Overthinking About You
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- Show Notes
- Transcript
Allison Raskin was just 4 years old the first time she told her parents she wanted to die. Within weeks, the preschooler was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder and depression. In this episode, we talk with Allison and her mother Ruth about raising a child with severe mental illness and what Allison’s world looks like today as an adult living with OCD.
You can buy Allison’s book “Overthinking About You” at your favorite book place.
About Terrible, Thanks for Asking
Terrible, Thanks for Asking is more than just a podcast (but yeah, it’s a podcast).
It’s a show that makes space for how it really feels to go through the hard things in life, and a community of people who get it.
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Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.
Before I became a parent – when my first-born child was just a collection of cells gathering and multiplying inside of me – I had wishes for this child.
Not hopes … wishes.
Whenever the clock turned 11:11 or 12:34 or 2:22 or any other magical number … whenever I was driving through a tunnel … whenever I saw a dandelion ready to go to seed?
I would wish for the same thing:
A happy, healthy child.
A happy, healthy child.
A happy, healthy child.
This is what we all wish for, right? For the world to welcome our children with open arms, for their burdens to be light, for the road ahead to rise up and meet them – to paraphrase an Irish blessing that hung in my grandparents’ living room.
Happiness was what Ruth Raskin wanted for her daughter, Allison. And for a while there? It seemed like she got it.
Ruth Raskin: Allison was a really happy, funny kid. She just enjoyed things. I mean, she was a bit of a homebody, but she liked her friends. She liked playdates. She was really always just funny and outgoing. And compared with her older sister, who, you know, was maybe a little prickly, Allison was pretty easy. [laughs]
That wish – health, happiness – it’s really not that simple. Our health and our happiness are precarious, intricate, prone to sudden and inexplicable change.
And that’s exactly what happened when Allison was four years old and came down with strep throat. It’s the kind of thing pretty much all kids catch at some point while at daycare or preschool, because children are just beautiful little petri dishes – not their fault, just the facts.
Ruth and her husband got their daughter some antibiotics, and Allison got better.
But then …
Ruth Raskin: She woke up one morning and just was a different person. She wouldn’t touch us. She wouldn’t pick up anything from the floor. Something had changed so radically. And then she said to her dad, I think maybe later that same day, “You need to take me to the doctor. There’s something inside me that’s making me sad.” And we took her to her pediatrician, who, thank God, took it seriously. He said, “Let’s give this a couple of day, and, you know, if this doesn’t get better, I will refer you to a psychiatrist.”
Ruth and her husband gave it a few days, but Allison didn’t get any better. And I’m going to put a little warning here that throughout the rest of the episode, we’ll be talking about topics like suicide and self-harm.
Ruth Raskin: She was like, suicidal. She was four years old and lying down in the middle of the road going, “I want to die.” Now, when a child’s four, you just pick them up and bring them home. You know, you don’t let that happen. And it didn’t get better. It was terrible.
When a child is four years old, you can pick them up and take them home, yes. But, can you shake the knowledge that this little person that you love so much that it defies all logic … this little person that you cherish and nourish and in many cases grew inside of you … this person you love, who doesn’t even fully comprehend what it means to die … wants to die?
You won’t always be there to pick them up out of the road. You won’t always be there to save them.
Allison’s pediatrician referred the Raskins to a doctor who Ruth credits with saving her daughter’s life.
Ruth Raskin: Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie, who was the head of psychiatry at Blythedale Children’s Hospital in Westchester County. And, I mean, I was there within days of what happened, because she was so miserable and so different and struggling. The doctor said, “Let’s get her an MRI of her brain,” because it could have been a brain tumor. You know? This crazy switch, you know, change in personality? We did that and, you know, that was clear. So then we had to pursue, you know, the mental health route. And the thing I cannot stress enough is how lucky I was for two things: One, that my husband and I were on the same page. There was none of that, “Oh, she’ll outgrow it,” or “Oh, it’s just something.” We were both like, “Oh my God, something is really wrong with Allison.” And then also, thank God we had the resources to deal with this, because at that point, you know, mental health coverage was not so great. And fortunately, we could get her the care she needed. I mean, financially, it’s not like at that point we, you know, were rolling in money or anything, but we were solidly upper middle class, and we could afford to get her to the doctors she needed to see.
At four years old, Allison was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder … and depression. Ruth’s daughter – that happy, funny little girl she described at the top of the episode – was severely, frighteningly mentally ill.
Ruth Raskin: And this was the early ‘90s. You know, the doctor was like, “We are just starting to treat children with medicine. Do you want to go that route?” And we were like, you know, let’s see what that involves. And she set us up with an expert at Johns Hopkins who had started treating children. And we also, you know, tested and, I mean, basically that kind of real switch, you know, from fine to not fine, there’s no definitive answer that it was caused by strep, but the research had just come out, like the first scientific article had just come out about this. And thank God she knew. And she’s like, “It looks like this is it.” And we made a family trip down to Baltimore and we took her to this expert at Johns Hopkins. And that was the beginning of it.
Ruth Raskin: It was horrifying. It was just so scary. I mean, I’m not a mental health professional. I knew nothing. All I knew is that something is so, so terribly wrong. And there had been no trauma. And at one point, the doctor said, “You either have to watch her 24/7, or we have to hospitalize her.” And a 4-year-old, you can watch 24/7. And so, you know, fortunately, we were able to take that route. But I just remember still to this day, probably the worst moment of my life was: We were in the kitchen, and something happened. And I tried to hug her, and she screamed, “Don’t touch me!” And ran out of the room. And she had been such a snuggly kind of kid, you know? Always jumping on your lap. Always ready for a hug. And when she did that, I just, I slumped over the table, and I cried, because I just was like, “What will life be like if nobody can ever get close to her?”
Because of her mental health struggles, Allison’s childhood looked different from most of her peers. With help from her doctors and her parents, Allison found a medication that worked for her and helped treat her depression. And she went to therapy every week to learn to manage her OCD – the same way another kid might attend soccer practice or piano.
Ruth Raskin: Fortunately, I didn’t have to pull her out of school. I mean, as she got older, she, you know, didn’t want to go to therapy. But, you know, she was pretty good about what she had to do. Just like, you know, there’s things you got to do. I’ve always sort of been like that. “You got to brush your teeth. You got to do your math homework. You got to go to therapy. Like, yeah, that’s just life.” So I think that’s how we approached it. It’s like, you gotta do it. But we also, we tried to make it fun. So we went down, you know, to Baltimore. Well, you know, her sister came. We went to the aquarium. We had a weekend away. You know, we did that. And once she got a little more stable, like later that spring, we said, “Okay, you know, we’re going on a vacation!” And everybody piled into the car, got ready to go to, you know, whatever, you know, for a long trip. And we actually went to a resort that’s like 10 minutes from our house, you know? And it was just like, okay, you know, and everybody, we just had a great time just swimming in the pool, just not being home, just kept trying to keep as normal a life as possible. Like we never were like, “We can’t do that because of Allison.” I mean, things did change. Like, basically, we didn’t go out socially the same way until she was older, more stable. And then I knew she’d be asleep when we went out, just, you know, because she wasn’t ready for difficult things. So we knew there were accommodations made, but we were never like, “Oh, Allison’s too sick.” It’s like, “Come on, let’s go do what we can do.” You know, she had an older sister who also deserved to have a childhood and, you know, a family life. But it was, it was work.
