasn’t diagnosed until well after me. My mum looked at me and all of my quirks, saw grandpa, put two and two together and suggested that he get checked. One of the greatest tragedies is that it was too late for him. You can’t cure Aspergers and even the treatments have limitations, but just knowing that you have it is the greatest remedy. In the past it was not something that was widely known about. A diagnosis was hard to come by, especially when you were an adult. Grandpa went through almost his entire life not knowing why he was different and being seen as very different by those around him. Without the coping strategies that are formulated for Aspies, he turned to obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) for relief. His OCD was worse than mine because he didn’t realise what it was and never had the access to therapy, medication and counselling that we have today. For these reasons his curse outweighed his vast gifts. I think that that is partly the reason why I felt his death so much. I was sad for him because he had the misfortune to be born in the wrong era. Today his gifts would have been nurtured whilst his curse was controlled. People are more accepting of Aspergers and the information and knowledge available about it is more extensive. I felt guilt too, because he was the greatest influence on my development as an individual, I owed him a lot; yet he missed out. I had also lost the one other person in the family who really understood me, who knew what I was going through. It hurts now, but I guess time heals all wounds. I will never forget him, but I hope that I will eventually be able to look back on his memory with pride and gladness, instead of pain and sorrow.

Dealing with the diagnosis.

I can still remember when I got diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome. I had been receiving counselling and therapy since I was 13 for various problems including depression and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).  It turned out later that these are disorders that affect many Aspies, but I did not know it at the time. By the time I was eventually diagnosed with Aspergers I was nearly 19 and had just finished my A levels. It started off as just a normal session with me hunched over on an uncomfortable plastic chair, staring at the tiled carpet. The room was quite dim, which I guess helped to calm down patients. My parents were waiting outside, as they had been asked to come. Dr G (not his real name) and Dr K (again no indication of their real name) were sat opposite me. We had just been discussing ways to control my OCD, when Dr A asked if I would let my parents come in. I agreed and awkwardly got up to call them in. Moments later we were all seated in a semi-circle, with me sandwiched between my mum and dad. Suddenly Dr A dropped a bomb. “I have discussed it with Dr K, and we believe that your son is on the autistic spectrum; more specifically that he has what is called Aspergers syndrome”.

                Alarm bells went off in my head. What the hell is that! Can I chalk that up as yet another mental illness that I am suffering from? Great, one more problem to deal with! That is how my thinking went. Dr G continued to give a description of Aspergers. As he did I got the weird feeling that I was looking at a description of myself. Everything started to make sense! Finally I knew what was wrong with me; why I was different to other people. Maybe there is a cure I thought. Turns out that there isn’t one, but do you know what? I really don’t care about that. My problems weren’t down to past experiences or weakness. I had a neurobiological difference to normal people; something that was not technically a mental illness. I am just different.

                The months that followed saw me reading up as much as I could on Aspergers. What started off as a cloud over my existence lifted as I began to understand it. To me knowledge was the key to living with Aspergers; the key from turning a curse into a mixed blessing. The key to making the best of my situation and finding happiness in my life. It still is, and it is the first thing that I would recommend to anyone recently diagnosed. Think of Aspergers as a mixed blessing. Sure, there are bad parts, but there are also benefits that are a gift. The ability to focus absolutely on a subject or topic that fascinates you and that you derive absolute joy from is one. Another is taking solace in solitude; you don’t need to constantly be around others. Focusing on the positives is great, but you also have to understand and accept your weaknesses. They are just as important, if not more so, than your strengths. Change and social situations are two of the biggest weaknesses that an Aspie will face. They will never be overcome completely, but that’s OK. They don’t need to be. You just need to find a way to live with them. You don’t have to be normal; you can embrace your differences. The key to dealing with the diagnosis is firstly to know your enemy i.e. and then to accept your weaknesses. Then as you learn more and more you can start to make the best of your life and even excel at it.