Not gonna lie, I am in fact feeling a little bit melancholy at the moment, and itāll pass, and itās probably because i didnāt get enough sleep. But hereās the thing, thereās been a ton of changes in my life recently, and a lot of upheaval, and itās been a very difficult time. Itās part OCD, part current events, part changes in my life.
I graduated college, so I lost my classes and counseling there (and I still have NOCD, and my therapist is wonderful, and I could not have gotten through this OCD episode without her, but my counselor at my college helped me through some more of the general stuff in my life, and she was wonderful and she really supported me). I had to leave my part-time job I worked at for three years, and Iām still searching for one. My OCD spiked really bad over these last few months, my mental health plummeted, and it hasnāt been helped at all by the horrible winter weather where I live. Because the weather has been so bad and I live with my family in an isolated rural area, I havenāt been able to go to any social groups, even though they said alumni can still attend. Itās hard leaving the house because the weather seems to change on a dime, so Iām stuck inside more often than not. On top of that, thereās everything thatās happening around the world right now. I genuinely donāt know whatās going to happen.
I have not felt like myself in months. A big part of that is the OCD, which i really donāt think would have been as bad if it werenāt for all of these huge changes happening all at once, leaving me isolated and stuck inside. My self-esteem has been absolutely shattered. There are video games I love and want to finish that I havenāt been able to bring myself to play because I worry that if I play them while Iām still going through OCD episodes, Iāll always associate them with the anxiety and thoughts and fears, and then Iāll never be able to play them again. I love writing, and before my OCD came back, I had a story I was working on that I adored and that made me so happy, but right now, I hesitate to write anything for it because I just feel this strange sense of guilt that I donāt know how to put into words. Like Iām not worthy or good enough to write anything for it, I guess? Like I wrote all that stuff when I felt like a good person and my self-esteem was better, and because of my OCD making me feel like a horrible person, I canāt bring myself to write anything for it. There are movies I loved to watch over my last semester at college that I donāt want to watch because I guess I donāt want to ruin my last memory of them. I donāt want to look back on the last time I watched a movie I loved and remember that I watched it while I was anxious and fighting off the OCD. There are songs I canāt bring myself to listen to because I listened to them before major changes in my life.
And the thing is, all of these things are still there. None of these things suddenly stopped existing. Theyāre still there when I want to get back to them, but I donāt feel the same as I was when I was doing these things, and itās hard to bring myself to, when I almost feel like Iām intruding, or ruining the last memory I had of those things. I guess itās just hard to see that this difficult part of my life does have an end to it and that things will improve, and iāll feel like myself again. It just feels like my life will always be separated before the most recent OCD episode, and after, and thatās not what I want. And I canāt go back to my last semester at college, but I also donāt want to lose or throw away everything I used to love.
Part of this could very well be nostalgia. I just miss who I used to be. I miss feeling like I was a good person who deserved nice things, I miss writing stories I love, I miss having classes and social events and a job and income. I miss my mind being safe to exist in. I miss not wishing I was anyone else. All of this might be easier to deal with except that all of this happening at the same time has left me at absolute rock bottom.
Iām not sure if any of this makes any sense or if anyone has any thoughts? I think writing it all down helped a little, though. If you made it this far, thank you for reading šā¤ļø I hope whatever youāre going through gets better, and that you have a great day/night.
