May 25, 2016
Letter of support for Frederick W.Thompson Anxiety Disorders Centre
From Jennifer Bayne, a grateful client
Before commenting on my life-altering experience at the Frederick W. Thompson Anxiety Disorders Centre, first let me provide an analogy for what my life with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) was like. Picture living with a room-mate who sweet-talks you into sharing a place, telling you she has your back and vowing to protect you and make you safe in exchange for shared room and board. Once she moves in though and you get to know her better, you discover she is actually abusive, cunning, and mean-spirited, saying she’ll protect you only as long as you play along with her rules which, as time goes on, become more and more detailed and constricting. She makes it clear that if these rules are not followed, grave consequences will result, especially for the people or things you value the most. Like an abused partner, after a while you stop seeing the abuse as originating with her and start to make it part of your own psyche; at this point, the rules are your own and you follow them blindly, out of fear of reprisals and imagined catastrophic consequences.
This is the room-mate I’ve lived with for 55 years. My OCD began around the age of six and morphed over time from contaminations, to reassurance-seeking, to ordering, and to counting (to name a few), often in combination. I was able to have a successful career but all the while was fighting my OCD demons, which exploded with full-force when I retired last year. At that time, my OCD flared and turned into an out-of-control forest fire, being flamed daily by successively worsening triggers. By the time I reached out to the Thompson Centre, I was panicking. I was visualizing my life becoming narrower and narrower to the point of complete catatonia. I was only able to leave the house for short periods which were becoming increasingly stressful and anxiety-provoking. Just crossing the street or riding my bike were becoming hazardous, due to the need to avoid cracks and crosswalks or any small obstruction in the road. I was becoming a danger to myself and even to others, as my compulsions were becoming more and more frequent and erratic. I was also having suicidal thoughts again; they were not so much thoughts of taking my life as wishing I could die. My sister, who also had OCD, had taken her life when she was 29 years old and so I knew how much the agony of OCD could lead to the desire to end it.
After my referral to the Thompson Centre and a wait of about four months, I volunteered for 3 or 4 clinical trials. I was assured that I would still be on the one-year wait-list to see an individual therapist, but in the meantime participated in a Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) group treatment program, one of the clinical trials designed to test the efficacy of that approach on OCD. I had no expectations, merely a desire to get respite at any cost. The 10-week program was, quite frankly, a life-saver. It involved doing daily meditations and keeping notes of observations or progress week by week and then meeting with a group of other OCD sufferers. It was quite possibly the hardest thing I have ever done. I was massively confronted by my OCD, which I was now being forced to look in the eye, I had panic attack after panic attack, I convulsed, and I cried. But in the end, I got through it and I saw my room-mate for what she truly was. As I said to my MBCT group, possibly the last straw was when she proverbially ‘made’ me stand on the edge of the CN Tower and jump; she laughed as I leapt, but I laughed back. After the MBCT experience (lead by Dr. Steven Selchen to whom I am deeply indebted), I saw Dr. Peggy Richter, who was invaluable, and I hope to participate in some further CBT group work.
I still do my daily meditations and record my thoughts in a diary. Yes, I still have OCD and yes, it still shows up every day, sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on my fatigue and stress. But without the Thompson Centre, I am fully convinced I would now be house-bound, unable to do activities of daily living, and increasingly alienated from my loved ones. As I reflect back on my experience, what pains me the most is how many people like me are suffering as badly if not more so, and who have to wait up to a year or longer to access services, assuming they are even well enough to find out about them. The Thompson Centre’s work is essential and a catalyst and change-agent for change across the country. Please ensure its continued viability.