On top of helping Allison through her mental health issues, Ruth and her husband also had another daughter five years older. And caretaking for two drastically different children is challenging.
Ruth Raskin: You could not find two more different people, just personality-wise, than Allison and her sister. They are so wildly different. And her sister was always very social, lots of friends, and her sister embarrassed her. And you know, she’d have her friends over, and her sister would be doing weird things, and that was mortifying for her. And I don’t, I don’t blame her for, you know, her anger at it. I mean, it definitely affected her life and, you know, I don’t think I totally succeeded in making this a smooth childhood for either one. I mean, I certainly look back and see all the things I should have done. It was really hard. And I’m still not, I’m still not at peace, you know, with all my choices. But it was, it was so hard because in addition to Allison being so sick, they were so different and had such different needs, that even if she hadn’t been sick, it would have been tough. [laughs] So there were some hard years. And I wasn’t perfect. Not by a long stretch. I … I think I helped Allison. I feel like her sister, I short-changed her sister. And that that pains me greatly. You know, I think as any parent does, you look back and you go, “I didn’t do that as well as could have been done.” And I think about that a lot. You know? It pains me.
So, you’ve heard a lot from Ruth, and you might be wondering where Allison is in all of this.
She’s been sitting right next to her mother during this entire interview.
Allison Raskin: She’s a super fan. She listens to all my appearances on everything. [laughs]
Today, Allison Raskin is an author and a podcaster and she’s working toward a graduate degree in psychology. But when we ask her about what she remembers from her childhood …
Allison Raskin: Nothing. I don’t really remember my childhood. So that’s something that’s, um … you know, I have a couple of memories, um, but a lot of it is just what I’ve been told. And so it is this strange thing to be a mental health advocate and to talk about my history, but not actually have ownership over it in a way. And so then of course, my OCD makes me think that I’m a faker and that I’m making it all up, and it wasn’t that bad, you know? So, like, honestly, hearing my mom talk about it, I’m like, “Oh! That sounds really bad!” I vaguely remember Dr. Guthrie. I know that her kid went to my school and I remember, like, vaguely, like maybe I saw her at like, pick-up and I was like, “Oh, that’s my therapist.” You know, like I have, like, glimmers of things. You know, and it’s interesting, right? Because there’s so much emphasis on early childhood and how that really shapes you. But it’s this interesting thing where it’s like I don’t remember it, but I have to imagine that it shaped me in a big way. But yeah, it is, it is a very weird thing to know that I was so sick, but to not really have strong memories of it. I know I struggled throughout my life, and I’ve never been someone that was like, “Oh yeah, I wish I was a kid again,” because I remember I hated being a kid. [laughs] I think a lot of people look back on their childhood in a different way than I look back on mine. You know, I’ve talked to my sister who, you know, is like, “Yeah, like you were just like … weird.” And she has a lot of empathy for it and can understand. But at the time, she didn’t understand, like, why her little sibling was, like, so weird and, like, do it and like, you know, was like, maybe afraid of being embarrassed by me in front of her friends.
It’s not your job, as a kid, to be aware of and grateful for the ways your parents care for you. But as an adult — even though she can’t remember much of her childhood — Allison has an appreciation for all that her parents witnessed, for all they survived alongside her.
Allison Raskin: I mostly feel so much for my parents because, like, what a, what a fucking nightmare. Like, you know, like I, you know, now having nieces who are around that age, you know, my youngest niece just turned five, like to think about her going through that level of pain. And also in that time period where there was so much less information about this stuff, where it must have felt so isolating and like, you know, maybe that- I don’t know for sure, but, like, I think now if my niece got sick, we would all understand what was going on and recognize that there is a genetic component, a biological component. Like, I feel very kind of disconnected from what happened and I feel like I’m a different person now and there’s been so many different versions of me. But I feel like those memories are still so visceral for them. I’ve said so many times, I truly believe if I was born into a different family and I got that sick, I don’t think I would still be alive. You know, like you must have thought that I was, like, nuts and that I would never be okay.
Ruth Raskin: That was the big fear — that … that concern.
We’ll be right back.
—
Allison is four years old when she’s diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder … but what does that look like in a little kid?
Ruth Raskin: She definitely started with the hand-washing and with this contamination fear. Wouldn’t sit on the floor. If her crayon fell, she wouldn’t pick it up, would never want to use it again. I mean, what 4-year-old does that? So it started with that. But then it was, it evolved into, we called her like at one point, like the third base coach, you know? Like they do these like crazy signals. And she would be making these movements, and I don’t know why, but she would need to do those movements.
Allison Raskin: I always felt like I was going to be rejected. I always felt, like, that I wasn’t attractive enough, that I wasn’t the girl that people wanted. I think I had a hyper, hyper fixation on romantic relationships because I saw that as like, if I could get a boyfriend, then maybe I wouldn’t be so, like, lonely. And also that would be like validation that I wasn’t disgusting. And so I was, like, so unbelievably obsessed with trying to find a boyfriend throughout so many stages of my life.
Ruth Raskin: And then the questions, the insecurity, the needing to hear the answers to something over and over and over. “Are you sure? Are you sure? Did I do this? Can I?” You know? And when your child’s 8, 9 and they ask a question, you answer them, and then you answer them again. But then when it gets to be like the 15th time that they’re not sure about something. You know, it manifested mostly the contamination, the cleanliness and the uncertainties. That’s what she’s really struggled with.
Allison Raskin: I struggled socially, I think was probably the part where it impacted me the most in terms of, like, I would just say whatever came to my mind. And that’s not a way to interact with other people, you know? So like, I would probably say things that were off-putting and that people didn’t like. And I was very intense, and I was very bossy. And I was, I was, you know … I don’t know how likable that I was. Like, I think that I was creative and smart and interesting, but I also think I was, I was probably pretty obnoxious.
Ruth Raskin: Adults really enjoyed her company. Kids, she had a real struggle with kids, because she saw everything in black and white and she was bossy and she was judgmental. But when you have OCD, there’s no wiggle room there. And somebody, some professional said that, you know, “It will be better when, you know, her peers are adults,” because she always got along better with adults. But as a child with other children, she was weird and difficult. [laughs] She went to boarding school in junior year because she wanted to. And she made a group of friends with other kids who started junior year. And then, being this black and white person, maybe I’m wrong, but it just, like, one day she decided they weren’t good and she, without thinking it through, just dropped them as friends. Well, that left her then with no friends. So this, this, thing of, “It’s got to be this way or that way,” as opposed to, “Let’s, you know, negotiate. They are my friends, and maybe I don’t like this about them, but we can work it through.” That was not part of her personality. So she would kind of screw herself a lot with this black and white thinking.
