A tale of recovery to save a women who caught OCD

I am writing to you in hopes that I can help someone else who has experienced this sort of hell on earth. That’s the best way I can describe it. No one understands unless they have actually experienced it 1^st hand. I’ve done an excellent job hiding my problem. Only my closest friends know and I keep it hidden well. If people knew, they were certainly say that I am crazy and possibly turn me into an outcast, stone me with rocks, burn me 2 at the stake like a witch or even worse people might show up @ my door and throw a white straight jacket on me and put me in a padded room.

I have dreams, hopes and desires like everyone else. I planned on having a career, raising kids and living happily ever after but after the birth of my twins my life started to take a turn into a mind blowing downward spiral. Was I crazy? I felt crazy. I felt like I couldn’t control my thoughts. Why couldn’t I control these thoughts? The what if’s? The “what if I die, who will raise my girls”? The “did they touch something poisonous?” Did I touch something poisonous? Are they going to die?   Am I going to die? I had ‘caught” a devastating fear of chemicals. That has drastically changed how I went about my everyday life.

I know, I was overwhelmed as a new mother of twins and a toddler. My husband worked a lot of hours. He did help me some with sleep when he came in from his long shifts. He was a hardworking, good man. My break was going to the grocery store. Although exhausted, the hour break was nice while my husband watched the girls. I also ran a small cleaning business which I enjoyed. I loved going into people’s homes, seeing how they had their house decorated and cleaning it. One day dreaming of my cleaning business booming and I too will have my own cleaning person. I took pride in my work and I was proud to say that I was a business owner. So, the big question is what happened to me? Now, I can’t go into a grocery store without a panic attack unless I am with someone. I can’t go down the chemical isle without holding onto someone’s arm. Even driving my car and I pass a store that I know has chemicals in it sends me into a panic attack and my OCD starts the ‘what if’s”. Why? These are crazy, abnormal, not rational & unnecessary thoughts of fear of being poisoned.

I’ve had other good jobs over the years only to quit because if they had any kind of chemicals that wasn’t locked up. I would develop severe anxiety and my OCD would leave me paralyzed feeling and wanting to flee – almost all day, every day. Fight or flight, isn’t that what they called it? My stress tolerance was non-existent. I lived in a constant state of panic. I didn’t want to leave my house but I had to. I had to go to work. I had to try to fight this irrational fear and not let it win over me. I am a rational person. I would never harm myself. I want to live. I love life. So why was this happening to me? My only relief would be drinking a few beers or popping me a Xanax. If I could get a doctor to prescribe me the Xanax. Most of the time they wanted to push some form of an anti-depressants down my throat. I kept telling the doctors that I am not depressed but they insisted and pushed and I resisted. Every fiber of my being fought to NOT take any anti-depressants.  I did allow a few weeks in a moment of desperation to try a few different kinds of anti-depressants but it made me manic and have suicidal thoughts. as I look back on all the house that have been spent seeing behavioral specialists and several psychiatrist in hopes to finding an answer. Ive read that there is scientific evidence that ALONG WITH MEDICATION AND COGNITIVE BEHAVIOR THERAPY that can change the chemicals in the brain and help it balance the chemicals but you see I know that a pill isn’t a cure its a band-aide to the real issue at hand and I want to get to the root cause.  I also believe that big pharma isn’t in the business of curing us, they are in the business of making customers.  

I am a blogger and writer by every fiber of my being. I love to write, research and blog about things. I came across an article titled: Streptococcus Bacteria: The Hidden Cause of Psychiatric Disorders Almost No One Considers. By Dr. Mercola.  He goes on to say that there is a brain gut connection to many mental disorders and one being OCD! Psychiatric conditions such as OCD are primarily believed to be the result of chemical dysfunction in your brain, or in some cases hereditary and therefore out of your control. Many fail to realize that a) your lifestyle can override genetic predispositions, and b) your lifestyle can be a major underlying cause of that chemical imbalance or dysfunction. Was I just having  an abnormal immune response that has triggered the start of my OCD and then did I entertain it to help develop the beast that it has become? So in layman’s terms, I have come to understand that my OCD is a psychological condition that in some sort of way always involves a domino effect reaction to the environment that I am in and the  environment that I have created.

Is there hope for me? Did I just by chance come across the answer to my years of senseless suffering? I never had this problem before the birth of my twins. Even shortly after my twins were born, I still ran my cleaning service with no issues. So, why am I plagued with it now? Why am I being tortured? Could the answer to my problem be this simple!?

Dr. Mercola goes on to say that: In a very real sense, you have two brains: one inside your skull and one in your gut. While they may seem very different, these two organs are actually created out of the same type of tissue. During fetal development, one part turns into your central nervous system while the other develops into your enteric nervous system. The tenth cranial nerve that runs from your brain stem down to your abdomen—connects these two organs together. Your gut actually produces more of the neurotransmitter serotonin—thought to play an important role in OCD, in addition to having a beneficial influence on your mood in general—than your brain does, so optimizing your gut flora may indeed have tremendous benefit for your psychological health. And there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that this needs to begin from birth, or even, ideally, before birth.

