Experiential Approach
The experiential approach in Medical Anthropology focuses on how the illness affects the patient and how the patient deals with it. An incremental part of the experiential approach is how the patient goes about describing their illness to others. The “narratives” are stories that the patients tell that describe aspects about their illness that might not be detectable from visibly looking at the patient. These narratives are an “inside scoop” into the patients feelings and expectations of their disease. The experience of an illness includes many factors such as the way people feel, perceive and live with an illness. Some people have a positive attitude towards illness, some have come to terms with the fact that they won’t be “cured”, and some are still in denial that they have something wrong with them. Also, the support system surrounding the patient during their illness can greatly affect how they deal with an illness. Lastly, meaning is also a component of the experiential approach. This included the way that people make sense of their experiences. Some people believe that they fell ill because they were doomed by an almighty power. Some may believe because it was because of toxins In their environment, and also, some may believe that they got ill for a reason and that in the end it will make them a better person. |
As stressful events such as the MCAT approach, my OCD usually worsens as a way to cope with the increasing stress (Aric Mitchell 2014).
Touching a doorknob can "secure" certain things inside a room and provide a sense of fulfillment for people with OCD (Nicole Angeleen 2012).
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Narrative
Abstract
Ever since I was old enough to count I would find myself counting letters rather than blocks, dolls, or books. I wanted, needed, to know how many letters there were in each word---always hoping it would come out “odd”. I have never known life without OCD. Specific obsessions and compulsions come and go---they got more complex as my mental capacity expanded---but they were always there. Sometimes OCD is a curse, but at times it seems more like a blessing. As biomedicine expands, treatments have become available but it is unclear to me if the benefits outweigh the risks. Undoubtedly, OCD will always be a part of me.
Orientation
It started gradually. I didn’t wake up one day and start touching door handles three times before I could walk out the door, drag my feet across the carpet five times every night, push my chap stick against the wall three times, or even have a complex ritual when it comes to petting my dogs. This is all too “crazy” to pop up overnight. As I said, it started with counting. This probably stemmed from the early over achiever attitude that I developed as a child. Ever since kindergarten I have double and triple checked to make sure I did all my homework, kept a very organized planner, and had a fear of missing school (perfect attendance from third grade all the way through college that is).
My brain has always calculated a complex series of events that could occur if I missed a day of school or forgot to do my homework. I would not know the information and fail the next test. This would result in a bad grade in the class. This would then keep me out of college. This would lead to me never getting into med school and the next thing I know I’m 57 living under a bridge hoarding guinea pigs for no apparent reason. If your brain imposed this kind of dire situation on you for missing one day of school, you’d probably go to school no matter how ill you were as well.
OCD isn’t just counting things and keeping things organized and clean. OCD is the belief that if you don’t do these things, then something completely awful and catastrophic can happen. This is called “magical thinking”. Of course, even if I do clean my room every night, there is still a possibility of nuclear warfare. I like to think I’m a rational person, but my mind insists on the contrary. Clean your room, everyone lives. Don’t clean it, everyone dies.
OCD has a “setting”. When out in public it isn’t appropriate to go around touching door handles or touching things 3 or 5 times. These rituals mostly go on in my head to avoid freaking out bystanders. I make do with counting things in my head or counting out patterns in order to get myself through. Full-blown OCD usually occurs when I’m alone at home---unhindered. I have a ritual for just about everything in my house. As stated, my doorknob must be touched three times (to keep my guinea pigs that live in my room alive), my bathroom door needs to be touched two times (to make sure the lights are off and the house won't burn down), and the fridge door pushed in three times in a Morse code like pattern of “short-long-short” (to make sure it’s closed, the food will stay cold, and no one will die of food poisoning). If all these rituals are complete, I can go in peace and feel a sense of completion regarding my day.
Complicating Action
It can stop. Some days I can wake up and erase 15 rituals from my day. Usually this takes a big life event to come to completion in order for this to happen. For example, as the days until my MCAT dwindled down, the rituals increased. I believed that every little thing I did up until the day I walked out of that testing room would affect my score. Brushing the left side of my teeth three more times than the right side, putting my books in a straight line, and centering my mirror in the middle of my door every night would all help me get the score I needed. The minute I walked out of that testing room it stopped. I no longer needed to do any of those rituals. What’s done is done. That’s how OCD goes---sporadic reprieves when the rituals are just getting to the point where you can no longer keep up with their increased number. These reprieves are what you live for when you have OCD.
