“If people feel comfortable, they should talk about this because there are more people out there that we don’t even know about,” said Lisa Cormier of Leominster, who lives with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. SENTINEL ENTERPRISE / JOHN LOVE
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LEOMINSTER — There were nights where Lisa Cormier would finally pull into her garage hours after leaving work and frantically check the front of her car for dents or drops of blood.
“I’d think I injured somebody or even killed somebody,” she said. “I’d first have to go back and check and check and check. I’d think ‘OK, there’s nobody in the road, but what if I hit them and they went into the woods?’ Then I’d say ‘What if somebody’s watching me and they got my license plate number and there’s a murder and now they’re coming after me?'”
There never was any murder, and no one has ever been hit by Cormier’s Honda CRV. The only thing she ever ran over were the potholes on Litchfield Street, which frequently triggered her severe obsessive-compulsive disorder.
For Lisa Cormier, OCD incidents were at their height seven years ago, when her symptoms were most severe. With help from a mix of treatments she now feels that she has the strongest control she’s ever had over her illness, and has since transformed herself into a resource for other sufferers. SENTINEL ENTERPRISE / JOHN LOVE
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Obsessions like these are common with people diagnosed with OCD and can be frequently trigged by everyday occurrences like a bump in the road.
For Cormier, these incidents were at their height seven years ago, when her symptoms were most severe. With help from a mix of treatments she now feels that she has the strongest control she’s ever had over her illness, and has since transformed herself into a resource for other sufferers.
“It might not make sense to others, but to me, it’s like if I don’t do something a certain amount of times, my son’s going to get killed while he’s away at college,” she said. “I’ve been to so many therapists and psychiatrists for medication, but I actually now feel like I’ve got a grip on it.
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Cormier explained that she first began exhibiting symptoms of OCD, and the depression and anxiety it creates, when she was about 12 years old, but it wasn’t until she was in her 20s that she was actually diagnosed.
Though many associate the disorder with stereotypes of germaphobia or compulsive neatness, Cormier’s illness manifests itself through repeated behaviors or mental rituals. The nagging worry everyone experiences over turning off the stove or closing a window could derail her entire day. When the disorder was at its worst, Cormier was traveling back and forth between her house and the hair salon she works at 10-15 times to make sure she locked the door, stretching an ordinarily 10-minute commute into two hours.
About seven years ago she also started having to deal more with a mental ritual of worrying that her younger sister, who was in perfect health, would suddenly pass away.
“Basically it was a lot of phone calls and worrying about me or obsessing that something was going to happen. And I’m perfectly fine,” said Linda Vitone, Cormier’s sister.
Vitone said this kind of ritual had been going on for years but had worsened around the time of her divorce. Following Cormier’s treatment in the psychiatric facilities of McLean Hospital in Belmont, Vitone said she’s noticed a noticeable change with her sister.
“She’s doing a lot better, but we still have to take it day by day,” she said.
Cormier spent several weeks at McLean Hospital in 2010, where treatment of her and other obsessive-compulsive patients focused on immersing them in their fears and rituals.
“There was a young boy I remember who was afraid of door handles. He would have to sit there for two hours and hold a door handle, which sounds so mean, but they had to do it,” she said.
Other patients included a woman whose compulsive handwashing ritual had turned her skin to a raw red from her fingertips to her biceps and another woman who was staying in the shower for seven hours a day because she never felt clean enough.
“She was still there when I left, and I often think of her,” Cormier said.
To stop obsessing over the idea of her sister’s death, Cormier was required to write about what it would be like if her sister actually did die, writing up the details of a fictional narrative for four hours every day.
“At first I had written it very general, but then I was told to write what her kids would wear at the funeral like it was really happening,” she said. “It was exhausting.”
The treatment freed Cormier of that particular ritual and helped her develop coping mechanisms for the other ones. She said she’s also had some recent success with transcranial magnetic stimulation, a noninvasive procedure that uses magnetic fields to simulate nerve cells in the brain and improve symptoms of depression.
Apart from the medical treatments she has received, Cormier also credits her family and friends with getting her to a more confident and comfortable place.
“It’s always had its ups and downs, but we get through it. You just need to have a little patience,” said her husband, Steven.
As her condition has improved, Cormier has turned her attention to helping those just being diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder. She started writing about her experiences through social media and eventually had people reaching out to her to ask for advice.
“To my surprise I’ve had many, many people messaging me, either asking to meet me at Panera Bread to talk or wanting to know about magnetic treatments or what doctors I’ve seen,” she said. “The first thing I always say is that I’m not a doctor and I’m not a nurse, but I have had many different experiences.”
A lot of times Cormier will put together packets of information for the newly diagnosed that list treatment options, support resources, and doctors she’s found helpful.
She’s also become an active fundraiser and participant in the annual 1 Million Steps 4 OCD Walk, which promotes awareness of the disorder and raises money for the International OCD Foundation. Last December she was featured in McLean Hospital’s Deconstructing Stigma exhibit at Logan International Airport, which depicted images of mental health patients and information on their roads to recovery.
“If people feel comfortable, they should talk about this because there are more people out there that we don’t even know about,” Cormier said. “What I’ve learned is that nobody should suffer alone.”
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