Grappling an Octopus

In honor of OCD Awareness Week (Oct. 12th- 18th), my co-author of You’re Not a Murderer: You Just Have Harm OCD and eldest, Finn, has contributed a blog post about what it feels like to have OCD. I love the comparison of OCD to grappling with an octopus. Accurate!

One day when I was riding in the car, I was talking to my mom and I mentioned offhandedly that dealing with OCD was like trying to grapple an octopus. Over time, this description has become more and more apt. It feels like you are never done, and no matter what direction you come at it from, it has at least three more on you. As soon as you deal with two of its arms, it grabs you with the remaining six and slams you into the ground like it’s performing some sort of WWE wrestling move. Not that getting a hold of the two arms is in any way easy; it’s more slippery than a bar of soap and squishy too, slipping out of your hold with no trouble. It feels infuriating and hopeless all at once.

However, that’s what it wants you to think. It wants you to believe that there is no solution, but much like the octopus, OCD is not invincible. If you cannot fight it with brute force, you must outwit it. It wants you to face it head-on and to engage. By intentionally stepping aside and actively not engaging with the compulsions, you avoid the arms of the octopus. The octopus will continuously come after you though, reaching with its arms, until it eventually retreats to the ocean, leaving you to live freely.  However, you must remain vigilant, because it waits for the chance when you are walking along the shore, unsuspecting, where it will try to grab you, and before you know it you are fighting the octopus again.

Finn Conrey