A first-time mother shares her experience of living with undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and the extreme measures she took to protect her child.
Cradling her newborn son, Erin F. saw herself tripping and falling down the single step to her living room, knocking the scissors off the handrail. As the scene vividly played out in her mind, the shears stabbed through her arm into the infant she carried, killing him. (Erin asked WebMD not to use her last name because of the stigma that comes with mental illness.) After that, the 41-year-old first-time mom feared stepping down stairs with her baby – any stairs. And for a while, she didn’t.
But she couldn’t shake the feeling harm might come to her child somehow, and she needed to be vigilant about protecting him. She sewed tiny tracking devices into his shoes to prepare for a possible kidnapping and stashed choking rescue devices everywhere. She spent sleepless nights crying on the couch because she worried someone might rear-end them on the way to day care. And forget about going into the ocean – sharks were everywhere in her mind’s eye. Looking back, Erin says, she’s probably had undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) for most of her lif
Mother OCD Fear Child Safety Undiagnosed Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
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