By ROB DEMOVSKY
Green Bay Press-Gazette

FACTS ABOUT OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE DISORDER

The National Institute of Mental Health says that about 3.3 million Americans between 18 and 54 suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder at any given time. It's considered one of the 10 leading causes of disability in the United States.     More facts:     - OCD is characterized by obsessive thoughts and/or compulsive behaviors that significantly interfere with normal life. Obsessions are unwanted, recurrent and disturbing thoughts that a person cannot suppress and that can cause overwhelming anxiety. Compulsions are repetitive, ritualized behaviors that a person feels driven to perform to alleviate the anxiety of the obsessions. The obsessive and compulsive rituals can occupy many hours of each day.     - The most common obsessions are fear of contamination, fear of causing harm to another, fear of making a mistake, fear of behaving in a socially unacceptable manner, need for symmetry or exactness and excessive doubt.     - The most common compulsions are cleaning/washing, checking, arranging/organizing, collecting/hoarding and counting/repeating.     - OCD appears to be caused by increased activity in the orbital frontal cortex and caudate nucleus of the brain. OCD may also involve abnormal functioning of the neurotransmitter seratonin in the brain. Stress does not cause OCD. However, a stressful event can trigger the onset of the disorder.     - The two most effective treatments for OCD are drug therapy and behavior therapy. It is generally more effective if the two can be used together.     - OCD affects people of all ages, races, religions, genders and socioeconomic backgrounds.         Source: OC Foundation of California

GREEN BAY, Wis. - Last month, Julian Swartz was preparing for basketball practice when a familiar feeling overwhelmed him. It was the same feeling he experienced in the spring of 2000, when he sat at the edge of a pier and wrote an eight-page suicide note, and the same feeling he's had on and off since the third grade: a toxic combination of obsession, compulsion, panic and depression.

"I just couldn't go to practice that morning, and I was panicking," said Swartz, the 1999 Wisconsin high school player of the year. "I had to do something, and I started popping pills. Ten minutes later, I was like, 'What did I just do?"'

Swartz - who had been attempting to resurrect his college basketball career with the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay Phoenix - realized after his overdose that he couldn't play, not this year, and maybe not ever.

He's decided that's how it has to be. Swartz, 22, suffers from two debilitating mental illnesses, obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression.

Taking an indefinite leave of absence as a player, Swartz is now a student assistant coach for his team. That allows him to keep his scholarship.

"I've dealt with this as early as third grade," Swartz said. "Through the whole process, I've gone through enough to realize you never know, but right now I'm fully aware that basketball is something that I cannot do. The illness I suffer from - not only the OCD but the depression - truly prevents me from being able to play. There's a direct parallel with someone who has a physical injury. It's just different in my case because it's not something people can visually see."

His doctors have taken him off Prozac and Wellbutrin, the medications he swallowed as an impulsive act.

Swartz's OCD has evolved. He'd scrub his hands repeatedly, never able to convince himself that they were clean. He'd check his homework time and time again. He'd take a shower, and then spend a half-hour wiping up the floor so that no one slipped. Then he'd go back and do it all over again.

"I used to do all that," Swartz said. "But I got over (it). Since about my junior year of high school, the illness has associated itself with basketball. That's kind of where the perfectionist came in."

He'd stay up all night fretting after scoring 30 points and leading his Waukesha South High School team to another victory, wondering what he could have done better. When he was named The Associated Press Player of the Year as a senior, it only added to his burden.

"There was the depression of not being able to live up to the standard I had set for myself," he said. "I became a victim of my own success."

As a freshman on the University of Wisconsin's Final Four team in 2000, he should have been able to enjoy that success with his teammates. Instead, he was thinking about taking his life.

Swartz took a year off. He tried to return to Wisconsin last fall, but left after only a few weeks. On the day he decided to leave, Sept. 6, 2001, he twice attempted suicide. He enrolled at UWGB last winter and was to be eligible to compete this fall. He made it through an entire summer of conditioning drills and a handful of preseason practices before taking his leave of absence.

The 6-foot-6 forward still loves basketball, but says he's at peace with his decision to leave it behind.

"As long as he's going to be happy, that's the biggest thing," said UWGB junior Greg Monfre, Swartz's closest friend and a guard with the Phoenix. "You almost can't imagine (what Swartz goes through), because it's not able to be seen. It's completely a mental illness that only he knows what he's going through."

Swartz's OCD now manifests itself in other ways. He'll go home after an evening out with his friends and worry that he said something to offend someone. He'll replay every conversation in his mind, analyzing every word he uttered.

"It's so powerful that it overpowers you, and you lose sight of things," Swartz said. "It's just very repetitive - the thoughts you have, the acts you perform. It becomes an illness that's debilitating and very frustrating because things don't go away. That's where I think the depression comes in. Anytime I'm around people it just amazes me how I just wish I could do or say things they do and just go on."

UWGB coach Tod Kowalczyk said he thinks Swartz's new role will be beneficial to both Swartz and the team.

"Our players love having him around," Kowalczyk said. "Just to know that Julian is still in the gym, just in a different capacity, I think will be comforting to our guys and help the transition for both he and the team."