Just posted this on my Facebook and thought I’d share it here too incase anyone needed a little hope that things will get better... “Don’t want to come across as pretentious or whatever but I seriously can not recommend my little Eny enough. Never did I ever think I’d feel proud of myself or feel enough self worth to put myself first in situations let alone feel genuinely happy again. But I’m actually really proud of myself and how far I’ve come. I’m not fully there yet, still driving in this mental health journey and probably will be for the rest of my life but at-least now I’ve got hold of the steering wheel instead of being sat in the back seat. Fucking self love guys, it’s fucking great. ? *returns to hippy hole now after that lame ass metaphor* ?” - Eny is my therapist, I started with her in December, extremely fed up, emotional, depressed, no hope left and I had self harmed for the first time in 4 years two months before seeing her and was crying for help from my nhs mental health service and was getting nowhere, just ‘see you next months’. I took the decision to pay privately for therapy. I was terrified to do so as I’m no millionaire. I live on my own, in a just above minimum wage job and didn’t want to be getting into debt or anything for another therapy not to work. And private therapy isn’t always the answer many have had positive experiences with nhs services but I had tried two and I just wanted to get better already. But I have used holiday pay and still worked, I’ve worked any extra shift I can get and ensured I have a therapy money box to be able to go. It’s now May, I’ve gone from counting down the days to the weekly therapy so I can confess behaviours and thoughts to deciding to see her fortnightly and almost forgetting today’s session because I’ve been managing so much better than I ever have in the nearly 5 years I’ve been dealing with this illness. I still struggle. I have major set backs that can take me a few weeks to get over. I still do rituals everyday to varying degrees. And I probably will all my life. But I no longer feel daunted by the idea of having this illness at all let alone potentially forever. I no longer feel like the worst person ever who was sick and disturbed like I’d always been made to feel. I feel in control, I’m aware they are thoughts everyone has but my brain decides to linger on them and create rituals to ease anxiety of them. Some days I can not do a ritual and feel fine, other days I have to do that same ritual and still feel anxious after doing it. But tomorrow’s a new day, I can try and conquer the fear again then. My mindset has completely changed. Sometimes I feel I am more selfish. But it’s not a nasty selfish. It’s a self love kind of selfish. I am able to stick up for myself against members in my life who doubt my progress or expect me to be ‘healed’ because there’s nothing to be healed from, there’s nothing wrong with me. My brain is reacting to fear. They just don’t understand the fear like I do. Where as before I would be so effected by these comments I would doubt it to and give up and feel like I was stuck in this rut. But I’m not in a rut. I am battling an illness and sometimes that illness is winning, but it is no longer always winning. I went to my therapist with no self worth. I didn’t feel like I had a sense of identity. I felt I was just my ocd. I’m not, I am becky who has ocd, who is tackling ocd, who is managing ocd. Whilst therapy isn’t always for everybody I highly recommend it because I wouldn’t have ever thought I’d be able to feel this way in December