Ruth Raskin: The balance of letting them be normal and making sure they’re safe is wild. You know, because at any moment, she could go through something, and I know she self-harmed. I was always fearful of suicide. But on the other hand, I really wanted her to have as normal a life as possible. I let her go to boarding school, and even crazier, I let her go to California for college. Because I know people whose kids are perfectly fine and they say to them, “You must go to college within a hundred mile radius of home.” But she wanted to go to the USC film school, and we live in New York. And how many people said, “Well, why doesn’t she just go to NYU?” And I was like, “She doesn’t want to go to NYU. She wants to go to USC.” So that balance. And then, you know, the times when she was crashing – and once again, thank God I had the resources, I would be on the next flight to L.A. So that, “Did I give her too much string? Did I not give her enough?” You know? That’s, that’s the challenge. And that’s the big one, letting her, you know, go off to school there. But you’re constantly like, “What’s the balance between letting her enjoy her life and just making sure she’s safe?”
Allison Raskin: And I think a lot of people are afraid to talk about suicide, but we talked about it, and you made it very clear what the impact would be if I made that decision. Like, it was very clear that I would ruin your life if I did that. And I think, you know, when you’re in the throes of depression, when you’re having suicidal ideation, you can start to think things like, “Well, people will be better off without me. I’m actually doing people a favor by doing this.” And you very vocally made that clear that that’s not what it would be, that I would not be doing you a favor. And I think being incredibly explicit about that was so important and I think something that parents should really do with their kids who struggle with this stuff. To not shy away from the topic, to not talk about it, because thinking that talking about it will make it more, you know, possible. But to, like, really lay it out there, “Even if your brain is telling you I’d be better off. That is not true.”
Ruth Raskin: I mean, there were people who were, you know, saying, “Oh, what does she have to be depressed about?” It doesn’t work that way. Just follow all the avenues. If you see your child is struggling, children have mental illness, and you can’t say, “Oh, that’s not going to happen until they’re in their twenties.” I mean, it can happen at any age. Just just be aware and do what, you know, is the right thing for your kid.
When we’re back, we’ll have more from Allison.
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Nora McInerny: Let’s say it’s 8:30 a.m., your alarm rings, you get up. What’s Allison Raskin’s day like?
Allison Raskin: Every day is different because of what I do. So I’ll take you through, like, how it can show up for me in a day. So with masks, right? I’m still very much masked. I’m still very much aware that we’re in the middle of a pandemic. And I always wear a mask indoors anywhere that I go. I delineate my days by if I’ve showered yet, and that determines what mask I’m going to wear. If I haven’t showered, then I’m willing to wear the mask that I wore the day before. Keep in mind, it’s not like I was, like, working out in the mask and the mask is, like, disgusting. It’s just I’ve decided that it is a, quote unquote “dirty” mask, and so therefore I can only wear the dirty mask if I have not showered. But then if I have showered, then I have to use a new mask. And so like yesterday I, like, went to dinner with a friend, and I knew we were going to be eating outside, but I was like, “Oh, I should bring this mask just in case I have to pee.” And then like, you know, I’m wasting this, like, perfectly good mask to like, just quickly pee. And it’s, like, wasteful. And the fact that it’s wasteful is against my values. But then the OCD is, like, more powerful than me just wearing the mask I’d worn the day before because I’d already showered. Then there’s me just monitoring what my hands have touched. And so, like, if I’m doing chores, making sure that I- well, this is the thing I’m working on, but like making sure that, like, my hands are clean when I touch the laundry, but now I’m trying to, like, be a little better about that. So I’m willing to move laundry from the washer into the dryer without having washed my hands first. Because in my brain I’m like, “Well, the dryer will kill the germs that my hands have brought by touching it and moving it into the dryer.” You know, I’m monitoring, like, walking my dogs, like, I wipe their feet afterwards. I wipe their butt afterwards. And then I’m monitoring how I’m touching their treats. One’s in here. So I have to say it softly. Like, you know, I’ve then determined that because I have opened their treats with my hands not having been washed, then the treats are now a dirty thing. And so then if I were to go and get them one later, even though I haven’t done anything other than get the treats, I would then have to wash my hands after having washed the treat bags.Another thing I was doing, I was like, avoiding using my car because I had been in my car after physical therapy, and I knew I needed to wipe it down. And so then it was like, “Well, the next time I go in, I’ll have to, you know, Clorox wipe my car down. So I’d rather just use my boyfriend’s car until I have to use my car.” Like, it’s just like a lot of planning, a lot of avoiding, a lot of cleaning and just like a lot of mental energy to attempt to feel safe in my body.
Nora McInerny: What does this do to your dating life?
Allison Raskin: Oh, it’s … it thrives. It really helps. No. [laughs]
Nora McInerny: Men love it. [laughs]
Allison Raskin: What a turn on. No, it’s a … it’s a constant negotiation. You know, I could not handle uncertainty. So when dating, it was so important for me to know where it was going, to know what we were to each other, to know that there was like a clear finish line, that line being marriage to, to rush through all of the early stages so that I could feel safe. And that was really challenging for a lot of partners who were in their 20s and not ready for that kind of commitment or felt like I was making them move at a speed that wasn’t their comfort level. You know, I needed a lot of reassurance. I needed a lot of certainty that they often were not able to give me. And that came from me not being able to live in that uncertainty and feeling like I wasn’t enough on my own. And I, you know, I was obsessed with having a partner. It was, it was all I ever thought about. It was all I ever wanted. I felt like something was wrong with me if I didn’t have one. And it was, it was all-consuming. I couldn’t just exist in the world as a single person living her life. I was constantly trying to accomplish this goal. And it was exhausting. You know, I’m very lucky to have an empathetic partner who does not judge me for this, but it’s definitely a push and pull. Right? Like, I can tell that there are days where I ask him to do certain things and I get a look and I know that that’s too much. Like, I know that like, if I’m going to insist on that, then it’s going to be a problem. And so that’s when I have to really learn to be okay with the discomfort and push through it.
Nora McInerny: What’s an example of that?
Allison Raskin: I find suitcases to be incredibly contaminated and disgusting. And we have a shed in the backyard. And we had to get something from the shed. And then John’s pants touched a suitcase while he was trying to get the thing. And then I wanted him to then wash his pants afterwards. And I got a look that told me that that wasn’t gonna happen. [laughs] But that’s good! You know, I can’t, it wouldn’t be … accommodation is important, but also the tricky thing with OCD is every time you give in to a compulsion, it gets stronger. And so there are going to be people that say you should never give in to a compulsion. Your partner should never accommodate you. But like, what kind of life is that? That means I’m miserable 24 hours a day. And so we have tried to find, I hope, a middle ground that is, that is manageable for both of us.
That’s her personal life. But Allison is also an adult with a job. With many jobs. She’s one half of the YouTube channel and podcast “Just Between Us,” she used to be on BuzzFeed, and she’s the author of a bunch of books including her latest: Overthinking About You: Navigating Romantic Relationships When You Have Anxiety, OCD, and/or Depression.
