All Content from Business Insider 03月03日
When I'm around someone I'm comfortable with, I stop hiding my OCD symptoms, and they can actually intensify. I'm working on it.
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本文作者自幼患有强迫症,症状包括检查、对称/精确和记忆囤积。令人惊讶的是,她的强迫症症状在与亲近之人相处时反而会加剧。起初,她会隐藏自己的强迫症,但当她感到被爱和被接受时,隐藏就停止了,这反而让她的强迫症得以更公开和强烈地表现。通过治疗,她意识到,虽然支持性关系很重要,但不能过度依赖亲人为自己提供安慰,这被称为家庭迁就。在与现在的伴侣交往初期,她开始努力对抗一些强迫行为,并逐渐向伴侣坦白,请求他的配合。尽管进展缓慢,但每一次小小的胜利都让她感到欣喜,并让她意识到人际关系对于与强迫症和平共处至关重要。

🧠强迫症患者在与亲近之人相处时,症状反而会加剧,这看似违反直觉,但实际上是因为在亲近的人面前,患者会停止隐藏,从而让强迫症得以更自由地表现。

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦家庭迁就指的是亲人为缓解患者的焦虑而采取的行为,例如反复确认炉子是否关闭,这可能会阻止患者寻求专业的帮助,并阻碍他们对焦虑的适应。

💪对抗强迫症需要付出巨大的努力,即使是微小的进步也值得庆祝。作者通过与伴侣的合作,逐渐减少了强迫行为,例如不再要求伴侣重复说话或反复检查门锁。

🤝人际关系对于与强迫症和平共处至关重要。支持性的关系可以帮助患者接受自己的状况,并找到与强迫症共存的方式。作者感谢伴侣的耐心和理解,这让她在接受自己的道路上前进了一大步。

The author (not pictured) says their OCD symptoms sometimes feel more intense around people they feel comfortable with.

I've been counting since I can remember. Balancing, blinking, scanning for cracks to step on with my right foot whenever my left foot accidentally landed on one. The feeling of something, anything, being "off" can mess up my day and have an intense effect on my interactions with others, particularly with those I'm closest to. I wasn't diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder until age 16, but I have no recollection of life before it.

My list of triggers is long (and doesn't include the "neatness" commonly associated with OCD), but the main categories are checking (confirming the door is shut or my curling iron is unplugged), symmetry/exactness, and a symptom I've seen anecdotally referred to as "memory hoarding," wherein I feel a compulsive need to internalize even the most inconsequential information.

I've learned to appreciate some aspects of my condition. My desire to take verbatim notes makes me an excellent typer, and, because I compulsively repeat patterns and numbers in my head, I internalize them pretty easily. Case in point: In 2013, I was hit by a car. While still on the ground, I memorized the driver's license plate before they peeled away. (They eventually stopped and came back, but that's a story for another day.) Certain information is like a hard-to-forget jingle, except instead of a fun little earworm, it's a game of Freecell I played in elementary school.

It's not all fun and actual games. If my mind grabs onto a word or even text on a billboard, I lose focus and stop processing whatever I'm supposed to be doing. At night, if my body feels off balance, I may spend a half-hour tapping and twitching until things feel 100% right. Sleeping next to me can be very difficult at times. And yet, I do sleep next to another person each night — someone who is very patient, which can be both a blessing and a curse, through no fault of his own.

I stop hiding my OCD when I become more comfortable with someone

When I first meet someone, I try to disguise my OCD with workarounds. But when I'm around someone who cares about me, who accepts me, the hiding stops. This sounds positive in theory, but in practice, it's like my OCD is suddenly given free rein, allowing it to operate openly and aggressively. This happens in my romantic partnerships and my relationships with immediate family members, best friends, and even my therapist.

For years, I didn't understand why the presence of my loved ones exacerbated my OCD symptoms. It seems counterintuitive that being with the people I'm most comfortable around could amplify my compulsions; after all, their presence usually decreases my anxiety, and anxiety can intensify someone's OCD symptoms. But no — these people usually bear witness to the weirdest, most intrusive compulsions in my brain's repertoire.

My OCD is a principal part of who I am, inherent to my personality, nature, and disposition. For a long time, I thought that having people in my life who accepted my OCD made it OK to ask them to go above and beyond to placate my worries. Through therapy, I've realized that, while supportive relationships are important — even necessary — they can only go so far, and asking them to go to such great lengths was unfair to them (and a disservice to myself). I was asking my loved ones to make me feel better — over and over and over. And then I'd ask myself, "Why am I not getting any better?"

What I was asking for is something known as family accommodation, which can occur when a person's loved ones try to alleviate the sufferer's anxieties, thereby "preventing patients from developing tolerance or habituating to the anxiety associated with their OCD triggers." If one of your compulsions is checking to make sure the stove is not on, and your partner always reassures you that the stove is off whenever you ask, it may stop you from seeking help with your appliance-focused anxieties.

When I started dating my partner, I decided to fight some of my compulsions

Early in my current relationship, I jumped on the opportunity to start fighting some of my compulsions, like not asking my partner to repeat himself or to quadruple-check the door's locks. At first, I didn't discuss this effort — and, good god, it took effort. Not only is it difficult to explain, but acknowledgment could make the compulsions feel more urgent, harder to avoid.

A few months in, I told him everything and asked that he try not to indulge my OCD if possible. Progress has been slow, and I still experience compulsive urges on a minute-to-minute basis, but each minor victory is still a victory. For decades, resisting any compulsion felt excruciating, even impossible, so even the littlest steps forward are thrilling.

I now recognize that my interpersonal relationships can mean the difference between living peacefully with OCD and suffering from it. There's no cure, but a path to acceptance exists, and I feel grateful to finally be walking it.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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强迫症 人际关系 家庭迁就 心理健康 自我接受
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