Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

I am Marc, from Long Island NY. My disorders are ADHD, OCD and Tourettes sprinkled with Depression. My reason for coming on here is to seek help from similar people such as yourselves. I can identify with most of you.


Let me give you a little history about myself. The problems all started in 1981( the shot that changed my life) When I was about six months old I had a DPT shot, the third one in the series. But this was not the normal one. I wound up having a convulsion which did damage to my right cortex (ironically the part of the brain where all my problems are). As early as August 1981 my parents could see differences in me. Only six months after this horrible reaction. By 1983 I was going to doctors many giving the diagnosis of borderline. My test scores were very low. Basically my parents were cursed at this point. It was suggested I be enrolled in a private school that helped the mentally disturbed. I wound up staying there for four years.


In 1987, I finally went to a normal elementary school starting with second grade. There was really no difference since I was in a self contained special education classroom. At this point my parents still did not know my true abilities any IQ tests were minimal estimates which always stayed in the borderline category. Yet, I was functioning very close to most seven year olds. It was in 1987 when I would be diagnosed with ADD which would later become ADHD. Being in these self contained classrooms I was with emotionally disturbed kids as well as one with Autism. Since I was the minority I had to learn the things they were learning. In 1989 I remember my parents and I were going to the Mountains. Well, that morning I came down with Strep Throat. Another sign of more problems. In late 1990 I started taking Ritalin. By 1991 my psychologist at the time did tests which showed I now had Tourettes and OCD. Around this time is when my Depression first showed up. After graduating elementary school in 1992 I went to the local Middle school. There I was octracized and treated like a piece of garbage. I got into fights with people and I wound up having to leave the school. I was actually the pilot in a BOCES (Board Of Cooperative Education Services) for Tourettes. Wound up staying in this school four months due to the fact the teachers and principal had a restraining system which if parents used on their kids they would be in jail.


From March to June 1993 I was homeschooled. There was a little interruption around April 10-15 2003. I came down with a condition where my neck stayed up and I could not close my mouth. My parents thought I was having a nervous breakdown. In actuality I had a reaction to Paxil and Haldol. Thankfully everyhing turned out alright. In Septemeber 1993 I started my eighth grade school year under the special privilege that I would have someone walk me from class to class so as though the things that happened in the first middle school did not happen again. It took about three people till we found the right mix. I was very friendly with this woman. Probably too much which wound up causing problems later on. Needless to say at the end of the school year I graduated and went on to the high School wing of this school.

From 1994-98 I did exceptionally well. Now my parents were having me exempted from music, and art. Also I would still have the aide walking me around. In ninth grade I got into many fights. I remember being thrown out of my Freshman year science class because I talked too much. My parents had a great relationship with the principlal after this happened they were up in school to try to get this teacher fired for discriminating against me. By the end of the school year it was obvious this woman and I had issues to the point we could not continue working together. One of the days she was out I had a substitute who was 6'3 240. Great guy. Wound up getting him from 1995-96 to 1996-97. He was more like a bodyguard. All these people were there to make sure I got to class ok with no problems and they took my notes for me since my handwriting was so bad. By 1997 this guy was doing student teaching on my resource room period. I wound up going to the head of the Social Studies department and saying to him why are you letting him teach he will not be able to finsh my school career with me? He said well I have to do what is best for him. He wound up leaving in 1997. We were really close I never talked to him again. In some way I am still upset over that since it never ended. For my senior year 1997-98 I had a former lawyer. He was so strict I could not stand him. I told my resource room teacher the third day if he does not open up you guys can find someone else I can't deal with this guy the whole year. We never really had a close relationship like I had with the first two. In June of 1998 I graduated from High school.


I did not start college till January 1999 due to the fact the college was afraid to have me unsupervised. For the most part college went pretty well. I started taking one course part time and went up to three courses. Never was full time. Graduated in May 2003. By this time my life had changed. My parents filed for divorce and I had to leave the only house I knew. I was planning on going for a Bachelors degree but being in took me four years to get an Associates it was beneficial that I start working. Today is seven years since I had any contact with my mother. Thankfully I have a relationship with my father.


For many years my father, grandmother, step mother and I would go back and forth over cashiering jobs. After awhile I relented on not taking a job. The very first job I took was at a Burger King. Liked the cashiering work. Wound up staying all of eight days. The other workers conspired against me to short the register almost $400. On my last day a customer comes in and asks me for a certain item. I look for a few minutes on the board to see where it is. He said you don't know what the expletive you are doing. To which I went back at him with the same expletive. In short I got fired.