Allison Raskin: I had a worldview that if I wasn’t being incredibly productive, then I was a waste of space and I was a horrible person, so I needed to work all of the time. And that made it so I produced a lot, but it also made it so that I didn’t ever feel like I was doing enough and that my value as a person was directly tied to my work output. And that was something I really had to work through in therapy, and that I was able to a few years ago. But yeah, I mean, I was like, you know, I would call my mom and be like, “I’ve worked four hours today. Is that enough? Is that enough? Is this good enough? Is this, you know, did I do enough?” And a lot of obsession about productivity and output. And was I trying hard enough and, you know, was I good enough and and all of that. Because I have a non-traditional life. And so it’s not like, oh, I could just go and show up at normal work hours. I had to dictate when I worked and when I didn’t. And this obsession around, if I was, if my output was high enough or if I was, you know, a waste of space. [laughs]
Allison mentioned that her OCD is mild … and that it still kicks her ass on a daily basis. People see the accomplishments but not the obsessive, depleting output that it takes to achieve them. They see the clean, tidy house … but not the exhausting obsession that makes the house so clean and tidy.
Allison Raskin: What’s really tricky, right, is that hygiene is a thing. Contamination is a thing. I can’t just never bathe or never wash my hands. Like, like there is a certain level of cleanliness that is safe and societally acceptable. And so it is finding that line, right? A lot of OCD might be more around like magical thinking, of thinking like, “Okay, well, if I don’t if, I don’t say this song to myself seven times, then a loved one will die.” Like, that will never happen. The magic isn’t real. But contamination is real. Like, it does exist. So that’s, like, what I have found to be really difficult about this form of OCD. And I’m sure people who deal with magical OCD and harm OCD would have a different viewpoint. But for me, I have found it extremely challenging to be dealing with a subset of OCD where I can’t just completely ignore it because, you know, I don’t like to do a lot of things other people can do easily. Like, I don’t like, I can’t go camping. I can’t just go stay at a friend’s apartment. I don’t want to, like, go stay at a hostel and travel cheaply through Europe because I, I can’t be in those environments with my OCD. You know, I have a bit more of a rigid lifestyle. And so I think I don’t necessarily take part in all of the, the social events that other people would. Or I couldn’t just like go out, you know, till like 2 a.m. one night without prepping myself for a week ahead of time for that, you know? Like, I wasn’t just like, “Oh, Allison would be down for that.” Like, my friends would know that I wasn’t. And that’s okay. You know, like, I think that I have done a really nice job of surrounding myself with people who understand and respect me.
COVID made everyone more conscious of germs. We wiped our groceries down, we wore masks … and it added to Allison’s list of compulsions.
Allison Raskin: OCD always wants more control, right? And so going into COVID, I didn’t have a lot of compulsions that I now have. You know, like I used to just touch doorknobs and elevator buttons and shopping carts without thinking about it, but then it suddenly became something to think about. And so now that’s been added to things that I have compulsions around. And so, you know, it’s made it much, much worse. And so a big, a big goal for me is not to, like, get rid of my contamination OCD, because I know it’s impossible, but to just get myself back to pre-COVID levels. Like even then, like it wasn’t great, but it was a lot better than now. [laughs]
Ruth Raskin: There was this time when she was, you know, when it first started, we didn’t know that it was airborne and you were wiping down everything. And she jokingly or not jokingly, was like, “I’ve been preparing my whole life for this.” [Allison laughs.] So it’s sort of a confirmation, of course, that, you know, we had to laugh about it. But yeah, that’s what she’d been doing.
Allison Raskin: But what makes it clear that it’s an illness is I am, it was never, it was about COVID for me, but it was about contamination much more. And so, like, you know, I made this joke on Twitter that like when I go to grad school and I’m wiping down the chair, and I’m wiping down the table, everyone thinks I’m doing it because of COVID, but I’m doing it because of contamination. Like, I have the version of OCD where I’m not afraid to get sick, I’m just afraid to get contaminated. But because everyone else is doing all of this behavior because of COVID, I can do a lot of behavior and look quote unquote “normal,” because people think it’s about COVID, even though in my brain it’s not about COVID, it’s about contamination, which is two different things. Because contamination for me is just the feeling of being icky. It’s a feeling of being contaminated. I’m not afraid of getting sick. So I actually throughout the COVID pandemic, I’ve been less afraid of COVID than a lot of other people in my life, but my compulsions are worse than a lot of other people, because my OCD sees an opening for itself. It’s the sick or the ick, and for me, it’s the ick, which makes even less logical sense for people.
Our wishes, we know, don’t always come true. They rarely come true, actually, at least not in the way we’d hoped they would.
The wishes we have for our children are usually made before these children exist or before we know them – like really, really know them. Before they become the people that they will become. There isn’t a version of Ruth who would look at her baby bump or her newborn daughter and say, “I hope this little girl becomes severely mentally ill so she can have a career in mental health-related entertainment and struggle through her interpersonal relationships but ultimately come to a good place in life.”
But there also isn’t a version of Ruth who isn’t proud of who her daughter has become.
And more importantly, there is no other version of Allison. There will be no other versions of our children. Our job as their parents and their grownups is to love them for who they are, not who we hoped they might become.
Ruth Raskin: I mean, obviously, it’s been a struggle, but she’s brought me so much joy. I mean, I just love her to bits and she’s, she’s so funny, you know? And just a great daughter, so thoughtful. And I’m just, you know. Yeah, we’ve struggled. Yeah, it’s been hard for both of us. For both of us. Far harder for her. But I mean, she’s been, you know, a delight.
Allison Raskin: I don’t think it’s been harder for me. I think it’s been equally hard.
Ruth Raskin: We’ll never win that battle. That can’t be decided. [Allison laughs.]
Allison Raskin: You know, I think there is this big pressure on parents to get it right, to say the right thing in every situation, to get the right help, to try the right treatment the first time around. But everything I’m learning in school and everything that feels true to my experience is it’s so much more about just being there. Like, you’re never going to say the right thing every time. You’re never going to know what is the right dose of medication, you know, even if you are a doctor. But most parents aren’t. You know? Like what really matters is showing up and not being judgmental of the suffering that your kid is going through and being able to say, “I know this is so hard, and we’ll figure this out together, that even when it gets really hard and even when you feel like you’re not someone that is worth being supported, I’m going to keep showing up for you anyway.” And that’s what my parents have always done for me. That’s what I remember more than, you know, going to that therapist or trying this thing or whatever. I just remember that they were always a safe place for me and that feels attainable. So if parents feel overwhelmed and like, oh God, what if they make a mistake? Like, of course you’re going to make a mistake. But it’s the showing up and it’s the unconditional love that makes the big difference. And that is something you have control over. It’s something that you are able to do more easily.
Ruth Raskin: I’d say she is the most empathetic person I know. She is funny. She’s delightful. She continues to struggle, though. I’d say she still has some black and white thinking, but she’ll at least admit it now. She’ll see it. But. And there’s highs and there’s lows and there’s working through medication. There’s working through the right therapist. I mean, in a way, there’s … there’s a lot of the same Allison, but she has come so far. She has worked on herself so hard, and I’m so proud of her, because it’s not easy. And she will look at herself and know what she needs to do. And she’s already done so, so much to be in a safer, healthier place. And I’m just really, really proud of her.
