My last bout of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) finished about five years ago, but that didn't mean that the therapeutic work was finished. For many OCD sufferers, it never does: we have to take the skills and strategies we acquired through CBT, and keep applying them in our daily lives. Only by doing this can we hang on to the territory we've already claimed back from OCD; only by doing this can we make further advances.
This means that, if I want to get better and stay better, I have to commit myself to My last bout of doing things that make me anxious, such as travelling [http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-woman-who-thought-too-much/201108/sigmund-freuds-emotional-baggage] and allowing my son to take normal risks [ http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-woman-who-thought-too-much/201110/me-my-child-and-ocd]. Sometimes, as a special treat, I do things that make me very, very anxious indeed, like flying, or going out to sea in a small-ish0 boat (I'll do almost anything if means I might get to see a puffin - they're brilliant). And a couple of weeks ago, I had my first swimming lesson since childhood.
I had learned to swim as a child, after a fashion, but never managed to get beyond a very tentative and inefficient doggy paddle. I never learned any proper strokes, swam out of my depth, put my head under water or jumped in. I carried on in this unsatisfactory way until my mid-teens, when I developed dermatillomania (otherwise known as Compulsive Skin-Picking) and then spent the next twenty years refusing to do so much as put on a swimming costume.
A couple of decades later, when I put one on again to take my toddler son into a learner pool, the exposure of my imperfect body had started to seem like less of a big deal, but, unfortunately, I found that all those years of keeping away from water had only increased my fear of it. When I tried to swim again, I found I couldn't. With help from teachers and friends, I managed to get my son to a point where he felt confident in the water, and I was relieved that, at least, my anxiety hadn't communicated itself to him, but I still hadn't dealt with the anxiety itself.
So, a couple of weeks ago, I had my first swimming lesson. I managed to tread water for ten seconds in the shallow end; then I held on to a float and practised some breast-stroke legs. For the second lesson, I'd swapped my glasses for some new prescription goggles, so the teacher told me it was time to put my face in the water. I did it, and hated every second, but my willingness to do it meant that I was able to stretch out and swim for a couple of metres without a float for the first time in twenty years. I'm pleased with that for a start - actually I'm delighted with it. I hope to be able to swim a bit further soon, but that will mean going out of my depth without panicking. That'll be the next block to overcome. Watch this space...
