- Username
- Riverbend
- Date posted
- 5y ago
ok. i’m sorry i can’t put a trigger warning on a reply. i am a female. i started smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day in high school bc my parents let me smoke in my bedroom. i was anorexic in 2004 when i was hit by a car as a pedestrian. i flew in the air, flipped upside down, smacked my head on the windshield, flew off the car, and fractured my tailbone on the street. i did not fracture my skull. i received no treatment or counseling for my concussion at the hospital and my tailbone wasn’t imaged. i didnt find out until a few weeks later when i told my gp doctor about my uncontrollable weeping that i probably had a concussion. i developed bulimia. i had my first psychotic break in 2011 and my second psychotic break in 2012. both were related to overconsumption of marijuana. i was in and out of psychosis between 2013 and 2017 with extreme debilitating ocd. i shared a smoke with a friend in 2015 and caught mono. while i had acute mononucleosis, i became psychotic and obsessed with curing myself by abstaining from food and water (breatharianism). i have gone 7 days without water probably 3 or 4 times. neurons die after 24 hours without water. i didn’t eat regularly for two years. just starving and binging and starving. i refuse to have an mri or neuropsych testing. ive been sexually assaulted multiple times in the past couple of years (i have germ ocd). i am still afraid to get tested but i’m doing ok. my doctor thinks i’m fine. brains are really resilient and can heal. i hope this helps. i’m holding down a high pressure job, my performance is excellent, and i am mostly functional and have made huge strides with my obsessions. i was housebound for years. i still obsess. i got incredibly depressed this week about work, i still have intrusive thoughts that shame me. but i am managing. thanks for letting me share. please let me know if i can help you get over your fear of brain damage. i had extreme fear of brain damage and i have mostly gotten over it. it’s the brain i have and it is still able to be creative, learn new things, organize, and remember to complete multiple tasks.
if you really want to know how someone might mess up their brain and aren’t worried about being triggered, i’ll tell you my story. it’s extreme. but my doctor is confident my brain is fine regardless. the brain is extremely resilient
i used to obsess about this too but i dont anymore
T3ddy Thank you so much for sharing your story. I greatly appreciate it. You're a true inspiration.
i’m so glad it’s helpful. i’m happy to share. i’m pretty sure i am still healing. i am trying to be more proactive with meditation. i am grateful for the things my brain is capable of doing. i take care of it now — omega 3’s and greens and adaptogenic herbs and CBD and exercise. sometimes i watch too much TV when im anxious. i don’t smoke cigarettes anymore. oh yeah, i also used to be a horrible alcoholic. forgot to mention that. fortunately it didn’t last long. i once drank an entire bottle of vodka by myself. once i drank a hip flask of rum after fasting for a week. we’re all going to continue healing. your brain could be better in ten years than it was when you were 15. especially since brain research is advancing so rapidly.
Thank you for sharing your story of resilience and determination.
How does one mess up their brain ?
Remember your brain works in a funny way. It’s actually there to protect you. The OCD is the fear. And the symptoms is the brains way of protecting itself from further harm. Try square breathing for 10 min. In for 4 hold for 4 out for 4 hold for 4 repeat
Teddy u can tell your story
Hey all, I was recently diagnosed with OCD and MDD a few months ago. I’ve been experiencing symptoms for the past 11 months though. I used to be a person who would downplay depression, reasoning that if someone is depressed, they should be able to snap out of it. This year has taught me the truth behind how debilitating mental health conditions can be. My OCD has been absolutely tearing my life apart. For the past year, I’ve been coping with excessive guilt over past and recurring mistakes, my anxiety of which has recently been causing me panic attacks and throbbing headaches. I’ve also been coping with feeling unnatural sexual attractions, to those of the same sex and to children, which contradict the values I hold at heart. At one point, even simply shaking someone’s hand would cause sexual arousal, due to my hyper-vigilance surrounding physical contact. My OCD and depression nearly led me to take my life a few months ago. There are no words to describe the amount of pain I’ve had to endure. My thoughts and feelings have been absolutely tearing my life down, bit by bit. I feel like I lost who I was, and like it’s impossible for me to know who I am. This isn’t me. Over the past couple weeks, I’ve been feeling constant sexual arousal, it’s so easily triggered now. I don’t know if it’s because of the OCD, if it’s a result of the SSRI I’m on, or if it’s just a product of me being a young adult—Or maybe a combination of all of the above, but it’s debilitating. How easily I get aroused causes me so much guilt. There is a girl in my life that I love, but it doesn’t help that I get aroused around her because of the simplest of things. It’s not what I want for us. I want to be able to hone in on my self-control. I can’t help but constantly compare who I am now to who I was just over a year ago. My happiness has suffered, and my endurance is draining. I know there is a long road of insight and recovery ahead of me, this is just the beginning. If there’s anyone who can relate to me in any way, feel free to let me know. Comfort begins with feeling understood.
I know I have had good days and even months, but I always have a relapse. I feel like I will never be “normal” or have a “normal” life. I am constantly lost in my compulsions. Every day I wake up and worry about what I did, what I felt, or what I thought. My family tells me to be stronger, but I am trying so hard. Does anyone else go through the same thing?
I'm going off to college tomorrow and I'm dreading it, I'm dreading everything. Though I didn't fully realize it, what I'm now almost certain is real event/pure-o OCD has been making my life feel completely miserable. From when I wake up to when I fall asleep, especially as of recent, I'm just constantly scared, anxious, guilty, and sad. I genuinely have not felt relaxed or happy in months, and it feels like there's no escape. When I'm taking a walk, hanging with family/friends, my mind is just racing and I can't live in the moment. Physically speaking it affects me too, my heart rate is high, short breath, sweaty, all how you would feel when you're nervous, but just all the time. This exact theme happened to me before in the past and latched on for a bit before fading, so I assumed that I grew out of it, and it hadn't hit me again for over a year until March. But now that it's on again and I actually recognized that I'm dealing likely with a mental disorder it just makes it feel so hopeless and unending, like this will forever be my life. The worst part is the nature of my OCDs, even if I know what I did isn't a big deal, is that it makes me guilty around anyone. Like I'm hiding something from everyone I talk to, and it makes me feel like I've lost all my innocence and I've lost the bright, happy, ambitious person I was before this all came back. All of this makes college so scary because all I can think about is how if I keep feeling like this I'll never be happy there, It's so hard to think optimistically or positively and this is just killing me day by day. I don't want reassurance because I know that just makes it worse, but is there anyone out there who's been in this sort of situation? If so, what did you do to manage, how did recovery look, what's your life like now? Any help would be appreciated so much.
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