CREDITS: Nora McInerny, Marcel Malekebu, Jordan Turgeon, Megan Palmer
Allison Raskin was just 4 years old the first time she told her parents she wanted to die. Within weeks, the preschooler was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder and depression. In this episode, we talk with Allison and her mother Ruth about raising a child with severe mental illness and what Allison’s world looks like today as an adult living with OCD.
You can buy Allison’s book “Overthinking About You” at your favorite book place.
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Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.
Before I became a parent – when my first-born child was just a collection of cells gathering and multiplying inside of me – I had wishes for this child.
Not hopes … wishes.
Whenever the clock turned 11:11 or 12:34 or 2:22 or any other magical number … whenever I was driving through a tunnel … whenever I saw a dandelion ready to go to seed?
I would wish for the same thing:
A happy, healthy child.
A happy, healthy child.
A happy, healthy child.
This is what we all wish for, right? For the world to welcome our children with open arms, for their burdens to be light, for the road ahead to rise up and meet them – to paraphrase an Irish blessing that hung in my grandparents’ living room.
Happiness was what Ruth Raskin wanted for her daughter, Allison. And for a while there? It seemed like she got it.
Ruth Raskin: Allison was a really happy, funny kid. She just enjoyed things. I mean, she was a bit of a homebody, but she liked her friends. She liked playdates. She was really always just funny and outgoing. And compared with her older sister, who, you know, was maybe a little prickly, Allison was pretty easy. [laughs]
That wish – health, happiness – it’s really not that simple. Our health and our happiness are precarious, intricate, prone to sudden and inexplicable change.
And that’s exactly what happened when Allison was four years old and came down with strep throat. It’s the kind of thing pretty much all kids catch at some point while at daycare or preschool, because children are just beautiful little petri dishes – not their fault, just the facts.
Ruth and her husband got their daughter some antibiotics, and Allison got better.
But then …
Ruth Raskin: She woke up one morning and just was a different person. She wouldn’t touch us. She wouldn’t pick up anything from the floor. Something had changed so radically. And then she said to her dad, I think maybe later that same day, “You need to take me to the doctor. There’s something inside me that’s making me sad.” And we took her to her pediatrician, who, thank God, took it seriously. He said, “Let’s give this a couple of day, and, you know, if this doesn’t get better, I will refer you to a psychiatrist.”
Ruth and her husband gave it a few days, but Allison didn’t get any better. And I’m going to put a little warning here that throughout the rest of the episode, we’ll be talking about topics like suicide and self-harm.
Ruth Raskin: She was like, suicidal. She was four years old and lying down in the middle of the road going, “I want to die.” Now, when a child’s four, you just pick them up and bring them home. You know, you don’t let that happen. And it didn’t get better. It was terrible.
When a child is four years old, you can pick them up and take them home, yes. But, can you shake the knowledge that this little person that you love so much that it defies all logic … this little person that you cherish and nourish and in many cases grew inside of you … this person you love, who doesn’t even fully comprehend what it means to die … wants to die?
You won’t always be there to pick them up out of the road. You won’t always be there to save them.
Allison’s pediatrician referred the Raskins to a doctor who Ruth credits with saving her daughter’s life.
Ruth Raskin: Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie, who was the head of psychiatry at Blythedale Children’s Hospital in Westchester County. And, I mean, I was there within days of what happened, because she was so miserable and so different and struggling. The doctor said, “Let’s get her an MRI of her brain,” because it could have been a brain tumor. You know? This crazy switch, you know, change in personality? We did that and, you know, that was clear. So then we had to pursue, you know, the mental health route. And the thing I cannot stress enough is how lucky I was for two things: One, that my husband and I were on the same page. There was none of that, “Oh, she’ll outgrow it,” or “Oh, it’s just something.” We were both like, “Oh my God, something is really wrong with Allison.” And then also, thank God we had the resources to deal with this, because at that point, you know, mental health coverage was not so great. And fortunately, we could get her the care she needed. I mean, financially, it’s not like at that point we, you know, were rolling in money or anything, but we were solidly upper middle class, and we could afford to get her to the doctors she needed to see.
At four years old, Allison was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder … and depression. Ruth’s daughter – that happy, funny little girl she described at the top of the episode – was severely, frighteningly mentally ill.
Ruth Raskin: And this was the early ‘90s. You know, the doctor was like, “We are just starting to treat children with medicine. Do you want to go that route?” And we were like, you know, let’s see what that involves. And she set us up with an expert at Johns Hopkins who had started treating children. And we also, you know, tested and, I mean, basically that kind of real switch, you know, from fine to not fine, there’s no definitive answer that it was caused by strep, but the research had just come out, like the first scientific article had just come out about this. And thank God she knew. And she’s like, “It looks like this is it.” And we made a family trip down to Baltimore and we took her to this expert at Johns Hopkins. And that was the beginning of it.
Ruth Raskin: It was horrifying. It was just so scary. I mean, I’m not a mental health professional. I knew nothing. All I knew is that something is so, so terribly wrong. And there had been no trauma. And at one point, the doctor said, “You either have to watch her 24/7, or we have to hospitalize her.” And a 4-year-old, you can watch 24/7. And so, you know, fortunately, we were able to take that route. But I just remember still to this day, probably the worst moment of my life was: We were in the kitchen, and something happened. And I tried to hug her, and she screamed, “Don’t touch me!” And ran out of the room. And she had been such a snuggly kind of kid, you know? Always jumping on your lap. Always ready for a hug. And when she did that, I just, I slumped over the table, and I cried, because I just was like, “What will life be like if nobody can ever get close to her?”
Because of her mental health struggles, Allison’s childhood looked different from most of her peers. With help from her doctors and her parents, Allison found a medication that worked for her and helped treat her depression. And she went to therapy every week to learn to manage her OCD – the same way another kid might attend soccer practice or piano.
Ruth Raskin: Fortunately, I didn’t have to pull her out of school. I mean, as she got older, she, you know, didn’t want to go to therapy. But, you know, she was pretty good about what she had to do. Just like, you know, there’s things you got to do. I’ve always sort of been like that. “You got to brush your teeth. You got to do your math homework. You got to go to therapy. Like, yeah, that’s just life.” So I think that’s how we approached it. It’s like, you gotta do it. But we also, we tried to make it fun. So we went down, you know, to Baltimore. Well, you know, her sister came. We went to the aquarium. We had a weekend away. You know, we did that. And once she got a little more stable, like later that spring, we said, “Okay, you know, we’re going on a vacation!” And everybody piled into the car, got ready to go to, you know, whatever, you know, for a long trip. And we actually went to a resort that’s like 10 minutes from our house, you know? And it was just like, okay, you know, and everybody, we just had a great time just swimming in the pool, just not being home, just kept trying to keep as normal a life as possible. Like we never were like, “We can’t do that because of Allison.” I mean, things did change. Like, basically, we didn’t go out socially the same way until she was older, more stable. And then I knew she’d be asleep when we went out, just, you know, because she wasn’t ready for difficult things. So we knew there were accommodations made, but we were never like, “Oh, Allison’s too sick.” It’s like, “Come on, let’s go do what we can do.” You know, she had an older sister who also deserved to have a childhood and, you know, a family life. But it was, it was work.
