If you haven’t read part 1, you may want to do so here, trust me, the rest of this will make a bit more sense if you do. I ended my post with the night before Christmas Eve 2017 ambulance ride and the ER visit for perceived heart attack that was really a panic attack. I once again told Chris to get it together, to seek help, to take his meds, to do whatever it was he needed to do in order to get his s*it together. Chris went back on his SSRI meds, started therapy again for a few months, and as work got busy, he stopped.
I remember life being better, no more panic attacks, Chis seemed to be handling his OCD pretty well despite stopping treatment, or so I thought.
In mid June Chris’s work travel schedule got pretty intense. He traveled to various parts of the US and Canada for 9 straight weeks, only home on weekends or for a few days each week. Two of those weeks he traveled for pleasure, one of those we were together, but it was still on an airplane, away from home and away from our daughter. By the last two weeks of August Chris was beyond exhausted. His OCD was starting to get worse again so, as was the pattern, I strongly suggested he seek treatment. He began with a new therapist in early October and was slated to meet with a new psychiatrist for meds at the end of October.
During September and October, Chris was showing all the signs of being burned out and way too stressed. It made sense, he had traveled a lot and there were some things at work that were really frustrating him. He was irritable for seemingly no reason, he wasn’t sleeping well, he wasn’t eating well and he was extremely restless. To those outside of our family, he seemed ok, maybe just a little on edge. We know now that these were also signs that his biology was changing and the OCD was ramping up. We had no idea just how bad it was about to get.
This is where things start to get a little fuzzy for me as far as timeline. You see, I was oblivious to the torturous hell that the OCD was putting Chris through. Generally unaware of how bad his compulsions had gotten other than the increased time he was spending in the bathroom (washing). October was a busy month for me with multiple events for my day job and my home based business. It was late October, I think the 27th, and I was returning home from an event, probably around 5 or 6 pm. Chris was distraught, though that seems like too mild of a word. He was panic stricken, agitated, unraveling.
Something had happened at the gym the night before – something a non-OCD sufferer wouldn’t think twice about, but Chris’s OCD used this benign incident to engage a death grip on the non-OCD part of him. It was like a bomb had gone off inside of his head, OCD taking full control over every single thought. He was terrified he had gotten a disease and that he was going to give it to Sydney. He was washing his hands, eyes and mouth out with soap continuously, leaving his hands and wrists raw from the scrubbing. He was afraid to touch our daughter. That coming Monday he was to see the psychiatrist, but I knew there was little chance of making it through the weekend if he didn’t get some immediate intervention. I suggested he go to the walk in to get some adavan to help him make it through.
At the walk in clinic they bandaged his hands and gave him a short supply of adavan. I remember being so aggravated, frustrated and irritated, but I was also majorly concerned. I had never seen Chris, or anyone for that matter, like this. He was unraveling. He wasn’t sleeping well, he was barely eating, he was scrubbing his eyes and mouth out with soap every time he washed his hands, which was often. On Monday he went to see the psychiatrist who prescribed him an SSRIs and more adavan and told him he just had to wait it out, let the medication build up in his system.
I went into advocate and care taker mode. It seemed as though Chris was retreating further into the OCD s*it storm in his head as each minute passed. Tuesday was his birthday, and at this point he was barely able to carry on conversation, constantly looking down with his eyes closed, fully in the grasp of his OCD. I went to his therapy session with him and we started talking about a local outpatient program to help him work through this depression and anxiety. We scheduled an appointment to meet with the outpatient facility.
Chris was unable to work, he couldn’t get out of bed, he couldn’t be near our daughter. He was paralyzed with fear and in the deepest pits of depression. I started to do some research on OCD and thankfully came across the International OCD Foundation’s website (iocdf.org). It was here that I learned that the stress and burn out we thought Chris had were actually signs that his OCD was ramping up. It was here that I was able to locate contact information for some local psychologists that specialized in OCD (there were two within a 25 mile radius). I left them messages and went back to taking care of my husband who was now completely incapacitated by his OCD, unable to care for himself at all.
