Can Someone Be Healed Of A Serious Mental Disorder Alone?

I think you doubt that, but I’m sure you will change your mind when you hear about my case.

Many turn to psychologists and still cannot overcome their mental health problems. I was very lucky because I managed to win the fight against madness on my own when I was 15-years-old and I faced a tragic car accident.

I didn’t tell anyone what was wrong with me because I knew they would think I was crazy. However, I felt that I needed to follow certain rituals to avoid harm.

It all started when I stopped believing in the existence of God, disgusted at being abandoned when I thought I should have been rescued. Why did He allow the tragic accident to happen? I hated God because He didn’t save us and I stopped believing in His existence.

Everyone in the car with me was hospitalized, except the friend who was driving the car where we were when there was a tragic collision with a truck. The friend who was to my right in the car passed away instantly. She was only 22-years-old and had just graduated from law school. I thought her death was more than unfair. I concluded that if God existed this would never have happened.

I had a fractured forehead and lost my equilibrium for a long time. I couldn’t go downstairs on my own, I needed someone’s help not to fall, and I saw double images when I looked at people. I thought I would never be cured, but to my surprise, I regained my balance and my vision returned to normal six months later.

However, I felt very insecure. So, I followed a very weird ritual, but it helped me feel protected. For example, my blanket tag always needed to be on the left side of the bed. The hall rug had to be always straight. The faucet had to be always well-closed, otherwise, something tragic would happen.

Over time I ended up marking more and more objects that should be in a certain position so that I could prevent something tragic from happening.

If I saw that the little rug in the hall was crooked, I would run to straighten it, otherwise, something tragic would happen. If the tag on my blanket was not on the left side of the bed, I would arrange the blanket so that the tag was visible on the left side, and so on.

One day I got tired of these rituals and wanted to stop following them, but I felt awful when I didn’t put the various objects I had marked in the way I thought they should be placed.

If I didn’t get up to straighten the little rug in the hall I would feel so annoyed I couldn’t settle down. If the bathroom faucet wasn’t turned off properly, I felt suffocated.

I didn’t know what to do and was very preoccupied with the tiring need to put all the things I had marked in a certain position to “prevent something tragic from happening”.

One day I read in a magazine the case of a girl who couldn’t sleep if her parents’ bedroom door wasn’t open as if she were a child. I read this girl’s case with great interest and learned from the article that she was neurotic.

Although her case was different from mine, I concluded that I was neurotic like her and that I should stop insisting on putting things in my apartment in a certain way to prevent something tragic from happening.

I understood that it was absurd to imagine that I had the power to prevent something bad from happening because I placed various objects in a certain way, but I still felt very uncomfortable when I didn’t put them the way they were supposed to be placed. It was impossible to stop following my rituals. I felt so stressed out that I thought I was going to die if I didn’t put all the objects the way I should put them to prevent something tragic from happening.

However, I decided to stop following these rituals since I realized I was going crazy.

I knew that what I did would be considered absurd by others and this is why I hid my need to follow these rituals from them, but I felt that I needed to do something to protect myself, and I didn’t mind behaving absurdly. However, when I understood that I was neurotic, I stopped justifying my madness. I realized that I should fight my madness rather than accept it with indifference.

So, I started doing the opposite of what I was doing before. Instead of straightening the hall rug, I put it crooked on purpose. Instead of tagging my blanket on the left side of the bed, I would tag the blanket on the opposite side, and so on.

I felt more than very upset because I was no longer respecting my rituals, but I would just sit there, doing nothing I had done before until the discomfort passed.

It was very difficult to stop following my absurd rituals without feeling sick, but after immense persistence, I stopped feeling so annoyed and I never followed any rituals again.

Many years later I learned that I was not only neurotic at the time, but that I was suffering from OCD, a very serious mental illness considered incurable.

Here is its definition:

“Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a disorder in which people have recurring, unwanted thoughts, ideas or sensations (obsessions) that make them feel driven to do something repetitively (compulsions).” (www.psychiatry.org)

I was very scared when I understood the danger I was in as a teenager. I didn’t know how I could overcome so much madness on my own.

I concluded that everything that happens to us depends on our attitude. Whoever fights evil wins the fight in the end. Whoever lets himself be carried away without offering the slightest resistance, ends up suffering eternally.

However, I couldn’t overcome all my psychological problems all my life by myself. I don’t know what would have become of me if I hadn’t been helped by Carl Jung’s dream interpretation method when I was 23-years-old and was always nervous.

So, I understood that we have to fight a mental illness alone because our participation in this fight is indispensable, but we also need the help of a psychologist.