Hannah Kasch is
a sophomore music student at Loyola University of Chicago.
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| Hannah Kasch, bottom left corner with bright red hair. |
She’s been diagnosed
with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), the fourth most common mental
disorder in the United States.
It can be a debilitating disease that many
people misinterpret as mere behavioral
quirks.
Settling down
at the small table in a crowded cafe along Lake Michigan, Kasch comfortably
crossed her legs.
She wore a black knit hat pulled down over red rubicund hair that wafted around her neck like bright smoke. She wore matching cherry lipstick and sharply drawn on black eyeliner around the edges of her soft brown eyes.
The floating
clouds and idle pale blue waves
outside reflected on the towering glass windows as the 20-year-old, aspiring singer
began to tell her story.
Junior Year
“The first time
I knew I had a problem was junior year of high school,” Kasch said.
It
was her first day at St. Walters High
School in West Chicago. That
evening, there was a birthday party for one of her best friends.
“When
I turned 16 I didn’t even want to get my license in the first place,” she
emphasized. “I didn’t want that type of responsibility. I remember being at home, and
becoming so anxious thinking about driving to the birthday party. It got to the
point where I just couldn’t get myself to drive anymore,” Kasch said.
“I
didn’t end up going to the birthday party because of my nervousness.”
Some
of her friends were upset with her for not coming; all of them lacked
understanding. “I told them, I don’t know what to tell you, I just couldn’t
drive myself there. Then they started talking down to me, yelling at me and
telling me what to do. You don’t do that,” she said.
That
October, her fear of driving was building “I was driving to a football game alone, and I had almost got
into a car accident, but I didn’t. Everything was fine; I just had to hit on
the brakes really quick. But I was anxious after that,” she said.
“On the way
home after the game, I was driving and I hit a pothole. I freaked out because I
thought I had hit a person,” she said, and then paused before continuing.
“I was
sincerely terrified that I had hit a person, even though I knew that it was
just a pothole. I couldn’t stop being terrified.”
According to the Association of
Anxiety and Depression, children and adults with OCD suffer
from unwanted and intrusive thoughts that they can't seem to get out of their
heads (obsessions), often compelling them to repeatedly perform ritualistic behaviors and routines (compulsions) to try and ease their
anxiety. Sleep issues often accompany the disorder according to Psychologist David De Boer.
During her junior and senior year Hannah
had trouble sleeping. “I would keep on waking up
in the middle of the night, I would never get in a deep REM cycle,” she said.
She started to use body scan therapy, where she
would tense certain parts of her body then relax them to help ease her mind.
“Sometimes
if I wasn’t sleeping well, I would get up an
read, go downstairs watch TV, get water, watch a movie or even do some
exercising: stretch, sit-ups, run in place, turn my headphones on and dance. I just needed to burn off some anxiety,” she said.
“I also dreaded
going to school. My group of friends wasn’t understanding and supportive of me.
They were immature, I guess.”
According to De Boer, Associate Director of the Wellness
Center at Loyola, OCD affects a small percentage of Loyola students.
Lack of understanding is common and can lead to stigma.
“Many people don’t understand mental
illnesses, so they are afraid of it and react to their fear or anxiety through
stigmatizing it or distancing themselves, instead of trying to understand it,” he
said.
Senior Year
Kasch still felt reluctant to drive to school during her
last year of high school.
“If I did drive to school, I’d leave at 6:40 when
class started at 7:40. It was a 20-minute drive. I just had to leave early enough that there was no one on the
roads. And when I’d leave I would double check everything, garage doors, make
sure my dog wasn’t in the driveway, all the doors were locked since my family
would still be sleeping,” she said.
These types of worries manifested from her fear of hurting
other people.
“It’s because
my OCD was really bad. I remember one morning I had eaten some toast with
peanut butter on it and afterwards I have washed my hands at least twice but
when I got into choir practice I was so afraid that I had peanut butter all
over my hands and someone was allergic to peanut butter. I was a nervous wreck,
I called my mom and cried over the phone, just over something as silly as
this.”
Due to her anxiety, she never imagined that she would be
traveling in France by herself; that’s exactly where she found herself in the
summer after her high school graduation.
