Suddenly, from around the age of 11, all of my OCD mysteriously disappeared and I enjoyed a profound serenity of the mind. I didn't have to count to "positive numbers" or neutralize unfavorable words. I was a happy kid in secondary school and my anxiety was reduced to almost zero.
Nevertheless, around the age of 15, my OCD returned with a vengeance and would become worse than ever. This time I didn't simply have to count to a certain number or verbally neutralize unfavorable words but also felt compelled to touch the floor or certain objects a specific number of times as part of a ritual of neutralization. It became that bad that some people would notice and ask me what the ef' I was doing or otherwise laugh at me.
At around the same time I also began to experience frequent intrusive thoughts that would heighten my anxiety. For example, one time when I was about to compete at a junior Brazilian Jiujitsu tournament, I was walking past the mat where some of the disabled competitors were competing and, all of a sudden, an intrusive thought burst into my mind that said: "Hey look, there's the "spacker division"!". Of course, I would never really say such a disrespectful thing and have great respect for the disabled competitors for their tenacity to compete against all odds, but intrusive thoughts like that would often invade my inner monologue without me wanting them to do so. Then, after that intrusive thought, I started to become paranoid thinking that the universe or karma or something like that was going to make one of the big tough whippersnappers who I was about to compete against violently suplex me onto my head and break my neck during our Jiujitsu match and then at the next tournament I would end up competing in the disabled division and then maybe even at the Special Olympics. I started to panic and then profusely apologize to the universe before preparing for my matches with my thoughts all messed up.
I'm gonna be honest. I was a whizz kid at Jiujitsu when I was a teenager. I even had to lie about my age so that I could compete in the adult category because there came a point when there was no longer any competition in the junior category but I still often used to smash most of my opponents with armbars, triangle chokes and positional domination and win awesome medals.
However, I didn't compete very much in MMA despite training in MMA for years. The reason for that was my same OCD. Whenever I considered the prospect of doing a MMA fight, my OCD would run wilder than usual and I'd start to think that the universe would make some big baddass Thai boxer cave my skull in with a powerful head kick and turn me into a vegetable for some "sin" that I'd committed in the past and that my pre-event OCD rituals wouldn't be enough to prevent it. In MMA there are more ways to die than in grappling. Before a MMA competition, my OCD would become so crippling that such events would be too much of a mental ordeal for me. I would compete rarely despite my MMA coach wanting me to fight frequently.
OCD is awful. It often stops me from rising to the occasion and performing in combat sports.
What is the best way to treat OCD?
@69ixine
@WilliamSmith
@publicduende
@gsjackson
@MarcosZeitola
@galii
I've tagged all of the people who I remember have talked about mental health in the past.