On top of helping Allison through her mental health issues, Ruth and her husband also had another daughter five years older. And caretaking for two drastically different children is challenging.
Ruth Raskin: You could not find two more different people, just personality-wise, than Allison and her sister. They are so wildly different. And her sister was always very social, lots of friends, and her sister embarrassed her. And you know, she’d have her friends over, and her sister would be doing weird things, and that was mortifying for her. And I don’t, I don’t blame her for, you know, her anger at it. I mean, it definitely affected her life and, you know, I don’t think I totally succeeded in making this a smooth childhood for either one. I mean, I certainly look back and see all the things I should have done. It was really hard. And I’m still not, I’m still not at peace, you know, with all my choices. But it was, it was so hard because in addition to Allison being so sick, they were so different and had such different needs, that even if she hadn’t been sick, it would have been tough. [laughs] So there were some hard years. And I wasn’t perfect. Not by a long stretch. I … I think I helped Allison. I feel like her sister, I short-changed her sister. And that that pains me greatly. You know, I think as any parent does, you look back and you go, “I didn’t do that as well as could have been done.” And I think about that a lot. You know? It pains me.
So, you’ve heard a lot from Ruth, and you might be wondering where Allison is in all of this.
She’s been sitting right next to her mother during this entire interview.
Allison Raskin: She’s a super fan. She listens to all my appearances on everything. [laughs]
Today, Allison Raskin is an author and a podcaster and she’s working toward a graduate degree in psychology. But when we ask her about what she remembers from her childhood …
Allison Raskin: Nothing. I don’t really remember my childhood. So that’s something that’s, um … you know, I have a couple of memories, um, but a lot of it is just what I’ve been told. And so it is this strange thing to be a mental health advocate and to talk about my history, but not actually have ownership over it in a way. And so then of course, my OCD makes me think that I’m a faker and that I’m making it all up, and it wasn’t that bad, you know? So, like, honestly, hearing my mom talk about it, I’m like, “Oh! That sounds really bad!” I vaguely remember Dr. Guthrie. I know that her kid went to my school and I remember, like, vaguely, like maybe I saw her at like, pick-up and I was like, “Oh, that’s my therapist.” You know, like I have, like, glimmers of things. You know, and it’s interesting, right? Because there’s so much emphasis on early childhood and how that really shapes you. But it’s this interesting thing where it’s like I don’t remember it, but I have to imagine that it shaped me in a big way. But yeah, it is, it is a very weird thing to know that I was so sick, but to not really have strong memories of it. I know I struggled throughout my life, and I’ve never been someone that was like, “Oh yeah, I wish I was a kid again,” because I remember I hated being a kid. [laughs] I think a lot of people look back on their childhood in a different way than I look back on mine. You know, I’ve talked to my sister who, you know, is like, “Yeah, like you were just like … weird.” And she has a lot of empathy for it and can understand. But at the time, she didn’t understand, like, why her little sibling was, like, so weird and, like, do it and like, you know, was like, maybe afraid of being embarrassed by me in front of her friends.
It’s not your job, as a kid, to be aware of and grateful for the ways your parents care for you. But as an adult — even though she can’t remember much of her childhood — Allison has an appreciation for all that her parents witnessed, for all they survived alongside her.
Allison Raskin: I mostly feel so much for my parents because, like, what a, what a fucking nightmare. Like, you know, like I, you know, now having nieces who are around that age, you know, my youngest niece just turned five, like to think about her going through that level of pain. And also in that time period where there was so much less information about this stuff, where it must have felt so isolating and like, you know, maybe that- I don’t know for sure, but, like, I think now if my niece got sick, we would all understand what was going on and recognize that there is a genetic component, a biological component. Like, I feel very kind of disconnected from what happened and I feel like I’m a different person now and there’s been so many different versions of me. But I feel like those memories are still so visceral for them. I’ve said so many times, I truly believe if I was born into a different family and I got that sick, I don’t think I would still be alive. You know, like you must have thought that I was, like, nuts and that I would never be okay.
Ruth Raskin: That was the big fear — that … that concern.
We’ll be right back.
—
Allison is four years old when she’s diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder … but what does that look like in a little kid?
Ruth Raskin: She definitely started with the hand-washing and with this contamination fear. Wouldn’t sit on the floor. If her crayon fell, she wouldn’t pick it up, would never want to use it again. I mean, what 4-year-old does that? So it started with that. But then it was, it evolved into, we called her like at one point, like the third base coach, you know? Like they do these like crazy signals. And she would be making these movements, and I don’t know why, but she would need to do those movements.
Allison Raskin: I always felt like I was going to be rejected. I always felt, like, that I wasn’t attractive enough, that I wasn’t the girl that people wanted. I think I had a hyper, hyper fixation on romantic relationships because I saw that as like, if I could get a boyfriend, then maybe I wouldn’t be so, like, lonely. And also that would be like validation that I wasn’t disgusting. And so I was, like, so unbelievably obsessed with trying to find a boyfriend throughout so many stages of my life.
Ruth Raskin: And then the questions, the insecurity, the needing to hear the answers to something over and over and over. “Are you sure? Are you sure? Did I do this? Can I?” You know? And when your child’s 8, 9 and they ask a question, you answer them, and then you answer them again. But then when it gets to be like the 15th time that they’re not sure about something. You know, it manifested mostly the contamination, the cleanliness and the uncertainties. That’s what she’s really struggled with.
Allison Raskin: I struggled socially, I think was probably the part where it impacted me the most in terms of, like, I would just say whatever came to my mind. And that’s not a way to interact with other people, you know? So like, I would probably say things that were off-putting and that people didn’t like. And I was very intense, and I was very bossy. And I was, I was, you know … I don’t know how likable that I was. Like, I think that I was creative and smart and interesting, but I also think I was, I was probably pretty obnoxious.
Ruth Raskin: Adults really enjoyed her company. Kids, she had a real struggle with kids, because she saw everything in black and white and she was bossy and she was judgmental. But when you have OCD, there’s no wiggle room there. And somebody, some professional said that, you know, “It will be better when, you know, her peers are adults,” because she always got along better with adults. But as a child with other children, she was weird and difficult. [laughs] She went to boarding school in junior year because she wanted to. And she made a group of friends with other kids who started junior year. And then, being this black and white person, maybe I’m wrong, but it just, like, one day she decided they weren’t good and she, without thinking it through, just dropped them as friends. Well, that left her then with no friends. So this, this, thing of, “It’s got to be this way or that way,” as opposed to, “Let’s, you know, negotiate. They are my friends, and maybe I don’t like this about them, but we can work it through.” That was not part of her personality. So she would kind of screw herself a lot with this black and white thinking.