France
In June 2011, two weeks before her nearly two-week long trip
to Paris with a school group she decided it was time she see a therapist.
“After talking with her for less than 20 minutes, she knew right away I had
OCD,” Kasch laughed.
“She pulled out a pamphlet called Hit and Run OCD, it was
spot on with every symptom I had. It was hilarious!”
Kasch never imagined that she had been living with OCD for
all those years.
“I thought that I was just anxious or a scaredy cat, not
actually sick. I never was too compulsive, I was obsessive,” she said. It was a relief to know that it actually
was something, and I just wasn’t anxious and depressed but that these symptoms
are tied with OCD. My family was also surprised, but once they read the
pamphlet they knew too.”
She had been studying French for years preparing for this
moment- the big trip.
She had not been prescribed medication yet.
“We landed in Paris on my 18th birthday. Immediately, we went 4 hours north to Rouen, which is the sight of Joan
of Arc's death. I went to a little cafe and ordered my first meal in
France. It was about a 2-foot long ‘jambon fromage,’" she said
After returning to her hotel that night, however, she had an
anxiety attack.
“Around 3 a.m I had a terrible meltdown. It was 8 p.m. Chicago time so I called my mom. I was terribly homesick
especially since I had just turned 18 and no one knew. I’m not the type to say it’s my
birthday!” she said.
She coped throughout
the trip by texting and calling her family a lot.
“When I was there, I felt like the world was melting
around me. I did have a great
time, but [now] I wish I had my medicine. I felt really vulnerable and
like I was crippled because I could function like everyone else. I wish I could do a few things over,” she said.
Returning home
After Kasch returned from France, her psychiatrist
prescribed her Lexipro, an anti-depression and anxiety medication, which she is
still on to this day. Rituals like washing her hands have brought control. But
therapy worked on other ways to find calm.
“My hands would bleed sometimes because of it [washing them].
He’d say don’t wash your hands twice, just once. After once or twice it was
fine though,” she said. “Driving was always hard. I still don’t like to drive.”
Therapy aimed to change her behavior to eliminate the
rituals that helped ease her fears. At first these overwhelmed her.
“Having OCD is like recovering from a drug addiction. You
will find a way to do what you want to do,” she said.
Also, others had to stop enabling her, forcing her to face
her fears.
“The therapist
told [my] mom and dad and sister not drive me anywhere. I’d call them, tell
them where I was when I was leaving anyplace.” This would help reassure her,
easing her fears of driving.
“She (her therapist) told them not to baby me or act like I needed any attention.”
“She (her therapist) told them not to baby me or act like I needed any attention.”
Mindful Recovery
Now as a music student at Loyola University, she uses her
talent as a form of therapy. “Part of singing is breathing correctly, really
deep down in your belly. So when I need to calm down I do deep breathing.”
It's a similar type of mindful breathing used in yoga, which
has also helped the Chicagoan since she started practicing in the last four
years.
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| Hannah practicing yoga at Loyola University's gym. |
“My psychologist recommended yoga. It’s about being in the
present moment and controlling your breathing,” she said. “I’m chronically tense because of my
OCD. I’ve been carrying all my stress in my shoulders, so yoga helps me with
this. “
Like Hannah, Susan Grossman, Associate Dean of Loyola’s School of Social
Work., has been practicing yoga for the last decade to help her with her own anxiety.
She recommends it for many of her students. “It helps people realize that all things are temporary,
including their emotions. If one can step outside and just observe what they’re
feeling instead of being overtaken by it, they can learn that it’s all part of
a larger process,” she said.
Today
While the therapy
and medication have helped manage her fears, Kasch still is extra cautious. “I
just check to make sure nothing is in the outlets when I leave my room, don’t
keep water by my bed because of extension cords by there and I jiggle my door
to make sure it’s locked.”
The soon-to-be junior said that supportive networks are key
to recovering from any mental illness.
“A lot of time
people with mental illness are introverted and they need the extra attention by
people. They aren’t ‘with other people.’ We can be around people but in a
totally different world,” she said.
“You need to have people who understand what you have, and
it’s even more important for people who have mental problems, they need to be
able to know what they have. We’re all very similar, more so than dissimilar.”
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