Intrusions and OCD

Intrusions and OCD

What are you afraid of right now that’s real?

- Now to break this cycle?

Sleepless nights and malnutrition-ed eyes,

One a little droopy than the other,

The meds must do that (I never use to have a droopy-eye before)

And what is that horrible gagging feeling in my throat?

Engaging myself in courses for depression,

“Lifting the cloud”, and specialist Anxiety programs

at Flinders Hospital.

Write it down over and over, like look, cover, write, check,

but this time with sacrilege, horror and chills,

Burn it into your soul so you don’t have to feel it anymore...

Or, anything...

It’s was like the brain-locked OCD suffered by

Aviator/Director Howard Hughes,

Like in that Scorsese film, even Cate Blanchett -

as Katherine Hepburn, couldn’t save him!

Burning the papers upon papers of evidence in secret out in my backyard,

No other way,

All feelings decayed,

“Have you tried to read a book?” he asked.

“I can’t? I can’t feel anything? Everything feels fake, phoney”,

“As if I am in an alternate reality - completely detached from life.”

“It’s all Unreal - It’s my undoing! Can you help me please? -

Piece me together again..”

“Only able to read little snippets of self-help books on mindfulness” ”

“Fiction now, terrifies me…”

“I can’t quite distinguish fact from fiction you see”

“Hmm”, he said, “Have you tried internet dating to deal with your isolation?”

My mind drifted back to a therapy session with my psychiatrist,

it is playing tricks with me 24/7,

Well, sleep is my only respite,

“I shall knock myself out at 8.30 or 9pm,”

With sedatives and anti-psychotics,

“That’s early?” My regular psychiatrist mentioned.

“Yes, I just don’t want to be up anymore”.

“It’s too much suffering to bear - quite sad really”,

“Have you seen any good movies?” My psychiatriast in Fullarton asked.

“I can’t concentrate, my mind is too hyperactive”,

“And the music in MasterChef gives me dreadful anxiety,

as if something most terrible is about to happen!”

The horrible realities in my mind are my life now,

There’s no room for distractions,

As every action just seems to push me deeper and deeper into delusion.

Now I’m back at the psychologist’s office (approximately four months ago),

well, one of the five I saw in about a year period.

“Have you tried meditation?” She asked.

“Yes and self-hypnosis online, which temporarily helps,

but sometimes releases more,

untapped realms of the subconscious.”

“These pictures you can’t control,” she began.

“What are these images of?”

“I don’t want to say..”

“C’mon..”

“Well, it’s as if the pit of my deepest subconscious,

has arisen to the surface..” I ambiguously related.

“Just give me one, one example,” she smiled slyly. What a creepy woman.

“No,” I said.

“Do you know Dali?” I continued.

“Uh, no”.

Are you kidding? I thought.

“Well, they are highly surreal, often dealing with the subconscious and the creepy ones, well far, far WORSE and disturbing.”

“Can you use these to your advantage somehow,

through drawing or painting?”

She continued, “How people can make meaning out of their pain,

or at least express it through art forms to find release”.

She has a point.

“But I can’t paint or anything like that”.

The addiction is too strong, the maladaptive habits engrained, I thought.

Ironically, this was undoubtedly the most useful piece of advice

that she provided over ten sessions!

For when the current dust had settled, a year and a half later,

I would try to WRITE,

AND write about everything, and a goodly share of it helped me,

to place things into cathartic perspective.

Like this here narrative-style poem for instance.

Did the thoughts ever stop you might ask?

To a degree they improved dramatically over time,

that I rarely think about all that now,

and the compulsive power it once had over me.

“What are you afraid of right now that’s real?”

2021