Sometimes when I go through my day, I see things that aren’t there because of my OCD. It isn’t that I am see hallucinations. It is more like my mind is playing tricks on me. I had a interesting and awful one happen to me today right in the middle of the workday. I was sitting at my desk and out of the corner of my eye to the side I saw a large shadow move. I immediately stopped what I was doing and focused on the movement. There was nothing there. I realized that just a few minutes before I was thinking about how there a few ladybugs had been showing up around my desk. My mind filled in the rest thinking about a huge bug like a waterbug showing up next. I didn’t see a waterbug; I just saw the shadow of what could have been a large bug moving near my desk.
When I am working at home alone, I sometimes get the idea into my mind that someone could break into the house. I go over scenarios of what I would do if all of a sudden, I saw a stranger standing inside my living room with ill intentions. When these thoughts go through my mind, my OCD kicks in and I keep seeing shadows moving all over the house. There’s nothing there and it is just my mind manifesting my anxiety, but definitely keeps me on my toes when it happens.
I’d have a difficult time dealing with it, but faith really helps me. I know science would tell me that my mind is filling in what my anxiety filled brain is working out, but that isn’t very comforting of helpful. Instead knowing that the shadows that I see are just OCD and I don’t need to worry about it helps more.
Today when I saw the movement near my computer, I really wanted to stop working, get up and search all around my desk to make sure there weren’t any bugs around. It wasn’t science that stopped me. When it happened, God helped me. I thought to myself: it was just an OCD thing, and I can trust in God that it is just OCD; I will be okay to keep working. I kept working and everything was all right. I don’t have enough faith in science of the brain to be able to just forget a shadow and stop worrying; it just doesn’t work that way for me. Yet I do have enough faith in God. I know that whatever happens with my OCD, I can give it to God, and He will see me through it.
Science and medicine have made amazing strides in helping people with anxiety disorders and I would never refuse medical treatment for my disorder. However, when everything else fails and I am really put to the test, I know that God is the one that I can truly trust in. If I find myself falling into a dark hole of despair that I know I won’t be able to find a way out, then God is my one true salvation and light. He is going to be there with me in that deep dark hole.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
