My husband and I disagree on the turning point of my OCD journey but what we do agree on is that things took a sharp left around the end of the summer of 2024. As I discussed with my NOCD therapist, the start of the school year brought new fears and concerns. I wanted to maintain the progress I had made in my sessions with NOCD earlier in the year and we came up with a set of guidelines in order for us to do that.
As I’m sure others in the teaching profession can attest to, there are 2 very different personalities of a teacher. One that exists during the school year and the other that appears during school breaks! During the summer, while I was in “maintenance” from NOCD, I was able to maintain a nice, neat and orderly household. We meal-planned every two weeks, laundry was completed as necessary, kitchen stayed clean, dishwasher loaded/unloaded regularly and meals were had at home. I felt like I was living my best life and wanted to ride this wave of success into the new school year.
I knew it was going to be impossible to keep up with everything and also go to work every day. We came up with what I thought was a pretty good compromise at keeping up with housework and schoolwork and all of our extracurricular activities. School started and by week 2 the “plan” was out the window! All of a sudden, I felt myself “surviving” until the next school break. Fall Break we reevaluated the “plan”, made some adjustments and tried again. Again, at Christmas break we saw very little success and had yet another discussion about how things should be in order to stay “sane”. I was living for the next school break as most teachers do!
The entire semester my mood was worsening and my grip on things I could control was tightening. I was more irritable at home and in the classroom, less tolerant of things that weren’t in our shared calendar or events that didn’t go exactly as planned, taking on more roles at work to stay busy and demanding perfection at home. I’m sure it was impossible to live with me and really difficult to work with me. In addition to the outward signs, the internal struggle had increased exponentially. The internal monologue felt like paranoia 24/7. My brain was on a loop of intrusive thoughts that increased to approximately 13-14 hours a day by the time Spring Break rolled around. Thoughts like:
- They’re not responding to my text message because they’re mad at me.
- They’re gathered outside my door talking about me.
- I can’t request what I need to do my job because what if they question why I need it.
- I’ll be ok; it’ll be fine. (It didn’t matter what “it” I was referring to.)
- I’ve been excluded because I said/did something inappropriate.
- Nobody has time for me.
- Nothing I do is good enough.
The week before Spring Break, I experienced an anxiety attack Monday morning and had to take a “mental health” day. I came back to work the rest of the week but wasn’t the same, ruling my already strict classroom with an iron fist. Wednesday night, I experienced a second anxiety attack in the pew at church. This was the worst anxiety attack I’ve ever experienced, having to sit with EMS and security to try to gain control of my breathing and racing thoughts. One of the EMS crew planted the thought that something more might be going on; something more than just a run-of-the-mill anxiety attack.
After confirming that what I was experiencing was a “classic” anxiety attack, my husband and sister staged an informal “intervention” and suggested that I reach out to a place in Nashville that specialized in OCD/Anxiety treatment. Rogers Behavioral Health is a nationwide organization that specializes in several areas of mental health, one being OCD/Anxiety. They engage in Exposure Response Prevention (ERP) which is the same treatment I experienced with success at NOCD. At Rogers, there are 3 levels of treatment: Partial Hospitalization, Intensive Outpatient and Residential.
I submitted the online questionnaire to Rogers on a Thursday afternoon and received a call from them that same evening at 8:45 PM. After going through everything I was experiencing they recommended I take part in their partial hospitalization program. Because they are located in Nashville, I would drive to their facilities each day from 8:30 to 3:00 and participate in treatment. Their recommended treatment program takes between 6 and 10 weeks depending on severity of symptoms and progress. Patients have a team of clinical experts including a nurse practitioner and behavior specialist that manage treatment and medication to ensure the best results. This team meets on a weekly basis to adjust program dates as necessary.
As you can imagine, asking someone with OCD to drop everything for treatment did not elicit the best reaction. This was the option I decided against the previous spring because I didn’t feel like I could walk away from the classroom. This time around, I felt I had very little choice. I felt like those in my inner circle were able to see clearly what I couldn’t. If I continued down the path I was on, trying to manage and survive until the next “break”, I would end up losing everything in my life that I deemed valuable: family, career, reputation and witness. So, on March 18, I walked away and began the Partial Hospitalization Program at Rogers.
There are no adequate words to describe my time at Rogers. The relationships I developed, the education I gained, the work I completed and the person I became would alter the trajectory of my life for the better. Because of my time at Rogers, I am a better wife, mother, sister, teacher and friend. For the hundreds, maybe even thousands, that are living with OCD and anxiety and have the thought “this is as good as it gets”, I can assure you that it CAN be better.
I will live with OCD/Anxiety the rest of my life but because of the information I gained at Rogers it will not be driving the bus any longer. I left Rogers with a renewed sense of self and a burden for those living with OCD/Anxiety who have very little HOPE of getting “better”. Through this blog, I am committed to sharing the information I learned along the way (chock full of personal anecdotes) with the hope that someone stumbles upon it and alters the course of their life, too.