Could I possibly turn the tables back and fix my OCD with getting good gut flora? I mean, really? Could it be that simple? Like I said, I never had this problem before the birth of my twins. I had no problem being around any kind of chemicals. I never thought anything crazy. Oh , let me not fail to mention at this time I was also newly diagnosed with hypothyroidism

In my research, I’ve also found that Choline is anti-dopaminergic and often makes OCD patients worse. Most OCD patients get worse if given supplements of DMAE, choline, copper, or folic acid. Choline is in Eggs, liver, and peanuts. Other major contributors to choline in the American diet are meat, poultry, fish, dairy foods, pasta, rice, and egg-based dishes, spinach, beets, wheat, and shellfish. I’ve also learned that I have a lack of serotonin. Serotonin boosting foods are eggs, turkey (which I can’t have, I just learned) walnuts, hickory nuts, pineapple, bananas, kiwis, plums, tomatoes and exercise.

“Historically, mental illness has been linked with infection. When Georges Gilles de la Tourette first identified his syndrome in the 1800s, it was closely linked to rheumatic fever, caused by strep antibodies attacking the heart.  Yet as mental illness moved under the dark cloak of psychoanalysis. Let me go on to add that Psychoanalysis is the Sigmund Freud’s creation.  Freud was a Jewish neuropathologist who tried to set up a psychoanalytical movement with the help of non-Jewish specialists in order to make his orientation more reliable.  Please don’t misinterpret what I am trying to say. I am not knocking Freud’s research we all know he is The Father of Modern Psychology.

Dr. Campbell-McBride has written a book called The Gut and psychology syndrome. It’s a in depth book where the author specifically focuses on people struggling with gut/brain issues like Autism, A.D.D., A.D.H.D., Dyspraxia, Depression/anxiety, Schizophrenia, OCD and even allergies. She suggests that you have to heal the gut lining in order to start to heal the brain. In her research, she has focused on soothing and healing the gut lining with foods like bone broth and beneficial fats while boosting beneficial gut bacteria with probiotics and fermented foods. Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride created the GAPS diet. She is a neurologist and nutritional consultant from the UK. She discovered the GAPS diet while she was trying to treat her sons’ autism. She also claims that this nutritional protocol helped get him off the autism spectrum.

In 1998, a team of researchers lead by Dr. Andrew Wakefield took a number of children with autism, did small intestine biopsies on them, and discovered abnormally wide holes in their small intestinal lining–just like the holes found in patients with celiac, ulcerative colitis, etc. Wakefield postulated that the holes in these autistic kids’ intestines were allowing proteins to leak from the inside of the bowel into the bloodstream, and that these foreign proteins were acting like neuro-toxins and interfering with neurological functioning.

What does this have to do with me and my OCD you may ask? I think it has everything to do with it. I know, there is a strong correlation between it all.  I am absolutely convinced, based on current clinical research and studies that I’ve come across that considering the role of gut flora is more essential than anything else in treating the root cause of my OCD. I do know that since that I’ve entertained my OCD its developed into a pattern and a  habit.  I understand that on some level, we all exist on a broad spectrum scale where no one is considered to be entirely and completely sane. Yes, of course, there are differences between all of us, and personality is not entirely due to our intestinal gut flora. Some people’s personality just suck and that’s all there is to it. No matter how much great “gut flora” they may have. I also don’t believe in labels or what people may consider to be “normal,” we all walk to the beat of our own drum. I do know that healing my body with food is a whole lot more appealing than allowing to be a guinea pig to Big Pharma and I don’t care to waste any more of my time sitting in a room, on a couch, explaining to a psychiatrist or behavioral specialist random bouts of craziness and seeing their approach to magically change my brain chemistry with talking through my feelings. I am not knocking their services by any means. This field is needed and they actually do help people. Please don’t misconstrued what I am saying.

So, I am putting myself out here. Not hiding my issue anymore in hopes that my journey can help someone else. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring but I do know it won’t be boring and I won’t stop researching until I find my answers. I already eat based on my hypothyroidism disorder. I have my hypothyroid disorder in complete control with not only the correct foods to eat but other hidden things in this world that affect our everyday lives and I’ve also written several books on it one being: A survivors’ cookbook guide to kicking hypothyroidism’s booty. I hoped you’ve been enlightened and not frightened by my latest blog — A tale of recovery to save a women who caught OCD- Hippocrates was right when he said: Let they food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food.

 

 

 

 

Recourses: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/04/16/bacteria-on-gut-flora-causes-ocd.aspx

Food and Nutrition Board, Institute of Medicine. Choline. Dietary Reference Intakes: Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin, Vitamin B-6, Vitamin B-12, Pantothenic Acid, Biotin, and Choline. Washington D.C.: National Academy Press; 1998:390-422. (National Academy Press)

Chester DN, Goldman JD, Ahuja JK, Moshfegh AJ. Dietary intakes of choline. What we eat in American, NHANES 2007-2008. US Department of Agriculture; 2011.

http://gapsmentalhealth.blogspot.com/2011/12/obsessive-compulsive-disorder-ocd.html

http://bebrainfit.com/serotonin-foods-mood-brain/

http://www.freudfile.org/psychoanalysis/definition.html