This post is just serving as a journal entry for me, don’t feel the need to respond, but if you do, thank you! So today was my last therapy session with my school counselor, she was still worried about me since last time we had spoken she was recommending I check myself into the emergency room for suicidal thoughts and fear of hurting others unintentionally. My intrusive thoughts have been running rampant, and acting on compulsions often leave me feeling terrible and fearful. My brain won’t allow me to just leave things and not go back to analyze every little thing. I can’t seem to find much enjoyment in anything, after the therapy appointment I slept for some 4 hours, it seems that sleep is the only time I feel any sort of peace, but as soon as I wake, that very first second of being awake, all my memories, thoughts and fears come rushing back into my mind, it’s the worst feeling. But even though I’m still struggling a lot, I seem to be able to find some semblance of being okay, my health insurance coverage doesn’t kick in until December 1st, so tomorrow and I sadly have to wait a month until I can make an appointment with a psychologist so that my insurance will cover it. I’m constantly scared that I’m going to crack and do something truly terrible. But if I get too bad or the thoughts become too much then I’ll go to the hospital. It’s incredibly difficult right now, but hopefully I’ll be able to get through this upcoming month. My false memory has been really bad lately, it’s trying to convince me of some really horrible stuff, but reminding myself of my morals and values reminds me that I know I would never do what it’s telling me, while I’ve made some really dumb and idiotic mistakes, I know I wouldn’t ever do what it’s telling me. Reassurance doesn’t really help anymore so that’s stopped being a strong compulsion. I’m trying to cut off certain triggers from my life, while I know exposure is important, I’ve just been trying to avoid ones that I know won’t help. That’s basically been my day, I’m sad that I won’t see my school counselor anymore, and even more sad that she feels she couldn’t help me as much as she may have wanted to, but I’m grateful for having gone, because even though she doesn’t specialize in OCD, she has been incredibly kind and compassionate. Seeing her has allowed me to open up to those around me and be honest with all of them. While I know confessing is a compulsion, I feel as if telling those closest to me was a good idea, at least now they know everything. But I hope this month isn’t a truly awful one, I hope for not a good month, but at least a not so panic filled one. My counselor has asked me to keep in touch with her since she was really scared to just let me leave without going to the hospital, I hope I’ll be able to tell her some good news soon. For now, I’m just going to try and sleep for the night, I hope tomorrow is a better day.

I feel like I'm up against an insurmountable mountain. I'm not new to OCD; I know I've had symptoms since at least the age of 8 (probably earlier to be honest, I just know things really took off when I was 8). I dealt with things with no outside help until I was 17, at which point I began seeing a therapist and began to take celexa. I stuck with that therapist for a couple more years before going about my life, though I continued to take the the celexa. Fast forward to 2018, age 29 - I once again began to see a therapist and had my meds adjusted once more, this time switching to Luvox. I also wound up switching therapists after a year or so, though not by choice - my therapist had a personal crisis come up that necessitated the switch. I still see the same therapist I switched to in 2019. Early 2020 brought with it a couple more med changes, going off the Luvox and onto Cymbalta and Intuniv due to concerns about previously undiagnosed ADHD. This was how things were for five years. I'm not going to say things were perfect- there were undoubtedly bumps in the road - but things felt doable, and I mostly found enjoyment in life. This came to a screeching halt recently. Again, as I said, there were bumps in the road. At first, I thought this was all that this was. When I spoke to my psychiatrist in early February, I started Ativan as I just wanted something to take the edge off a little bit. I also went off of Intuniv as we thought that might be contributing to things. It was Saturday, February 8th when things really started to go off the rails. My boyfriend and I were going on a short trip across the state. An intrusive thought popped up - What if I sleepwalked at the hotel and hurt or even killed my boyfriend? This fear stuck with me through the entire trip. I heaved a sigh of relief as we drove back. I'd soon be safe back at home and I'd put it all behind me. If only. On the ride home, my worries shifted to concerns that I would sleepwalk and do something to my parents, who I live with. I fretted for the majority of the trip back, already making up plans to research the subject and how unlikely it would be that something like that would happen, and I'd tell my parents for good measure. They, of course, assured me that I'd never sleepwalked in the past so it was unlikely I'd do so now. I should also note that this is not a new fear of mine, but one I experienced as early as elementary school, though it had essentially disappeared up until this point, decades later. If only it stopped there. I stopped taking the Ativan Sunday evening in the middle of the trip, my thought being that the Ativan might have contributed to this. My boyfriend, in fact, had a reaction years ago where Klonopin actually sent him into a panic, so it seemed possible that I might be experiencing some sort of paradoxical reaction. I also remained off of the Intuniv. Monday was the day I began experiencing loss of appetite. Monday was also the day when things really began to take off and my life began to truly feel like a waking nightmare. Another horrific image from my past reared it's ugly head - an image of my grabbing a knife from the kitchen and stabbing my mom. An image that has continued to haunt me since - and now its 2 weeks later. There's still a bit more to the story - The day after this began, I went to a local urgent care. I was now not only experiencing these horrible thoughts, but I could barely eat lunch, and my stomach was hurting. I also told my parents the latest turn in how things were going. From the urgent care, I was given a prescription for Omeprazole and Hydroxyzine. The following day, I went to my ordinary doctor's office, where the doctor suspected my increase in anxiety and the associated intrusive thoughts had to do with going off of the Intuniv I'd been taking for five years without tapering, and advised me to immediately resume the Intuniv. He also endorsed continuing the Hydroxyzine, which I was taking at night before bed at this point. I'd hoped that going back on the Intuniv would 'even things out' and I'd be back to normal in no time. The thoughts continued, unfortunately. I had an appointment with my therapist as well as my psychiatrist, who upped my dosage of Intuniv to 3mg instead of 2mg and advised on other medication options should this not help. Though I would like to see both of them more, it's difficult with my work schedule and their busy schedules to find time. As of right now, I'm seeing my therapist once every two weeks. My next appointment with her is this Wednesday. I've also made follow up appointments with my regular doctor's office. Last Wednesday (2/19), I had an appointment with an NP who advised I take the Hydroxyzine three times a day rather than just at bed time, so I've been doing that. I thought it might be helping the first time I took it in the afternoon, though this doesn't seem to be the case with subsequent dosages, unfortunately. I also see her again on Wednesday. I apologize for the long post, but I wanted to share how I got to this point. Things aren't great. I'm trying to enjoy life where I can - I recently played board games with my parents yesterday and went to a restaurant with my boyfriend the day before and felt almost normal, but even in those instances it felt like there was something lurking just beneath the surface. I'm going through life, but it feels like I'm barely surviving. I'm going to work but only because I think I'd be worse at home with absolutely no distractions. I wish there was a switch I could flip and things would be back to normal, where I didn't feel this way. In fact, more often that not, I want to be laying in bed asleep, because you can't think when you're asleep, and it feels like the only refuge at this point. It's hard because home was always my safe place, and my mom one of my safe people - and now this. Anyway, if you made it through this long post, thanks for reading. <3

