OCD is suffocating

I get the burned out feeling. My relationship with my parents right now is really bad, and today I told my mom it was because it feels like I am so emotionally depleted from my OCD it feels like I have no energy to put towards anything but surviving through each day

Yeah, I get that. Depleting is the perfect word for it. It is just depleting.

Yeah. I don't know your age or life situation, but I think there is a point where if you have someone in your life that you have a committed relationship with, it can help to have support, or someone encouraging you to do the things that you don't want to do.

Hi Anonymous, I know how you feel. I’ve been there many times over the years, some days and weeks are much worse than others, especially if there are outside stressors involved and some days I will feel completely drained and emotionally numb to everything. Sometimes I can keep my compulsions much better in check than other days, and sometimes I feel like if I just give into them maybe I can have some relief for even a bit…..but then I have to remind myself that I don’t wasn’t to go back to how I was when I would be almost paralyzed to do things I wanted to because my mind and my day was full of constant rumination and compulsions which fed the anxiety which fed the depression which fed the OCD… Try to focus on any and all the progress you have made up until this point and try to think about how much you will continue to make and what you will be able to do when you are able to have more of your mind and your life back to do what you choose to do, not what OCD wants you to NOT do or avoid. Whenever I get worn down I try to think about how my recovery is helping my kids to realize that there is help if they have or should ever develop my OCD (or one of the other that I have or run in my family). I try to focus on how not giving into my OCD Bully allows me to spend more time and more meaningful time with my loved ones and my friends and my puppy and my car and my coffee and that by NOT giving into the apathy and depression that my OCD Bully wants me to I am taking some of my life back from the Bully after it stole ~4 decades of mine from me. Try to think of anything positive that not giving into your OCD has or will bring you and hopefully that will help. Stay strong.

i think what helps me sometimes is to remember that recovery has peaks and valleys. there are some days where OCD can be super exhausting and i feel super defeated. what helped me get by it, is the reminder to take my OCD a day at a time. maybe tomorrow it'll be exhausting, but the possibility is that the following day it might not be. my bad OCD days were not so far off from my good days! sometimes i would even catch myself and think, "oh i haven't had any triggering thoughts today" and then a few days later it would come back. you're not alone, and be gentle with yourself on your harder days! you cannot make your OCD into perfection.