My Story Hi, my name is John. I have had contamination fears for most of my life. I am afraid of contaminants getting into my home and infecting my stuff. I am also a bit paranoid that other people are out to contaminate me on purpose, though goodness knows what that purpose would be. I am a hand-washer and this is my primary ritual, though vacuuming is coming a close second I am lucky that the severity of my OCD is not absolutely debilitating and I have managed to keep it a secret from most people.

Like most OCD sufferers, I wanted a way out of this nightmare. There had to be more to life then standing next to the wash basin all day. I went to my GP who prescribed me some anti-depressants. I think I tried prozac, paxil and another one as well. He put me in touch with a psychiatrist who I went to see a few times. I felt that neither my GP nor the psychiatrist really understood what I was going through. They seemed to know hardly more than a few minutes light reading on the topic. I felt that I knew much more on both a conceptual level and of course by direct experience than either of them. So I stopped going to the pyshciatrist. Eventually I stopped taking the medications as well because I could not discern any effects, apart from that they seemed to make my pupils really dilate which made it seem kind of weird looking at myself in the mirror.

I had obtained a copy of Brain Lock by Dr. Schwartz and thought that it was highly interesting indeed. I thought that the techniques in this book held a lot of promise and I still do. It wasn't long before I started noticing the connection of the contents of this book to Buddhism. I do not recall how precisely the link was made but one day I found a website which gave a summary of the tenets of Buddhism. I was immediately fascinated. The goals of Buddhism were so congruent to my own goals at the time, namely to find a solution to the problem of my mental suffering.

Up to this point, I knew next to nothing about Buddhism. I was like most people in the UK, being that I had a broadly Christian-centric education but I never went to Church unless it was for things like weddings and such. I guess I would have ticked the Christianity box on the religion question in forms, but all in all I got on with my life with religion very much in the background.

That was about a year and a half ago. Since then I have been on a journey of self-discovery which I am very excited about. My aim in starting this blog was to have a chance to share some of the insights and gems that I have picked up from other people along the way. I believe that within Buddhism, there is a path and technique which may help people who suffer from OCD to make life more manageable.

May you experience peace within yourself and may you come out of all of your sufferings.

John  ¶ 2:22 PM