I posted yesterday that I was feeling better than usual, now I’m not. I knew it could happen that I start to feel bad again. I’ve been feeling like this is the worst it’s been so far but that can’t be true because nothing has changed I’m always afraid of doing something bad, have done something bad, or are capable of doing something bad. I posted a TW on this post just in case. My main thing is I’m afraid of being a certain kind of bad person. I won’t mention it I know people will understand probably who I mean. I know it’s an OCD type, and I’ve been looking up different instances of people with this same subtype and sometimes I find someone in my same situation and I feel relief, for a moment at least. But then I think I might be different. I’m seeing my therapist Friday, and I’m always nervous talking to them because I want to not sound like I’m crazy. Sometimes I’m like you must’ve done something bad to feel this way or, you’re a bad person and should feel bad. There’s so much I wish I could do to help with this. I fall back into a spiral anytime I feel better because I feel like why would I feel good now if I wasn’t before. Sorry for the rant everyone. I just feel bad now and I’m worried I’ll never feel normal again. Hopefully someone else has felt or feels the same. I want to not feel like this, I wish I could go back to when I was young and undiagnosed to get the correct diagnosis early. I feel like my meds aren’t helping anymore which is concerning because like my anxiety should be gone right? Idk, and idk why I have felt really good recently but now after spiraling I’m back at it. Sometimes I’m worried it’s not ocd even though I have plenty of signs AND was officially diagnosed. Again sorry for the long post, just needed to air out how I felt

I’ve come to a point in my life where I can be very happy. I have a safe environment, a loving community. Yknow I’ve really healed through or moved on from a traumatic past and as I say to my boyfriend from time to time like a broken record: I feel like nowadays the only thing bringing me stress or at times misery is myself. I am a fairly joyful person, when I’m comfortable I’m very goofy and like to sing dance and have fun. I find that I relate to so many amazing people I meet that are the nicest, most fun, elevating individuals, who also struggle with the hardest sometime debilitating things. It truly sucks because when I find those moments of peace I see the power of what an ocd mind could be as a person. We are people who may over analyze, but I myself also always find the good in people. And aye if in a moment I don’t think anything is doomly wrong and if I don’t try to understand it I may parish 😅 then that moment feels like the best one in the world. But on the other side of that when I’m not in a quiet mind moment and I’m left with myself to take control of what life in front of me looks like in or around me. I almost have been crumbling. Like I said at the beginning of this story here, the life around me is not so situationally stressful. And it’s also fairly simple. My boyfriend and I live together in a small cozy trailer with our two cats, he works full time very hard and I work part time where I spend as much time as I can working and then have a few days around the house. We’re saving for a home and are quite content with our lifestyle at the moment with work and being “lazy”, or resting and going out for fun now an then on our time off together. Most times though I do have day or two off during the week by myself, which usually goes one of only two ways. Like I said before I do like to work hard, especially now that I have a part time job that’s fairly easier than others I’ve had in the past. So I work 6-7 hours then drive home, air up my tires and wash my car sometimes because I like doing something after work while I still have energy.Or I go to the store. Come home make food, prolly nap and not really worry about too much because I’ve worked all day. But on my days off. I find myself waking up with a lot of anxiety. I usually fight it off by going back to sleep. But my OCD is heavily circled around shame. Even though I only sleep in till 10-11, 12-1 at the latest. I find myself thinking about how wrong (in nice terms) it is to do that. And the funny thing is the older I get (I’m a 21F). I’m not as pressured by this thought, even though it’s still stressful it literally just feels like a thought I can’t escape from. To put things in simple terms. I truly psycho analyze my actions breath by breath and my intrusive thoughts are critiquing those actions bit by bit. I’ve recently have started medication and it was a tremendous difference in the beginning and it helped me cope with the acceptance and letting go (f it or just care less) of those thoughts. But let’s say I forget to take it, or I wake up one morning by myself all day and I’m super tired or unmotivated. That day will feel truly debilitated. And now I’m definitely to the point where I’m battling that, but also have a thin vale behind that where I now know what is going on. And the thoughts are shameful for “not trying to get better or be better” Because I do Like I write a lot, and it truly is one of the best coping mechanisms for working through intrusive or obsessive compulsions. I could also write all day, and if I don’t listen to that ease of the anxiety from writing. And try to keep going the writing will turn into a compulsion itself I feel like I should not stop or critique it as well. But luckily I’ll hopefully find my place in explaining the cycle of what I do when my brain is very loud about things. The next time it’s too loud:)