Robert Dean, 72, Chattanooga, Tenn.
I knew I needed help when it became treacherous to walk from my bedroom to the kitchen. I was tripping over cords, stepstools, broom handles and other things that I lacked the energy or motivation to pick up and put away.
I have obsessive compulsive disorder. I’ve been in treatment for that since 1980. When I was coming up in the ’50s and ’60s, my parents noticed that I was doing odd things. I wouldn’t use the same towel twice, and all of my shirts had to be fresh and clean.
People always talk about how you are on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being off-the-wall bonkers crazy. When I’m doing great, it is no more than a 4 or 5. I’m always in a heightened state.
Covid comes along, and you can imagine someone who has fears of contamination, fears of losing control already — everything can get bumped up to a 7 or 8.
Once you get a heightened sense of danger, everything in your life starts getting worse and more dangerous. It spreads to your car, the restaurant. You’re wiping down the seat with disinfectant. There was a month or two, really more than that, where I didn’t go out of my house except to pick up food.
If you have a fear that something is dirty, you avoid it, and you think, well, I’ll get that tomorrow. It’s not always convenient to do that. The fear and anxiety is usually O.C.D. related; when you collapse under the weight, that’s when you feel depression.
Are you doing better now? Did therapy help?
Once I went and got the vaccines, I would go out and wear a mask. I started feeling more comfortable about it. I would see my friends and they would be more or less behaving normally, and I would say, they’re doing OK, so maybe I can be OK. After I got vaccinated, I felt more comfortable if I was exposed.
I actually came down with Omicron in late January. It was unpleasant. I took Advil and dealt with it. You go through that, and you see, well, I’m going to survive. I think that helps put perspective on things as well.
But I have to be honest. I’m not out of the woods. This is not a completed success story. What I found interesting was that other fears of contamination from garbage, for example — they snuck back in. I am having to continually work on that. With O.C.D., it’s about control. I’ve got to control these germs. Well, that doesn’t work. Someone who has experience will understand you need to be gradually exposed in a way that feels safe to you.
A guy I know works with O.C.D. patients in Boston, and I can call him anytime. He’ll spend as much time as I need to. He’ll stay with me on the phone, and say, Can you touch the sink?
Photograph by Stacy Kranitz for The New York Times