Evaluation
OCD is extreme. How can a person who knows everything they do is “crazy” and has no meaning spend so much of their life doing it? Fear. All in all, if, for some reason, all it took to do well on the MCAT were to touch a door 3 times, wouldn’t you do it? Yes, granted there was 500 some hours worth of studying but maybe that’s not what was necessary. Then again, crazier phenomenon has happened, right? It’s all about risk taking---if you’re willing or not to take the risk of not doing the ritual in order to proceed with your life. Even though they are beyond annoying, I’m not wiling to take the risk. Maybe it is these rituals that have led to my success, anyways.
Resolution
Now I know that I probably did not make it where I am today because I touched a door knob, but who would I be to deny the facts that these rituals might have spilled over to my school life which in turn helped me succeed. Tests are OCD heaven. There is a beautiful order in the bubble sheet and oh so many things to count. I always triple check tests, count the number of items backwards on the bubble sheet and then pick 13 random questions from each page to compare the letter I chose on the test itself to the letter that I actually bubbled in for that question. Yes, I am that annoying person sitting there until the last test-taking minute has expired. This has lead to me catching many mistakes on tests throughout the years. I have done significantly poorer on tests that I have not had the time to recheck in that manner. When doing an assignment, I have to cross check it with the syllabus several times as well. This is where I believe OCD to be some sort of a blessing. Some people are constantly forgetting things but when you have OCD and a ritual attached to most things in your life, nothing seems to “slip your mind”. Homework is never forgotten, due dates are never passed by, and doorknobs never go untouched.
Coda
I attribute most of my success to OCD. Ever since I was little, it has kept my schoolwork turned in on time and my house from burning down. Does it get a little too extreme sometimes? Yes. In the long run, there are antianxiety medicines that I could take to tone it down but with that almost comes a fear of losing the rituals. They’ve been a part of me my whole life and I’d be lost without them. The rituals, while annoying, have never really held me back from anything I have wanted to do. Maybe OCD has been a blessing, not a curse after all.
Abstract
Ever since I was old enough to count I would find myself counting letters rather than blocks, dolls, or books. I wanted, needed, to know how many letters there were in each word---always hoping it would come out “odd”. I have never known life without OCD. Specific obsessions and compulsions come and go---they got more complex as my mental capacity expanded---but they were always there. Sometimes OCD is a curse, but at times it seems more like a blessing. As biomedicine expands, treatments have become available but it is unclear to me if the benefits outweigh the risks. Undoubtedly, OCD will always be a part of me.
Orientation
It started gradually. I didn’t wake up one day and start touching door handles three times before I could walk out the door, drag my feet across the carpet five times every night, push my chap stick against the wall three times, or even have a complex ritual when it comes to petting my dogs. This is all too “crazy” to pop up overnight. As I said, it started with counting. This probably stemmed from the early over achiever attitude that I developed as a child. Ever since kindergarten I have double and triple checked to make sure I did all my homework, kept a very organized planner, and had a fear of missing school (perfect attendance from third grade all the way through college that is).
My brain has always calculated a complex series of events that could occur if I missed a day of school or forgot to do my homework. I would not know the information and fail the next test. This would result in a bad grade in the class. This would then keep me out of college. This would lead to me never getting into med school and the next thing I know I’m 57 living under a bridge hoarding guinea pigs for no apparent reason. If your brain imposed this kind of dire situation on you for missing one day of school, you’d probably go to school no matter how ill you were as well.
OCD isn’t just counting things and keeping things organized and clean. OCD is the belief that if you don’t do these things, then something completely awful and catastrophic can happen. This is called “magical thinking”. Of course, even if I do clean my room every night, there is still a possibility of nuclear warfare. I like to think I’m a rational person, but my mind insists on the contrary. Clean your room, everyone lives. Don’t clean it, everyone dies.
OCD has a “setting”. When out in public it isn’t appropriate to go around touching door handles or touching things 3 or 5 times. These rituals mostly go on in my head to avoid freaking out bystanders. I make do with counting things in my head or counting out patterns in order to get myself through. Full-blown OCD usually occurs when I’m alone at home---unhindered. I have a ritual for just about everything in my house. As stated, my doorknob must be touched three times (to keep my guinea pigs that live in my room alive), my bathroom door needs to be touched two times (to make sure the lights are off and the house won't burn down), and the fridge door pushed in three times in a Morse code like pattern of “short-long-short” (to make sure it’s closed, the food will stay cold, and no one will die of food poisoning). If all these rituals are complete, I can go in peace and feel a sense of completion regarding my day.
Complicating Action
It can stop. Some days I can wake up and erase 15 rituals from my day. Usually this takes a big life event to come to completion in order for this to happen. For example, as the days until my MCAT dwindled down, the rituals increased. I believed that every little thing I did up until the day I walked out of that testing room would affect my score. Brushing the left side of my teeth three more times than the right side, putting my books in a straight line, and centering my mirror in the middle of my door every night would all help me get the score I needed. The minute I walked out of that testing room it stopped. I no longer needed to do any of those rituals. What’s done is done. That’s how OCD goes---sporadic reprieves when the rituals are just getting to the point where you can no longer keep up with their increased number. These reprieves are what you live for when you have OCD.
