If you are unaware, OCD stands for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. This means that an individual diagnosed experiences excessive thoughts (obsessions) that lead to repetitive behaviors (compulsions). It's chronic, it's long lasting, and it is more common than you may think. Many people are unaware that they have it, or think they are dealing with only anxiety. Other people, much to my dismay, like to claim that they are "OCD" maybe because they like things to be neat and in order, on a minimal level. Let me be clear, coming from someone who has been diagnosed with it since they were a child, it is so much more than that.

When I was in first grade, my class took a trip to a health fair, where they did a presentation on the Heimlich maneuver. A common method to aid a choking person, it triggered something in me I had not known before. From that day on, I would get mental images of me choking, repeated anxiety over dying from choking on my next meal, and found it very difficult to focus on anything else when I was eating. Thankfully, the health fair was towards the end of the school year, because I spent the entire summer spending well over an hour on my meals. I would chew my food until it was mush, barely finish my meals, and even chew foods like applesauce or yogurt. I had an irrational fear of chunks of my food choking me, even though it would have to get stuck in my windpipe to do so. My mother is a speech therapist, and works with children with various disabilities every day. She knew exactly what I was dealing with and took me to therapy. My therapist did not prescribe me any medication, but I was diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and went through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. She even took me to Wegman's one session and bought me a bag of mini m&m's to practice swallowing whole. Many people who know me now are surprised when I tell them about my childhood experiences, because I took my therapy practices I was taught with me for the rest of my life.

When you hear the term "OCD," people have a stereotyped image in their mind of someone touching doorknobs one, two, three times to get it right, flicking light switches off and on and off and on again, or arranging their desk several times to make sure their papers are all lined up, pencils are in order and all their books are stacked neatly. Though individuals with real diagnosed OCD do deal with these compulsions, (check out Neil Hilborn's slam poetry on OCD) if there is only one thing you take away from this reading, know it is much broader than that.

I know how to control mine now, which is mainly why people who know me have no idea I have been diagnosed. Honestly, anything can trigger it for me. A heart medicine advertisement on TV makes me check my pulse to see how my own heart is working. A "10 Best Bone Breaks" video played in Anatomy class works up mental images of my own bones being broken, over and over again. Hearing the newly found diseases in my college health class makes me rethink that minor ailment I experienced the other day into something much more serious. People with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder do not experience much quiet in their heads. But who actually does? Ours is just a different type of noise.

I do not think about my diagnosis often. Mostly because I understand it so well. When I feel those mental images refreshing in my mind, I know what I am trying to work up, and I can easily squash it. Because I understand the disorder, I understand how to distance myself from it, and I understand that it is irrational. I've had several years to know it, understand and come to terms with the way my brain works. I think about it the most now when someone says to me, "Sorry, I'm so OCD about this" over something as minimal as liking their food a certain way, liking their workspace a certain way, or cleaning their room a certain way. If you truly have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, the "this" does not exist. Instead of one certain thing, it is every single thing. Maybe people are just uninformed. But claiming you have a disorder over one personal tic or fetish you have, is undermining a plethora of problems Obsessive Compulsive Disorder contains. If I could only have one tic to obsess over, I would take it.