In 2003, I got a job at the local Stop and Shop. Cashiered there for about five months. At this point things were starting to come to a head. I was sleeping till my shift which was 6-12. Came home when my dad and step mother were sleeping. Being that I have Seasonal Depression coming home late at night did not help. One night I remember crying on the way home and wanting to gas myself at the gas station. I knew the end was near with having to move out. I wound up taking off a couple of weeks. Instead of working the days I was scheduled I was coming in twice a week. The manager wanted to meet with me. I blew him off and was fired for not showing up.



In August of 2004, I got a job at a New York based store called King Kullen. For the beginning this was going to be very interesting. You had to wear a shirt, clip-on tie, black pants and shoes. Many days I did not even wear the black pants. I think I wore shoes one day. I used to set my drawer to run out of change so that I would not have to count the drawer in order to make my bus ( I don't drive either) one day a customer complained that I was shorting them change. A Filipino woman from the book-keeping office used to either refer to me as stupid or slow or that I did things that were not right. I wound up making a comment that she could not speak English well. The manager wound up putting me on suspension for inappropriate comments. A little before that I got my first progress report saying I talked too much. THAT IS ME!!!!!!!!!!!! Guy really did not care about me at all. There was a girl that was about 17 working there who assumed I was talking about her and that her and I were dating when a woman I was dating had the same name. She wanted to file a sexual harrassment charge against me.



I got a call from the store a few weeks later saying the union would fight to reinstate me. The manager mentioned a cashier's parents heard my comments. This woman was now in floral (he could not say floral since she was the only one there and feared repercussions). I went back to work at another store. When I took that job the bosses said one more screw up you are gone. Well, that happened with in three weeks. A woman was complaining that her items were going down the belt too fast. I said I can't help that. She challenged me to a fight with her husband. I said are you threatening me? I said I am getting the manager she said your cashier is incompentent. I said she threatened me. I then used the same expletive from before. In front of her I said I quit. She said why talk to him he said he quits. Needless to say I was going to have to have another hearing which I knew I was going to be fired from. Never went.



Late 2005, I get a job at Walmart. When I started there the first day I knew I was in for my worst job ever . I applied to work in the pet section. My initial application said I could work open to close. Now I did not know what open and close was. I almost lost the job that day. In addition I was told I would get paid more on the sales floor than as a cashier. Got through my training to do this great job. The third day one of the managers saw me on the phone and she thought I was talking on company time I had a tendency to come in very early. I got yelled at I said you know something fire me if you want. There were some memorable instances. The time someone asked me if I knew where an item was when I was doing returns. She said what are you slow or something? Not sure if she meant mentally or due to the fact it took me so long. The item she was looking for was right under my nose. There was another time where the assistant manager made fun of my transportation home a bus for the disabled. This incident is very key to this story. So look for it to come back in a few hundred words or so. I had a habit of talking to other people. Many times I was being paid at poverty wages for six hours work when I was only doing one or two. It seemed I opened my mouth to the wrong person. Someone in customer service reported me on Black Friday. Another manager saw me and questioned what I was doing. I was immediately given a verbal warning. (They had a system four strikes and you are out this was strike one). That Sunday I got caught zoning items from top shelves with a cane from pharmacy. Well, the assistant manager did not like that (the same one from the bus incident). She told me if she caught me a third time she would have to do a written write up that was the second strike. Well a little later in the day she caught me this was only my second time. Not good enough for her. At this point I weighed in at 265 pounds before my Crohns and I was not getting on a stool with a max load of 200. When I got out of there I started bad mouthing her. Now that week I had worked a shift of 6:03 minutes without taking a break. I knew my next step was D-Day you decide if you still want to work for them. They pay you for the day though. I never took a lunch after six hours since I was talking and my time went over the limit. 530-1133 as opposed to 1130. I then saw her and she asked what I was doing at 755 I said I am leaving. She started you have five minutes left I said my bus is here. She said you can't go so I got in an exchange where I must have cursed her out 11 times this goes back to the bus incident. Kicked the stuff in the back and left. When I called the next day I was terminated for job abandonment.

