Healing Her OCD

 She was given the chance to go somewhere more secluded. Shaking her head, Hannah reasserted, “Oh no, I want people to hear. Talking about it in public doesn’t bother me at all.”

Hannah Kasch is a sophomore music student at Loyola University of Chicago. 

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.”  

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.

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.”

 By: Shirley Coenen