I realize that I have gone missing both before as well as after my hospitalization and I feel that I’m now ready to start opening up about how life has been these past 2 months. As my last blog reported, I left the hospital the end of August and started outpatient. Going to outpatient therapy proved to be nothing short of a debacle for me. Unfortunately all the work I did while inpatient was set back considerably when my three children left to go live with their mother (which transpired while I was in the hospital). The center I was sent to was ill equipped at best to handle anyone with OCD and the therapy was all but useless. Most people I was in group with suffered from depression alone, whereas I was in for OCD, Bipolar and major depression. Days 1 and 2 of outpatient consisted of topics like “25 ways to be happy in life”, and “living healthy”. These sessions were followed by socialization groups which basically means we played Pictionary and Hangman. By day 3 I was fed up and ready to check myself out but I figured I’d give it one more chance. Then it happened…. While walking down the hallway to group, I picked up an odor (smells are a major trigger to my OCD)… When I walked a bit further I found that someone had apparently lost control of their bowels and crapped on the floor. Long story short, I immediately checked myself out and drove home in a full blown panic attack.

After this experience, I gave up. I became suicidal (again) and spent days on end in bed without getting up. This went on for two and a half weeks. Thankfully, my wife had not given up on me as I did on myself and she searched long and hard and found an OCD center in NJ. She contacted them and after my having a talk with one of the doctors there, they convinced me to come in. The center focuses on intensive CBT and they only take adult OCD patients. I’ve now been going there for 3 weeks and things are looking more positive. The bouts of suicidal thoughts are less frequent, I’ve been spending some good quality time with my daughter, and as of yesterday I’ve returned to work after being out for almost 2 months.

I’m not going to say that I’m cured, I’ve accepted the fact that I never will be. I will not spout off about how wonderful life is and vomit positive energy; I’ll leave that to others. That said, I’m feeling better than I was prior to hospitalization despite my 3 children moving out which is a major accomplishment to me. I’ve also completely stopped drinking alcohol as it was becoming a major self medication tactic for me. I’m hopeful that I can get this all in check and hope is something I’ve been without for a rather long time.

I’m also so thankful for all my great friends on here that have been checking in on me along the way; I do have to apologize for going missing for so long. Having people around that care about my progress is something that I have a difficult time understanding. Thank you for being here.