Fast forward to April 2006. I just started working at Waldbaums. My front end manager really did not like me. I would have questions about sales and he would make snide remarks that the effect on your draw is not your concern. I said when I am in charge of the money it is. I always had a good mind for numbers. All of a sudden out of the clear blue these stomach pains which started a year earlier started coming back. My family had said when I started working my stomach problems would go away they were stress. I start having to call out. I was never the type that liked missing school so why would I want to take off from work? This right after I asked for more hours. I was getting the top five hours on the cashiering crew. About a week later I went to have a physical. The next night I felt a pain. Instead of my stomach problems which were Crohns based causing long periods in the bathroom I had a burning sensation. I tried eating a half a loaf of white bread to neutralize the acid or whatever it was. My doctor called me the next day as I was about to go and get an x ray which I could not get without an appointment. "Marc I need to see you right away". I called my dad at work you have to come home. I had to be admitted to the hospital for bleeding. Now at that time a friend of mine (who I no longer talk to as well as my family and to an extent even I thought this was my way to get out of working). I wound up needing a blood transfusion since whatever I had (we did not know what is was at this time) was causing excessive blood draining me of my supply. Reluctantly, I went ahead with the transfusion. Wound up getting out on a Tuesday from Friday. Given a few medicines. I was out of this job for a week. When I got back I was telling someone in the customer service department about it. The lady in customer service never liked me for whatever reason. I think I made it known I could probably do her job or I wanted it. She gives him and I a dirty look when I mention the cost of the operation. The next week I had to take off for stomach problems. Then I was dog sitting. A branch fell and I hurt my wrist. Could not move it. I called in sick that day and the next. I went that Thursday for my check as well as since I was on the schedule found out I was fired. The person who took my place ironically was in the customer service department and one of those people that never paid for anything. I could have ratted all these people out. Had to come back Friday to see what happened. When I found out I was no longer reliable (have to mention this guy was ignorant) " Do you think you will be able to work if I schedule you? I said ask my stomach" Threw the vest out right there. That made two jobs lost consecutively on my dads vacations.

Went into a period I did not want to work between the Crohns which was discovered during a colonoscopy also did not want more failures. Last year my step brother got me a job where he was working doing warehouse sort of things. Really heavy lifting. I remember calling my dad that night telling him what happened and he said Marc grow up. I was so upset that he was taking his side of the story over mine I slit my throat. Today I still have that action as a scar. Two days later he made an appearance worrying how bad it was. I wound up losing that job in under five days. Due to the fact I never used those pulley type things and I kept leaving it in aisles and I was being told to unload about 60 2 liter sodas then 10-20 cases of Snapple. I was never cut out for this. Most people would take 45 minutes this took me over four hours. I finally conquered the Crohns having lost over 40% of my starting weight with the help of a nutritionist and dieting. Today I am down to 158.8 pounds from a high of 264.8. I have a four year gap in my work history. I went on three interviews in the past month. One was for a Staples which was part time I did not take it due to a low number of hours, low salary, and no benefits. My family was upset with me. That helped put me into my current depressed state. I was severely depressed on Wednesday due to the fact I was happy spending time with the family dogs and my father. We do not get to see each other enough. I was told AMC Thetres (Lowes was hiring) I went down for an 11AM appointment only no one was there if you or I with our thoughts had been the only ones there your mind would start wondering what happened. Someone who definitely was not OCD said he thought this was like a ghost movie no one here. We started thinking of what happened needless to say no one showed never got a call. The last one was at the Mall at a Johnny Rockets where I would have needed to buy certain clothes which I did not have the money for and it was probably going to be as fast paced and stressful as Burger King if not worse.

I then got a great idea about finding people like me. I cannot be the only one going through all this. Being that I rent and I am afraid what people think I have a "business" that people think I own that is why they see me all the time. I was never a good liar but that is the only thing I lie about. I can't tell people my family supports me at this age. What is wrong with you? Are you are a worthless bum? Are you stupid? These are questions the uncaring people would ask. So I have my own sets of paranoia if you will.

This is a very brief history of my life.

Hope to hear some conversation and maybe I am not the only one with this problem. I feel that our disability puts us in the light as we really can only achieve X even when are capabilities are much greater. It really saddens me that many of us are going through this even though the other part of me is happy to know it is not just me being lazy.

Feel free to write.

Marc

Women, sports, family, music, movies, TV, reading the paper (BAD OBSESSION), walking, family dogs.

Being different, gossip's, people who think they know your situation when they don't.

Mostly 70's and 80's rock and disco.

Groups include

Abba, Andy Gibb, Bee Gees, Billy Joel, Donna Summers, Elton John, Hall and Oates, Huey Lewis and the News, Micheal Jackson, Pat Benatar, and Stevie Wonder.

My next book will be "The Yankee Years". Sports books.

Really don't watch many, mostly Adam Sandler and the older popular ones like Saturday Night Fever, Grease, Urban Cowboy.

Sports, sports memorabilia, looking for women, spending time with the family dogs.

Animal lovers with OCD