Ruth Raskin: The balance of letting them be normal and making sure they’re safe is wild. You know, because at any moment, she could go through something, and I know she self-harmed. I was always fearful of suicide. But on the other hand, I really wanted her to have as normal a life as possible. I let her go to boarding school, and even crazier, I let her go to California for college. Because I know people whose kids are perfectly fine and they say to them, “You must go to college within a hundred mile radius of home.” But she wanted to go to the USC film school, and we live in New York. And how many people said, “Well, why doesn’t she just go to NYU?” And I was like, “She doesn’t want to go to NYU. She wants to go to USC.” So that balance. And then, you know, the times when she was crashing – and once again, thank God I had the resources, I would be on the next flight to L.A. So that, “Did I give her too much string? Did I not give her enough?” You know? That’s, that’s the challenge. And that’s the big one, letting her, you know, go off to school there. But you’re constantly like, “What’s the balance between letting her enjoy her life and just making sure she’s safe?”
Allison Raskin: And I think a lot of people are afraid to talk about suicide, but we talked about it, and you made it very clear what the impact would be if I made that decision. Like, it was very clear that I would ruin your life if I did that. And I think, you know, when you’re in the throes of depression, when you’re having suicidal ideation, you can start to think things like, “Well, people will be better off without me. I’m actually doing people a favor by doing this.” And you very vocally made that clear that that’s not what it would be, that I would not be doing you a favor. And I think being incredibly explicit about that was so important and I think something that parents should really do with their kids who struggle with this stuff. To not shy away from the topic, to not talk about it, because thinking that talking about it will make it more, you know, possible. But to, like, really lay it out there, “Even if your brain is telling you I’d be better off. That is not true.”
Ruth Raskin: I mean, there were people who were, you know, saying, “Oh, what does she have to be depressed about?” It doesn’t work that way. Just follow all the avenues. If you see your child is struggling, children have mental illness, and you can’t say, “Oh, that’s not going to happen until they’re in their twenties.” I mean, it can happen at any age. Just just be aware and do what, you know, is the right thing for your kid.
When we’re back, we’ll have more from Allison.
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Nora McInerny: Let’s say it’s 8:30 a.m., your alarm rings, you get up. What’s Allison Raskin’s day like?
Allison Raskin: Every day is different because of what I do. So I’ll take you through, like, how it can show up for me in a day. So with masks, right? I’m still very much masked. I’m still very much aware that we’re in the middle of a pandemic. And I always wear a mask indoors anywhere that I go. I delineate my days by if I’ve showered yet, and that determines what mask I’m going to wear. If I haven’t showered, then I’m willing to wear the mask that I wore the day before. Keep in mind, it’s not like I was, like, working out in the mask and the mask is, like, disgusting. It’s just I’ve decided that it is a, quote unquote “dirty” mask, and so therefore I can only wear the dirty mask if I have not showered. But then if I have showered, then I have to use a new mask. And so like yesterday I, like, went to dinner with a friend, and I knew we were going to be eating outside, but I was like, “Oh, I should bring this mask just in case I have to pee.” And then like, you know, I’m wasting this, like, perfectly good mask to like, just quickly pee. And it’s, like, wasteful. And the fact that it’s wasteful is against my values. But then the OCD is, like, more powerful than me just wearing the mask I’d worn the day before because I’d already showered. Then there’s me just monitoring what my hands have touched. And so, like, if I’m doing chores, making sure that I- well, this is the thing I’m working on, but like making sure that, like, my hands are clean when I touch the laundry, but now I’m trying to, like, be a little better about that. So I’m willing to move laundry from the washer into the dryer without having washed my hands first. Because in my brain I’m like, “Well, the dryer will kill the germs that my hands have brought by touching it and moving it into the dryer.” You know, I’m monitoring, like, walking my dogs, like, I wipe their feet afterwards. I wipe their butt afterwards. And then I’m monitoring how I’m touching their treats. One’s in here. So I have to say it softly. Like, you know, I’ve then determined that because I have opened their treats with my hands not having been washed, then the treats are now a dirty thing. And so then if I were to go and get them one later, even though I haven’t done anything other than get the treats, I would then have to wash my hands after having washed the treat bags.Another thing I was doing, I was like, avoiding using my car because I had been in my car after physical therapy, and I knew I needed to wipe it down. And so then it was like, “Well, the next time I go in, I’ll have to, you know, Clorox wipe my car down. So I’d rather just use my boyfriend’s car until I have to use my car.” Like, it’s just like a lot of planning, a lot of avoiding, a lot of cleaning and just like a lot of mental energy to attempt to feel safe in my body.
Nora McInerny: What does this do to your dating life?
Allison Raskin: Oh, it’s … it thrives. It really helps. No. [laughs]
Nora McInerny: Men love it. [laughs]
Allison Raskin: What a turn on. No, it’s a … it’s a constant negotiation. You know, I could not handle uncertainty. So when dating, it was so important for me to know where it was going, to know what we were to each other, to know that there was like a clear finish line, that line being marriage to, to rush through all of the early stages so that I could feel safe. And that was really challenging for a lot of partners who were in their 20s and not ready for that kind of commitment or felt like I was making them move at a speed that wasn’t their comfort level. You know, I needed a lot of reassurance. I needed a lot of certainty that they often were not able to give me. And that came from me not being able to live in that uncertainty and feeling like I wasn’t enough on my own. And I, you know, I was obsessed with having a partner. It was, it was all I ever thought about. It was all I ever wanted. I felt like something was wrong with me if I didn’t have one. And it was, it was all-consuming. I couldn’t just exist in the world as a single person living her life. I was constantly trying to accomplish this goal. And it was exhausting. You know, I’m very lucky to have an empathetic partner who does not judge me for this, but it’s definitely a push and pull. Right? Like, I can tell that there are days where I ask him to do certain things and I get a look and I know that that’s too much. Like, I know that like, if I’m going to insist on that, then it’s going to be a problem. And so that’s when I have to really learn to be okay with the discomfort and push through it.
Nora McInerny: What’s an example of that?
Allison Raskin: I find suitcases to be incredibly contaminated and disgusting. And we have a shed in the backyard. And we had to get something from the shed. And then John’s pants touched a suitcase while he was trying to get the thing. And then I wanted him to then wash his pants afterwards. And I got a look that told me that that wasn’t gonna happen. [laughs] But that’s good! You know, I can’t, it wouldn’t be … accommodation is important, but also the tricky thing with OCD is every time you give in to a compulsion, it gets stronger. And so there are going to be people that say you should never give in to a compulsion. Your partner should never accommodate you. But like, what kind of life is that? That means I’m miserable 24 hours a day. And so we have tried to find, I hope, a middle ground that is, that is manageable for both of us.
That’s her personal life. But Allison is also an adult with a job. With many jobs. She’s one half of the YouTube channel and podcast “Just Between Us,” she used to be on BuzzFeed, and she’s the author of a bunch of books including her latest: Overthinking About You: Navigating Romantic Relationships When You Have Anxiety, OCD, and/or Depression.
