- Date posted
- 3y
Law of Attraction ???
Sorry for the length. I’ll try to sum up 8 years or so… So around 2014 I learned about manifesting your life by controlling your thoughts, etc. LOA. I remember hearing about this idea when I was a kid and being fascinated. I went hard trying to control my thoughts for the next 4 years. Some cool things happened which I took “credit” for, some bad things happened which I took “credit” for. Mind you I’ve had intrusive thoughts since I was like 7 so this was all probably really unhealthy for me to get sucked into. Albeit my family almost never went to the doctor for anything, much less a mental health diagnosis, so I had no idea. As far as I knew it was either just me or it was everyone and I just needed to get better at dealing with my mind. In 2018 I decided to try and manifest “the big one.” I decided to finally produce the mixtape I had been planning since I was 15 and it would catapult me toward my dreams of being rich and famous! Looking back it’s obvious to me that that goal was always meant to compensate for my feelings of unworthiness and shame. Nearing the release of the mixtape I started feeling a depression coming on. I was having a lot of intrusive thoughts and felt like I was losing grip on managing my mind, which would in turn affect my ability to manifest my life obviously. Truth be told I was suppressing my unwanted thoughts and emotions in an attempt to convince myself I was focusing my mental energy well enough to manifest the life I wanted. The tape released and I spiraled a month later. I felt like a sham. A fraud. An imposter. I couldn’t face my wife and tell her about my thoughts, my shame, and how I felt I didn’t deserve the life I was trying to create for our family. I failed her and I did not want to go into exposing every reason why I felt that way out of fear she would reject me. So I clamped up, worked less and less on music, smoked more and more, drank more, and overall just became a sulking mess. I was angry at myself. I was angry at God for making me this way. I was angry at God for the external challenges I was facing. I was angry at life for not working the way I wished it would. Meanwhile, intrusive thoughts galore. At the end of 2019 I leaned heavily into spirituality. Advaita Vedanta. I basically worked, smoked weed, listened to spiritual teachings, played games. All of this as a means to cope with just disliking myself and life. 2020, covid happened, worsened symptoms. 2 years of just trying to accept what is but still crutching along with marijuana, drink, and spiritual seeking. Those 2 years my smoking had become so habitual it was causing problems in my marriage, which lead to a decision to cut down at the beginning of 2022. I asked God, “you know I enjoy this, I need you to help me quit if its something I need to do for my family,” and I was serious. I didn’t expect it to come in the form of severe panic attacks and my themes peaking. My themes have always been sexual intrusive thoughts, spiritual/religious/moral, magical thinking, existential, relationship, and harm. I didn’t know any of those things were expressions of OCD until spring 2022 when I finally got brave enough to google some phrase I don’t recall that ultimately led me to learning about POCD and the various other themes. Before that I had only heard of Contamination and Just Right. When I read that first article I cried and felt an intense relief. Not only was I not alone, other people had experienced the exact same things as I had and there was help available. I didn’t really know where to start. I was still very anxious (quitting marijuana made it worse for a time). After a few panic attacks, confessing, seeking reassurance from my wife, mother, and best friend, and tearing through my childhood with our marriage therapist, finally my wife helped me find this app. At the end of May I started therapy with NOCD. I only did 4 sessions due to the expense (my insurance isn’t supported) but it was definitely helping. I won’t rule out restarting sessions if I need to. ATM, I feel like I’ve learned so much about this condition over the last few months that I’m in a decent place. I still wake up feeling doubt, still get intrusive images and thoughts, still get sucked into rumination, but I’ve cut down compulsions significantly from where I was before. I don’t spend every moment trying to figure out who and what I am. I’m a human with OCD, and that’s ok. I’m just very happy to have some direction and understanding of what’s gone on with me for most of my life. I don’t love the idea that this will likely persist forever, but at least now I know I can do something about it. If you’ve read this far, thanks for letting me get this off my chest. Good luck! 🙏🏽