We met with the outpatient facility the day after his birthday. More than once the program director mentioned that this might not be the best environment for Chris and his OCD. The program director tried to explain that Chris might feel overwhelmed, may not be able to handle the group setting and that while they would do their best to help him, they could not offer the one on one attention he most likely needed. He suggested I look into a program at McClean hospital that specialized in OCD, mentioned that there was generally a wait list, and that we could try the outpatient program in the interim to see how Chris did. At this point, I didn’t know what else to do. Chris was bedridden, too overcome with anxiety, fear and depression to get out of bed.
It was Halloween and it had been one heck of a day. I had two people to care for now, my 39 year old husband who was being tortured by his OCD and our five year old daughter. After meeting with the outpatient program director earlier in the day, we took our daughter to a friend’s house for trick or treating. Chris, usually the life of the party with a healthy appetite, was quiet, reserved, kept his raw, aquafor covered hands in his pockets and did not eat a single bite of food. Our friends didn’t know what was going on, heck we barely had a clue, so we tried our best to make it a normal night. Despite what was going on, I wanted to try and keep things as normal for Sydney as possible.
As the week progressed, we saw Chris’s therapist again, officially signed him up for the outpatient program, I left messages for the two OCD specialists in our area and I scheduled an appointment with Sydney’s therapist in order to learn how to keep Chris’s current state from having a negative impact on Sydney and her own anxiety. I spoke with Chris’s direct boss and his higher up and they were willing to help however they could. Chris had some PTO he could use and we would keep tabs on the situation and make alternative plans as we had to. We are so grateful for their kindness and compassion.
Over that weekend, the first weekend in November, Chris declined even more. By Monday, he was truly unable to carry a conversation, take care of himself at all, walk down the street on his own, let alone drive, work, etc. We had an appointment with his therapist and she recommended what I had been thinking; Chris should go to inpatient care to help get his medication and OCD under control. We left the office and headed directly to the suggested ER in order to get him into inpatient care.
When we arrived at the ER, Chris was barely able to walk, shuffling, taking baby steps for fear of stepping on something. Being in this place, with sick people, sent Chris’s OCD and anxiety reeling and the small adavan dose he had taken that morning was long out of his system. I could tell that people were looking at us, trying to figure out what was wrong and also trying to evaluate if the enormous, muscular individual (Chris) was about to turn green and start smashing things. The ER staff was great, asking Chris what they could do to help him be more comfortable. They got us out of the waiting room and into a private room almost immediately to help lower the possibility of additional triggers for Chris’s anxiety and OCD. The wheels of progress were turning, Chris was given more adavan which helped him to at least drink and eat a little. After evaluations, conversations and calls to insurance, it was decided that Chris would enter inpatient care, however that hospital did not have a bed. The sister hospital over an hour away had room, and they would transmit him by ambulance (standard protocol).
I felt like I was watching a movie, in which Chris and I were the starring roles. I had heard about people going to inpatient psychiatric care, but who thinks they will ever be in that position themselves? I felt like we were finally going to get help, that Chris was going to start to get better, and that we would start to come up from rock bottom. If only I knew then that inpatient care, unless at a specialized OCD facility, was the absolute wrong place for Chris to be.
Not a single person, other than the program director at the outpatient facility, had mentioned anything about OCD specific care. McClean hospital, the program the director had suggested, had a three month waiting list and treatment outside of their program was required first before being admitted. The therapist Chris was seeing thought inpatient was the right course of action. The inpatient coordinator at the ER thought that inpatient was the right course of action. We would find out the next day that the psychiatrist at the inpatient facility knew that it was not the right course of action for Chris and initially tried to deny him entry. We would find out that inpatient facilities are generally not trained to help someone with OCD, unless that person is thinking of harming themselves, which Chris was not.
It wouldn’t be until 24 hours later, when I met with Sydney’s therapist (who treats OCD and anxiety in children), when I spoke to the psychiatrist at the inpatient facility and when I finally spoke to the OCD specialist, who would become Chris’s salvation, did I find out just how wrong inpatient care was for someone in Chris’s situation. In my next Every day with OCD post, I will go into detail of what Chris’s time in inpatient care was like, what we have learned about OCD and the evidence based therapy that has given him his life back.
Until then, remember that you can do anything, inch by inch.
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