OCD: patient talks about challenges of the disorder

2023-05-13 05:00:04

Former football player David Beckham, 47, recently spoke about how Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is present in his daily life, with “tiring” cleaning rituals, followed strictly in the early hours, while the family sleeps. “The fact is that everyone goes to sleep and I clean up. I clean the candles, put the lights right, make sure everything is clean. I hate going down in the morning and having dirty cups, plates and bowls”, he explained during the recording of a documentary for Netflix about his life and career.

Although most people associate OCD with “cleanliness,” the problem is more complex than the desire to organize. The disorder causes intense suffering to patients who feel obliged to perform rituals for life to flow. University professor Éric Barioni, 36, knows the reality well. He has lived with OCD for about two decades, but it was only diagnosed after a series of bouts of anxiety, panic and depression.

“Many people use the term OCD superficially and this is a form of aggressiveness in speech. Only those who have the disorder know how much it is suffered”, says Éric, diagnosed at age 24.

The professor believes that childhood traumas have generated an anxiety condition that manifests itself through OCD. The “turn of the key” for the onset of symptoms occurred when he was in his teens and his mother suffered from severe food poisoning.

“I remember going into the bedroom and shaking a lot. I know that there was a turning point between Éric, who had nothing, and what he started to have. Since then, I started to think that I was sick, showing symptoms of vision, such as pain in the eyes, and urinary, I felt a lot of burning when urinating, without explanation ”, he recalls. The case became more serious when, to get rid of thoughts of illness and death, Eric began to have compulsions.

“We all have some obsession or compulsion, but the decisive factor for the diagnosis is to observe whether these symptoms negatively impact the person’s life. If your relationships at home, at school and at work get in the way, and if the intensity of the symptoms causes psychological distress”, explains psychologist Penélope Ximenes, Master in Education from the University of Brasília (UnB).

Obsessions can appear in the form of recurrent and persistent thoughts, impulses, images that are intrusive and undesirable. Compulsions, in turn, are repetitive behaviors or mental acts that the individual feels compelled to perform to avoid obsessions.

OCD can develop at any age, but it is most common between childhood and adolescence. Afterwards, symptoms will appear linked to some trauma or stressful experience. “The diagnosis is usually made in childhood, with the observation of the symptoms and the content of the compulsions. We need to work on the painting as soon as possible”, says Penélope.

There are no specific causes for the development of the disorder. It is believed that it is triggered by trauma and abuse, but there is no established cause and effect relationship. “Some people develop without having gone through abuse”, explains the psychologist.

Symptoms

Without getting a diagnosis for the illnesses he believed he had, Éric developed a series of compulsions to try to deal with the thoughts. They usually started a few minutes before he went to sleep. “My ritual was to stop by the bathroom to turn the faucet on and off a few times and wet my hands an equal number of times until I felt safe to leave,” he recalls.

In the bedroom, he turned the light on and off about 10 times and closed the window latch the same number of times. “If I didn’t do that, I couldn’t disengage myself from the thoughts. So I had to pinch myself, twist or do anything on both sides of my body to calm myself down. If, even after all that, the thoughts came, I needed to give small punches to the wall to relax, ”he says.

The behavior invaded the boy’s days, and he began to create strategies to relieve tension and anxiety. “For me, that was always a veiled thing. I thought no one was watching my repetitive gestures until one day I stopped at a traffic light and saw someone doing exactly what I was doing, and they certainly thought no one was watching them. I recognized myself in that person and wondered how many times other people saw me in those scenes,” he recalls.

Treatment

To control OCD, Éric takes medication for anxiety and goes to therapy sessions once a week. The treatment allowed him to learn to deal with the intrusive thoughts that usually reappear in moments of crisis.

“Psychotherapy plays a fundamental role in the lives of patients so that they have remission phases of the disorder. Stressful situations throughout life can serve as a trigger, but they will already have greater capacity to deal with them”, says psychologist Penélope Ximenes.

Is it a tic or OCD?

The university professor recounts his trajectory in the book É Tique ou TOC, released in 2022. The publication was a way of venting, putting down on paper what he had already overcome and getting closer to the students. “The book is not a successful case because I continue to treat OCD. It is my experience as a sufferer of the disorder, ”he explains.

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