Missing my old brain....

Not gonna lie, I am in fact feeling a little bit melancholy at the moment, and it’ll pass, and it’s probably because i didn’t get enough sleep. But here’s the thing, there’s been a ton of changes in my life recently, and a lot of upheaval, and it’s been a very difficult time. It’s 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 I’m still searching for one. My OCD spiked really bad over these last few months, my mental health plummeted, and it hasn’t 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 haven’t been able to go to any social groups, even though they said alumni can still attend. It’s hard leaving the house because the weather seems to change on a dime, so I’m stuck inside more often than not. On top of that, there’s everything that’s happening around the world right now. I genuinely don’t know what’s going to happen. I have not felt like myself in months. A big part of that is the OCD, which i really don’t think would have been as bad if it weren’t 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 haven’t been able to bring myself to play because I worry that if I play them while I’m still going through OCD episodes, I’ll always associate them with the anxiety and thoughts and fears, and then I’ll 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 don’t know how to put into words. Like I’m 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 can’t bring myself to write anything for it. There are movies I loved to watch over my last semester at college that I don’t want to watch because I guess I don’t want to ruin my last memory of them. I don’t 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 can’t 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. They’re still there when I want to get back to them, but I don’t feel the same as I was when I was doing these things, and it’s hard to bring myself to, when I almost feel like I’m intruding, or ruining the last memory I had of those things. I guess it’s just hard to see that this difficult part of my life does have an end to it and that things will improve, and i’ll feel like myself again. It just feels like my life will always be separated before the most recent OCD episode, and after, and that’s not what I want. And I can’t go back to my last semester at college, but I also don’t 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. I’m 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 😊❤️ I hope whatever you’re going through gets better, and that you have a great day/night.

I had a massive falling out with my person before I got diagnosed with ocd and specifically rOCD. It wasn’t all me of course but not knowing I had ocd at all and believing all my thoughts and feeling in that time made that relationship really strained!! I miss them so much, I know so much more about myself now but all they know of me is me having a complete ocd meltdown and all the bad traits that come with that….because I didn’t know what was going on. Their version of me would be so different to me now. I want them back in my life so badly, sorry :( just needed to express that. I miss them so much. I was so safe and comfortable with them.

I miss when I wasn't ruminating 24/7, waking up with horrible anxiety or spending all day doing compulsions. