5 Lessons From Getting COVID With OCD and Anxiety

After my fully-vaccinated husband got COVID in July and I didn't, I honestly thought I might never get the virus.  

My irrelevant negative rapid test. 
PCR came back positive.

However, as we've learned, COVID is full of surprises.  After learning of a potential exposure prior to Thanksgiving, I decided to get a PCR test to be safe even though I had no symptoms.  The email came just over 2 days later: Positive.

Tuesday was my only real day of symptoms: mild congestion and sneezes.   These also may have been due to the booster shot I received that Monday or dust from my office move... we will never know.  Since then, other than some random sneezes, my COVID has been invisible.  My anxiety and OCD, on the other hand, are here as usual if not exacerbated by this whole situation.  Here are five lessons that I've learned from this experience of processing a COVID diagnosis as someone with OCD and anxiety:

Lesson #1:  COVID Triggers OCD Differently in Different People

I've always been someone who has OCD worries about getting other people sick more than someone who has OCD worries about getting sick myself.  Have I considered the possibility that I could end up with bad health outcomes from this diagnosis?  Sure.  But I worry more about people who may have been exposed to me before I knew. There is so much fear surrounding COVID, and your OCD can take that fear in different directions depending on your unique themes. For people who incessantly worry about their own health, the worries could easily go in that direction instead.  People can also worry about how a diagnosis will disrupt their lives more than any health issue (How would I handle it with work?  Will I have to miss a trip/wedding?)  There isn't a one-size-fits-all way to worry about this. OCD can be creative!

Lesson #2:  OCD therapy can in some ways prepares you for calmer COVID risk analysis.

People with OCD and anxiety can often struggle with appropriate risk analysis.  Like I will turn off one electric power strip in my room before I leave the house on the extremely off-chance it would somehow overheat, catch fire and burn it down.  I am perfectly aware that's extremely unlikely to happen outside of a Final Destination movie, and there are other things I probably should worry about that I don't.  In therapy, I learned the technique of talking myself through some major fears to see that they weren't really as rational or likely as the panic originally lead me to feel.  This has been a helpful skill with COVID in many ways when trying not to spiral.  

For example, I have have a coworker who is particularly high risk, and it would be easy with my brain to panic that I was going to give him COVID and he could get really sick or even die.  However, thinking the risk through logically helps me realize that isn't a likely outcome (Examples of reasons not to expect the worst: Not everyone who is exposed gets it; Even people who live in the same house don't all get it; We are both double-vaccinated; As soon as I learned I was exposed, I masked up in the office; I hadn't been around him that much in the past week before my positive test; Even in at risk populations, not everyone with COVID gets extremely ill.)  Unfortunately, terrible outcomes have occurred with COVID, and we can't just throw caution to the wind, but for sanity it is important not to constantly jump to the worst case scenario. 

Lesson #3:  Coronavirus subreddits are like anxiety heroin.

Oh my gosh what a dangerous world Reddit can be if you have anxiety and it's hungry for doom to feed on.  Literally at any time of day, I can go on Reddit and go to r/Coronavirus and see articles about how we are all going down.  My anxiety is always looking for something to latch on to, and what better place could there be? Between the clickbait titles and the fatalist comment section, you can always find some information to confirm your worst nightmares have a chance of coming true.  Advice to myself and others like me: Stop checking this before bed. 

Lesson #4:  Following COVID guidelines can be a privilege.

My heart goes out to anyone with anxiety whose employer is writing their own rules.  I am very fortunate to have an employer who is letting me follow the guidelines set by the CDC and Ohio Department of Health, and also lucky that my husband can work remotely while he is in the window of concern, but I know that many other people are at the whims of their employer's policies right now.  

I have a friend who works at a school, and they are so understaffed that they aren't having employees quarantine even if someone in their house has COVID.  In Ohio, the guidance is always changing.  USA Today did an interesting article recently on how inconsistent policies are.  I can't even imagine how triggering that would be for someone with OCD concerns about getting other people sick.  

I was super fortunate that I could take this week off work unpaid, but not everyone can afford to or has an employer who would even give them the choice.  I guess the point of this lesson is to try to meet people where they are with what they can do and try not to add to the anxiety of a terrible situation by judging people who aren't able to follow current COVID guidelines to the letter. 

Lesson #5:  There is always someone more worried than you about COVID and always someone less worried.

I consider myself to be pretty considerate when it comes to COVID etiquette.  I got the PCR test when I learned of my exposure... I am staying home from work... I considered who I had seen the 48 hours before my test results came back and let them know so they could take care of themselves.  With my fears of getting other people sick, I even contacted someone I had seen in the past 72 hours prior to the test, just to be safe.  What I've learned is that there will still be people who feel that I am not doing everything I can and would do more.  

For example, I tested positive on a Sunday after learning of a potential exposure at an event the previous Wednesday.  Everyone at that event was notified via email of this potential exposure.  Relaying my story to a friend, she was shocked I didn't email everyone again to let them know that I later tested positive too. I explained to her that the event may have been where I got it and was over 72 hours prior to my positive test.  Emailing those already notified people again just didn't make sense to me by any of the guidelines.  For her comfort level, she still would have emailed.  

On the other end of the spectrum, some people I know are completely unvaccinated and don't really care about masking either or are outright against it.  Still others somewhere in the middle.  All of this uncertainty is extremely triggering if you have anxiety because sometimes it is often hard to know the "right" thing to do right now with changing guidelines as this evolves. In some ways, you just have to accept that your best is not going to be enough for some people and would be way overkill for others.  

What a wild time to be alive, yeah?  As my sister says, people have to do what gives them peace of mind.  I have heard other people say to give everyone a little extra grace right now, and that's something we can all work on.  But don't forget to include yourself in that group too!  

OCD Workarounds

One of my most nonsensical OCD annoyances right now is my time card obsession.  It constantly evolves and I just can't seem to shake it. 

My work time card is basically the bane of my existence.

It should be so simple... go to work, clock in, work, clock out.  Add the hours at the end of two weeks. Lots of people do this and don't give it a second thought.But instead, with my OCD, it turns into checking and double checking and docking time and worrying. So much worrying.

I ask myself so many "what ifs" related to work timing: 

What if you clocked in before you actually started working?  

What if you clocked out after you finished working, and the delay in opening the app means the clock already moved to the next minute... so now you're getting paid for an extra minute you didn't work?

What if the math is wrong and you're overcharging?

What if you weren't truly working the whole time and you're cheating?

It's always OCD worries and fears related to stealing and dishonesty...  Like just an over-the-top concern I will be getting money I didn't earn. Unfortunately, this leads to compulsions like docking time from myself when I get home. I logically understand that my fixation on this and minute by minute concern isn't normal and my boss would never expect me to do this, but I can't stop.    

I can't seem to get around it either.  I have tried tactics to stop the neurotic obsessing over this (ex. I downloaded a time card app that does the math for me, I text my mom right before I clock in and right after I clock out to have a backup log of the time), but I still worry about overcharging and not clocking in or out correctly.  

The issue is that OCD is amazing at workarounds. If you come up with a way to make things easier, your OCD can come up with a new way to make it hard.  For example, if I try to avoid my time docking compulsion, instead my OCD brain suggests maybe I should keep working a little bit more after I have clocked out to make sure I am not getting overpaid. And even though I now have an app for my time card, my OCD brain still wants me to double check the entries - I write each entry in my planner and double check my app entries against my daily texts to my mom.  To try to stop the worry that I didn't actually check, I make check marks and underlines to try to prove to myself that I did... but I find the worries are still creeping.  Ultimately, I know each compulsion is just feeding the problem. 

My therapist has suggested some Exposure Response Prevention (ERP) style work with this. She says to try just clocking in and out one day without giving in to my compulsion to dock time and to leave the office as soon as I clock out so that I can't give in to my compulsion to keep working.  Instead of the compulsions, I would just sit with the anxiety and reminding myself that I deserve to be paid for my work.  The goal is to see that I can overcome the anxiety and nothing bad will happen if I don't do the compulsions.  Getting to work, clocking in and out and not worrying any more about it is normal.  

But so far, I haven't been able to bring myself to do it.  My fear of time stealing is so great that I worry I won't be able to shake it and will go into full blown panic.  I'm not worried about going to jail or getting punished, I'm worried about being a bad person who steals.  It's such an intangible fear, and the anxiety around it so so big that day-to-day it always seems easier to just cut off a couple minutes than to risk feeling like a fraud.

But the tragedy is that those couple minutes daily add up.  Any fear of cheating myself or cheating my family out of the money I've earned is overpowered by the fear of theft, but I also feel guilty that I keep doing this when my husband works so hard.  At this point, I've tried so many different ways of dealing with the problem except for actually facing the anxiety.  I know ERP can be very successful, I just need to get the courage to do it.

If you're currently dreading your ERP homework, know that you are not alone. We just need to get up the courage to face it.  Today, I did my underlines and my check marks, but here is hoping that I can muster up that courage soon to try the ERP for this and finally work around all the OCD workarounds. 

Sayonara, Seratraline!

 

Well, here we are again...

Sayonara, Seratraline!

In August 2019, I wrote a post about the surprises in transitioning off of my OCD/anxiety medication.  Then, almost a year later in June 2020, as the Coronavirus pandemic made even the most mentally stable of us feel uneasy, I wrote a post about the lessons I learned from getting back on.

Now, it's April 2021 and as of Sunday, I am officially back off my meds.  My husband and I had planned to start a family last spring, and now we are hoping to try in the fall.  After speaking to my psychiatrist, we decided that I was doing well and it was worth a shot to try getting back off again.  

Ideal Scenario:  I continue to do well, see my therapist and keep my stress low so that I can stay off of the medication through pregnancy.  I get more into meditation and learn how to be zen while transforming into the physical embodiment of Gaya, mother goddess.  Then, as soon as I have the baby, I will go immediately back on a pill that has been studied as safe for lactating mothers.  Going on right away should help with any postpartum depression and anxiety, which I feel fortunate I already know to look out for.

Potential Plan B:  I realize within the next few months that this isn't feasible and my stress levels and anxiety will be more dangerous for pregnancy than getting back on medicine.  Because I got off now, I have time to figure this out and get back on and stable before we try in the fall. 

Potential Plan C:  I do fine before pregnancy but have to get back on something during pregnancy because the hormones take me to a dark place.  I'm already in contact and have a relationship with my psychiatrist, and she has helped a lot of mothers who have safely delivered babies while on medication, so she is prepared to help me tackle any blips along the way.

I am open to any of these possibilities - the important thing is to plan ahead.  There's a lot of stigma around mental health medication, especially for pregnant women, but for those of us who need it, we realize how important and life changing it can be.  Nobody knows your personal circumstances, and how you handle pregnancy and medication should be between you, your doctor and your support system.

Let me end with the same disclaimer as in my June 2020 post: Remember: I'm not a doctor, and I can only speak from my experience.  Since elementary school, I've tried a number of different OCD/Anxiety medications (from Zoloft to Luvox to Viibryd, just to name a few).  Some have worked better for me than others.  The best thing you can do is is to find a good psychiatrist, advocate for your needs and keep an open mind.  During these difficult times, don't forget to take care of yourself.

Hope? Is that you?

I can't believe I haven't written since June, but I also can't believe it is March again already, and yet... here we are.

This was the year everyone got to learn what anxiety felt like, and those of us who already knew went into hyperdrive.  With so much unknown and so much pain and fear, the COVID-19 pandemic threw us all for a loop.

And then there was the news - accessible 24/7 on your TV and your phone. Always full of new information about death tolls and hospital capacities...  Graphs, charts and infographics of death and despair.  

Sometimes doesn't it feel like the people producing the news have been coached by your anxiety?  

Examples:

Hospitalizations are down in Place A!     They're on the rise in Place B.  

Good news about Vaccine A!  Here is what could go wrong with Vaccine A.

Numbers are trending down in this area!  Prepare for another surge.

Any good news always has a counterpoint - someone saying maybe things won't actually be okay.  There are always multiple people willing to voice the worst case scenarios and many acting like they are the most likely outcomes.  Sometimes, it's like your anxiety came to life and got on CNN and Facebook.

With the constant ability to access news, and the updates that appear unbidden on social media or through news alerts, this barrage can become like a physical manifestation of intrusive thoughts - unstoppable, negative and overwhelming.

Now we obviously have to take this pandemic seriously, but I think we have gotten to a place where it is safe to be... Dare I say it?  Cautiously optimistic.

Just today Biden announced that the timeline for availability has been pushed up and all adult Americans should be able to get a vaccine by the end of May.  And Johnson & Johnson hopes to manufacture a BILLION doses by 2022.

My mom was just able to schedule her vaccine.  My grandmother and two of my bosses have completed both shots.  Things are moving forward.

We all have to try and walk the line between staying necessarily informed and going down the rabbit hole of negative news.  When electronics are off, they're not very attractive to look at, but they're also less likely to intrude on your sense of peace.  

We still have to take steps to be safe, and the world won't be healed tomorrow, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.  Don't let the negative news cycle snuff that light out for you.  As we continue this pandemic marathon, I wish you all good health and inner peace.