In 2009, Howie Mandel did an ABC news segment talking about living with OCD. Since then, over 1.8 million people have watched that particular segment. He's released a book, talked about it on Ellen, and did a segment on The Doctors TV show.
I, too, live with obsessive-compulsive disorder. I have always been uncomfortable with touching people's hands, but it wasn't until my OCD fully developed that it became a legitimate fear of mine. When at the beginning of my freshman year of high school I cried in the church bathroom because someone shook my hand, I took to the internet to explain what was happening to me. That's when I found Howie's explanation of his palm being a "petri dish" and I immediately felt understood.
I hesitated to use the terminology myself for a long time. While it perfectly explained what was going on in my own mind, I worried others would criticize my weird — not to mention stolen from one of Howie's interviews — explanation.
While I am now able to control and influence my own exposures and limits in OCD, this wasn't always the case. And for the longest time, I didn't have the words to tell people what happened in my mind when someone shook my hand or gave me a high five. Now, I do, but I can't always explain it with a phrase other than "petri dish." When you ask me why I don't want give high fives or why I can't shake your hands, here's what I want you to know.
When I touch something dirty, or shake hands with someone, there's a level of exposure to germs that makes me feel both vulnerable and dangerous. I'll get sick, I'll get someone else sick, I'll get sick and then get someone else sick, someone with a compromised or weaker immune system is going to die because of me, the germs will enter through a small invisible opening in my skin and it'll eventually kill me — while most, if not all, of these are irrational thoughts that I can and do recognize as such, it doesn't matter to my OCD. When I do not give someone a high five or shake their hands, I am protecting both them and myself. And when someone laughs at my inability to push past the fear and be "normal," they laugh at my best attempt to protect them from something that, in my mind, they don't realize is a threat.
When someone other than my family touches my face, it's the same fear. My eyes, nose, mouth, skin, hair, and makeup all carry germs that are now on that person's hand/face — and by process of transfer, I am infecting thousands of people and killing hundreds more.
My OCD isn't all germ based. Even though I know my dorm room door locks automatically, I have made myself late standing outside my door in a struggle to make myself feel that the door is really locked. And sometimes, no matter how many times I check and see that the door is locked, it still feels unlocked. Someone without OCD might go back and check their door once, twice, maybe even a third time. But 36 times and 45 minutes later, my fears aren't normal or rational anymore.
My OCD is manageable now, largely in part to exposure therapy. But I still have days that I don't shake hands. I still have days that I don't give high fives or want people close to me. Sometimes I'll do high fives but not handshakes. It all depends on what I can push myself to hand that day.
When I borrow words from someone else to explain my petri-fying fear (happy accident of a pun), please don't laugh or repeat me. I might laugh back, but I don't mean it; I just don't know what else to do. OCD is a real disorder that brings a lot of fear with it and has brought me to tears more times than I can count in the past. Please don't laugh at my pain.
When you laugh at my petri dish explanation or turn off the water to make me stop washing my hands, or hug me tightly and/or for a long time when I've made it clear I don't want to be touched, I hope you don't know what you're doing. But you might as well have punched me in the stomach and ran away laughing.
If you know someone with OCD, please be respectful of their fears and wishes. Worsening such a debilitating disease is easy with a simple laugh or comment.