Evaluation
OCD is extreme. How can a person who knows everything they do is “crazy” and has no meaning spend so much of their life doing it? Fear. All in all, if, for some reason, all it took to do well on the MCAT were to touch a door 3 times, wouldn’t you do it? Yes, granted there was 500 some hours worth of studying but maybe that’s not what was necessary. Then again, crazier phenomenon has happened, right? It’s all about risk taking---if you’re willing or not to take the risk of not doing the ritual in order to proceed with your life. Even though they are beyond annoying, I’m not wiling to take the risk. Maybe it is these rituals that have led to my success, anyways.
Resolution
Now I know that I probably did not make it where I am today because I touched a door knob, but who would I be to deny the facts that these rituals might have spilled over to my school life which in turn helped me succeed. Tests are OCD heaven. There is a beautiful order in the bubble sheet and oh so many things to count. I always triple check tests, count the number of items backwards on the bubble sheet and then pick 13 random questions from each page to compare the letter I chose on the test itself to the letter that I actually bubbled in for that question. Yes, I am that annoying person sitting there until the last test-taking minute has expired. This has lead to me catching many mistakes on tests throughout the years. I have done significantly poorer on tests that I have not had the time to recheck in that manner. When doing an assignment, I have to cross check it with the syllabus several times as well. This is where I believe OCD to be some sort of a blessing. Some people are constantly forgetting things but when you have OCD and a ritual attached to most things in your life, nothing seems to “slip your mind”. Homework is never forgotten, due dates are never passed by, and doorknobs never go untouched.
Coda
I attribute most of my success to OCD. Ever since I was little, it has kept my schoolwork turned in on time and my house from burning down. Does it get a little too extreme sometimes? Yes. In the long run, there are antianxiety medicines that I could take to tone it down but with that almost comes a fear of losing the rituals. They’ve been a part of me my whole life and I’d be lost without them. The rituals, while annoying, have never really held me back from anything I have wanted to do. Maybe OCD has been a blessing, not a curse after all.
Quest Narrative
My experience with OCD has definitely been a quest. This “illness” is indeed a journey because it is a chronic disorder with no real cure. It is something that I will have to live with my whole life. I have viewed having OCD as an opportunity to improve myself. At first, I believed OCD was the worst thing in the world. It was time consuming and seemed purposeless. After a while, I came to “reap the benefits” of OCD. My mind will probably never physically “get better” and rid itself of these habits, I can get better emotionally and spiritually. I can stop viewing OCD as a curse. Thinking this way could destroy ones life. Rather, I try to make the best of it. I try to find the “perks” of being obsessed with perfection. This gives me a little more control over the disease and helps me to manage it better. OCD provides an opportunity to improve oneself and it is a challenge I do accept. It has taught me to try to see the good in every situation and this is a skill that becomes very useful throughout life.
My experience with OCD has definitely been a quest. This “illness” is indeed a journey because it is a chronic disorder with no real cure. It is something that I will have to live with my whole life. I have viewed having OCD as an opportunity to improve myself. At first, I believed OCD was the worst thing in the world. It was time consuming and seemed purposeless. After a while, I came to “reap the benefits” of OCD. My mind will probably never physically “get better” and rid itself of these habits, I can get better emotionally and spiritually. I can stop viewing OCD as a curse. Thinking this way could destroy ones life. Rather, I try to make the best of it. I try to find the “perks” of being obsessed with perfection. This gives me a little more control over the disease and helps me to manage it better. OCD provides an opportunity to improve oneself and it is a challenge I do accept. It has taught me to try to see the good in every situation and this is a skill that becomes very useful throughout life.
Bibliography
Angeleen, Nicole. "Doorknob." Farewell, My Home. Last modified July 30, 2012. http://www.nicoleangeleen.com/2012/07/30/farewell-my-home/
Mitchell, Aric. "MCAT Books." MCAT Recommendations That Can Help You To 35 And Beyond. Last modified in 2014. http://blog.4tests.com/mcat-recommendations-that-can-help-you-to-35-and-beyond/
Angeleen, Nicole. "Doorknob." Farewell, My Home. Last modified July 30, 2012. http://www.nicoleangeleen.com/2012/07/30/farewell-my-home/
Mitchell, Aric. "MCAT Books." MCAT Recommendations That Can Help You To 35 And Beyond. Last modified in 2014. http://blog.4tests.com/mcat-recommendations-that-can-help-you-to-35-and-beyond/