I always thought that my mental health was a “me” thing. After all, it was my brain on the fritz. This is the assumption I operated under for over a decade. Selfishly, albeit unintentionally, I thought the unstable nature of my mental health only affected me. Well, I was wrong. It affected my family, especially my parents, too.
Here are 5 ways my mental health has affected my family—and what we could have done differently.
They Blame Themselves
I’ve done a lot of research on mental health, and from my understanding, the earlier you identify a mental illness and intervene, the better. Said another way, the earlier you notice something isn’t quite right and begin addressing it with medication and therapy, the less severe it could be down the road.
Unfortunately, hindsight is 20/20 and this doesn’t always happen. In fact, the average delay between when symptoms first appear and intervention is approximately 11 years. I’d say my gap was about half that, but a lot of that was on me. For years, I hid my feelings and masked my symptoms as stress from school and pressure from sports. But looking back, there were some abundantly clear signs that something was off and my family feels responsible for not intervening sooner.
They Feel Helpless
My OCD comes with a lot of reassurance.
“Did I touch that?”
“Did I lock the door?”
“Is the stove still on?”
“Did I just eat poison?”
Since I was living at home during my darkest days, these questions and a host of other types of reassurance tactics landed squarely on my family. While I think it’s normal for one to turn to their family in times of need, they didn’t know how to respond or act when I came to them for help. So, they basically guessed at what they thought I needed and wanted to hear. Unfortunately for them, they rarely got it right, causing my symptoms to intensify and things to spiral even more. As a result, my family often felt helpless and like they couldn’t do anything right.
They Feel Alone
I was always home, so when I say my family, specifically my parents, felt alone, I don’t mean literally. I never left. What I mean is that they were isolated from everyone else they loved, including their friends
When my OCD was at its worst, I spent hours making sure our house was “clean;” that there wasn’t anything inside its walls that could spark my OCD and compulsive thoughts. I did this at all costs, so you better I was going to put up a fuss if they wanted to have someone over. This meant no friends over for birthdays, reunions with long-lost high school friends. Nothing. It was my mom, dad, me, and the dogs. Looking back, I see how lonely this must have been.
They Don’t Feel Loved
Let me explain because I absolutely love my family. My OCD makes me avoid a lot of things—a lot of very normal things that families do on a regular basis. Like, hugging, for example. Similar to how I tried to avoid people coming into the house, I did the same with physical touch. I did everything in my power to keep my body “safe.” To me, hugging would mess that up.
So, I did the obvious thing and put the kibosh on any hugs, no matter what. While I simply saw this as avoidance and a way to keep my OCD in check, my family, specifically my mom, took this a completely different way. She thought I didn’t love her, when in reality, all I wanted (and needed) was love.
They Feel Uncertain
OCD Is a fickle beast. Heck, I don’t even know how it’s going to act most of the time. While I now have a firm grasp on it, there were years when I didn’t. There was a level of uncertainty that I can’t explain.
Of course, I wasn’t the only one experiencing uncertainty. The fickle nature of my OCD confused the crap out of my parents and left them confused as to what I wanted, what was bothering me at that time, and what they could do to help. A tall task, I know. My family walked on eggshells for years.
A Retrospective: What We Could Have Done Differently
As I sit here editing this, I realize how awful this all makes me look; how controlling the OCD made me. And that sucks and I’m not denying it. But OCD has a grip on so many facets of my life and no matter how bad I know they’re affecting people, including my parents, there wasn’t anything I could do to rid myself of the feelings. I tried. Trust me.
So, looking back, what could we all have done differently? Communicate. That started with me. Simply acknowledging the fact that I didn’t feel right would have helped a lot. Not only would that have opened the door to treatment years earlier, but it would have given my family the opportunity to learn about OCD and strategies to help me much sooner.
I’d imagine others can relate.