Allison Raskin: I had a worldview that if I wasn’t being incredibly productive, then I was a waste of space and I was a horrible person, so I needed to work all of the time. And that made it so I produced a lot, but it also made it so that I didn’t ever feel like I was doing enough and that my value as a person was directly tied to my work output. And that was something I really had to work through in therapy, and that I was able to a few years ago. But yeah, I mean, I was like, you know, I would call my mom and be like, “I’ve worked four hours today. Is that enough? Is that enough? Is this good enough? Is this, you know, did I do enough?” And a lot of obsession about productivity and output. And was I trying hard enough and, you know, was I good enough and and all of that. Because I have a non-traditional life. And so it’s not like, oh, I could just go and show up at normal work hours. I had to dictate when I worked and when I didn’t. And this obsession around, if I was, if my output was high enough or if I was, you know, a waste of space. [laughs]
Allison mentioned that her OCD is mild … and that it still kicks her ass on a daily basis. People see the accomplishments but not the obsessive, depleting output that it takes to achieve them. They see the clean, tidy house … but not the exhausting obsession that makes the house so clean and tidy.
Allison Raskin: What’s really tricky, right, is that hygiene is a thing. Contamination is a thing. I can’t just never bathe or never wash my hands. Like, like there is a certain level of cleanliness that is safe and societally acceptable. And so it is finding that line, right? A lot of OCD might be more around like magical thinking, of thinking like, “Okay, well, if I don’t if, I don’t say this song to myself seven times, then a loved one will die.” Like, that will never happen. The magic isn’t real. But contamination is real. Like, it does exist. So that’s, like, what I have found to be really difficult about this form of OCD. And I’m sure people who deal with magical OCD and harm OCD would have a different viewpoint. But for me, I have found it extremely challenging to be dealing with a subset of OCD where I can’t just completely ignore it because, you know, I don’t like to do a lot of things other people can do easily. Like, I don’t like, I can’t go camping. I can’t just go stay at a friend’s apartment. I don’t want to, like, go stay at a hostel and travel cheaply through Europe because I, I can’t be in those environments with my OCD. You know, I have a bit more of a rigid lifestyle. And so I think I don’t necessarily take part in all of the, the social events that other people would. Or I couldn’t just like go out, you know, till like 2 a.m. one night without prepping myself for a week ahead of time for that, you know? Like, I wasn’t just like, “Oh, Allison would be down for that.” Like, my friends would know that I wasn’t. And that’s okay. You know, like, I think that I have done a really nice job of surrounding myself with people who understand and respect me.
COVID made everyone more conscious of germs. We wiped our groceries down, we wore masks … and it added to Allison’s list of compulsions.
Allison Raskin: OCD always wants more control, right? And so going into COVID, I didn’t have a lot of compulsions that I now have. You know, like I used to just touch doorknobs and elevator buttons and shopping carts without thinking about it, but then it suddenly became something to think about. And so now that’s been added to things that I have compulsions around. And so, you know, it’s made it much, much worse. And so a big, a big goal for me is not to, like, get rid of my contamination OCD, because I know it’s impossible, but to just get myself back to pre-COVID levels. Like even then, like it wasn’t great, but it was a lot better than now. [laughs]
Ruth Raskin: There was this time when she was, you know, when it first started, we didn’t know that it was airborne and you were wiping down everything. And she jokingly or not jokingly, was like, “I’ve been preparing my whole life for this.” [Allison laughs.] So it’s sort of a confirmation, of course, that, you know, we had to laugh about it. But yeah, that’s what she’d been doing.
Allison Raskin: But what makes it clear that it’s an illness is I am, it was never, it was about COVID for me, but it was about contamination much more. And so, like, you know, I made this joke on Twitter that like when I go to grad school and I’m wiping down the chair, and I’m wiping down the table, everyone thinks I’m doing it because of COVID, but I’m doing it because of contamination. Like, I have the version of OCD where I’m not afraid to get sick, I’m just afraid to get contaminated. But because everyone else is doing all of this behavior because of COVID, I can do a lot of behavior and look quote unquote “normal,” because people think it’s about COVID, even though in my brain it’s not about COVID, it’s about contamination, which is two different things. Because contamination for me is just the feeling of being icky. It’s a feeling of being contaminated. I’m not afraid of getting sick. So I actually throughout the COVID pandemic, I’ve been less afraid of COVID than a lot of other people in my life, but my compulsions are worse than a lot of other people, because my OCD sees an opening for itself. It’s the sick or the ick, and for me, it’s the ick, which makes even less logical sense for people.
Our wishes, we know, don’t always come true. They rarely come true, actually, at least not in the way we’d hoped they would.
The wishes we have for our children are usually made before these children exist or before we know them – like really, really know them. Before they become the people that they will become. There isn’t a version of Ruth who would look at her baby bump or her newborn daughter and say, “I hope this little girl becomes severely mentally ill so she can have a career in mental health-related entertainment and struggle through her interpersonal relationships but ultimately come to a good place in life.”
But there also isn’t a version of Ruth who isn’t proud of who her daughter has become.
And more importantly, there is no other version of Allison. There will be no other versions of our children. Our job as their parents and their grownups is to love them for who they are, not who we hoped they might become.
Ruth Raskin: I mean, obviously, it’s been a struggle, but she’s brought me so much joy. I mean, I just love her to bits and she’s, she’s so funny, you know? And just a great daughter, so thoughtful. And I’m just, you know. Yeah, we’ve struggled. Yeah, it’s been hard for both of us. For both of us. Far harder for her. But I mean, she’s been, you know, a delight.
Allison Raskin: I don’t think it’s been harder for me. I think it’s been equally hard.
Ruth Raskin: We’ll never win that battle. That can’t be decided. [Allison laughs.]
Allison Raskin: You know, I think there is this big pressure on parents to get it right, to say the right thing in every situation, to get the right help, to try the right treatment the first time around. But everything I’m learning in school and everything that feels true to my experience is it’s so much more about just being there. Like, you’re never going to say the right thing every time. You’re never going to know what is the right dose of medication, you know, even if you are a doctor. But most parents aren’t. You know? Like what really matters is showing up and not being judgmental of the suffering that your kid is going through and being able to say, “I know this is so hard, and we’ll figure this out together, that even when it gets really hard and even when you feel like you’re not someone that is worth being supported, I’m going to keep showing up for you anyway.” And that’s what my parents have always done for me. That’s what I remember more than, you know, going to that therapist or trying this thing or whatever. I just remember that they were always a safe place for me and that feels attainable. So if parents feel overwhelmed and like, oh God, what if they make a mistake? Like, of course you’re going to make a mistake. But it’s the showing up and it’s the unconditional love that makes the big difference. And that is something you have control over. It’s something that you are able to do more easily.
Ruth Raskin: I’d say she is the most empathetic person I know. She is funny. She’s delightful. She continues to struggle, though. I’d say she still has some black and white thinking, but she’ll at least admit it now. She’ll see it. But. And there’s highs and there’s lows and there’s working through medication. There’s working through the right therapist. I mean, in a way, there’s … there’s a lot of the same Allison, but she has come so far. She has worked on herself so hard, and I’m so proud of her, because it’s not easy. And she will look at herself and know what she needs to do. And she’s already done so, so much to be in a safer, healthier place. And I’m just really, really proud of her.
CREDITS: Nora McInerny, Marcel Malekebu, Jordan Turgeon, Megan Palmer
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