Happiful July 2020

TRUE LIFE
I was a
prisoner of
my mind
Terrifying thoughts of violence tormented Julia
throughout her life – until a diagnosis of OCD, and
the love of her husband, enabled her to finally
banish the fears and misery
Writing | Julia Harrison
Thinking back as
far as possible,
I can only count
the number of
truly happy, anxiety-free
days in my life on the
fingers of one hand.
I was an anxious child,
a worried teenager, and
a screwed-up adult. It
seemed to me that I was
responsible for everything
that went wrong around
me. I was a perfectionist
and an overthinker. But it
was more than that. I was
different, and I didn’t want
to be.
Like so many people, I
had a difficult childhood. I
grew up not knowing who
I really was, and feeling
that I didn’t really fit in. I
know now that these were
the ideal conditions for
my illness to take root
and grow.
My thoughts were my
downfall. From the age of
14, I began to experience
thoughts of harm towards
those I loved the most. I
would watch a news story
about murder or abuse,
and would be gripped by
a very real and sickening
anxiety. “What if I were
capable of this? Would I
do such a thing?”
I had an overwhelming
fear that my thoughts
were me. I carried this
false belief for more than
40 years, and it threatened
to endanger and
contaminate every loving
or kind instinct I had.
I married in 1983, and
followed my vocation to
teach. I know that I was,
and still am, a natural
and gifted teacher. I
was popular with my
students and I genuinely
wanted to help them fulfil
their potential. I thought
perhaps I had arrived in
my own life at last!
Then the accusatory
thoughts would begin.
“Could I be trusted
in a position of such
responsibility?” This
destroyed the joy I
experienced in my job. My
dysfunctional brain told
me I was a bad person – at
times my false sense of
guilt was overwhelming.
This is fairly typical of
the experience of people
with obsessive compulsive
disorder intrusive
thoughts, sometimes
called ‘Pure O’.
OCD contaminates
and dismantles the lives
of ordinary, decent
individuals. There
are many strands of
OCD – contamination
OCD, religious OCD,
relationship OCD – and
they are all, without
exception, cruel and
destructive.
Unfortunately, I had
never heard of this mental
illness, and 30 years ago
doctors were probably
unaware of it, too. Then,
in my late 40s, I was
researching something on
the computer and came
across the term “intrusive
thoughts”. I began to read.
On the screen I saw a
description of myself and
my life. I felt an enormous
relief, and an outpouring
of emotion. I had an
illness. It had a name. I
was not the evil person I’d
feared I might be.
You would think that
following such an
epiphany everything
would be sorted. I would >>>
July 2020 • happiful.com • 51