My OCD Valentine

The First Encounter:

We were living in the apartment that was owned by my husband a few years ago before our marriage. Nice clean and sophisticated flat, even I can’t maintain such a cleanliness around. Everything was going well until that moment gave a knock in our life.

That was a day after a month of our marriage, in our apartment. I was having a loop walk on the carpet and speaking with my mom over the phone. Meantime, he was sitting and reading the newspaper with a cup of tea just opposite to me.

At a point, I noticed he was consistently observing my foot for at least 5 minutes. I thought he was looking at my anklet hinting me at romance. Later then he yelled out loud “will you stop spoiling my carpet by walking around”, and I froze!

He started walking and came back with a set of cleaning equipment with fast blinking eyes and murmuring mouth. Then he cleaned the carpet with the vacuum cleaner for hours.

I noticed that something was unusually wrong with him. From that day I started observing.  

Symptoms Started Haunting:

2 months later, we went shopping. Though it was Diwali season the mall was crowded. We were the next standing in the bill counter with the purchased goods. While I was starving at the other items in the showcase the public next to us started making a huff and puff.

When I saw my husband he kept searching money in the wallet for at least ten minutes. “What’s wrong with you, people are waiting next to us pay the bill soon”. But he was not responding, he looked anxious and was repeatedly rearranging the currencies in denominational order and facing them in the same way. I pulled him out of the queue and paid the bill. This incident got me concerned about his health.

The voice over of mine started haunting me. My close friends of mine whom I shared my feelings started telling me. “He is a psycho leave him”, “he is a sadist”, “take a session with father Matthew” and blah blah blah..  I know about him he is a good guy and innocent too. I loved him much and  I couldn’t think of separation as an option. There had to be a way out.

The Ray of Hope:

Then the illness started to pre-occupy him. I started noticing many changes in his behaviour. I started collecting information from his close friends about his actions and behaviour. Some of the notable symptoms they told me were,

• He used to take the things which he buys in the multiples of two.
• He keeps counting the steps while climbing stairs.
• Kept using the cleaning equipment all the time in the house.

Then I understood his illness and we started searching for the permanent remedies. In the right time, I came to know about Cadabams from one of my relatives. I had bad and wrong thoughts about rehab centres before knowing Cadabams.

The professionals over there made me understand the what is OCD? What happens and the ways to handle it. With consistent treatment and therapies such as CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy), family therapy, group therapy and motivational therapy. I started witnessing the positive changes within him in a few months.

In the meantime of medication, we understood the depth of our love. After that, the distance between us was disappeared like a mirage. We started building our relationship stronger than before. The rehab helped him understand his illness better. From then on he was open about his health issues and emotional wellbeing, he tells me “how he feels every day”.

It’s nice to see him emotionally good and fit, thanks to Cadabams for bringing back the quality of life. Now he is very normal and he is a successful entrepreneur.

All I would like to share with others who have their loved one suffering from OCD is that mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of. Love, care and treatment are more than enough to embrace life. “Recovery is not too late”.