In January of 2023 it was confirmed that I was suffering with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) after symptoms became evident for about 8 months or so. Turns out I had various symptoms for years undetected. Essentially, OCD is your brain working on overdrive to cancel out what it fears to be evidences and threats that a particular fear is closing to “getting you”. My type of OCD focused on the fear of committing immoral/evil acts and becoming a person prone to always be doing the ”wrong” things for different situations.

After going through therapy and treatment for 6 months where I learned to better manage my OCD, I decided I wanted to try and capture what it felt like to me to deal with intrusive thoughts and what the goal was in therapy. During the worst cycles, distressing thoughts felt like trying to stay aware of mean, flying, and stinging bugs like hornets and wasps. With OCD, you feel like you have to do everything you can to fight the unwanted thoughts like you would these kinds of bugs, doing anything you can to keep them from getting too close and landing on you before they sting. Imagine how you feel when a bee flies by your head and you’ll have a sense of what goes on in the mind of someone dealing with OCD and similar anxiety issues. As treatment went on, the thoughts changed from terrifying stinging wasps to more “annoying” bugs like flies and moths that you can deal with a little easier or ignore completely.

This painting is aiming to capture the idea of “living with the uncertainty” that people with OCD have to train themselves to do. It feels like the equivalent of letting a hornet sit on your shoulder and remaining totally calm while it happens until it decides to leave on its own.

This painting has been added to the Exposed online gallery of The Center for OCD and Anxiety in Pittsburgh, PA. The Exposed Gallery showases various artworks of different mediums where artist’s share their experiences from living with OCD. https://pittsburghocdtreatment.com/exposed-gallery/painting-drawing-and-illustration/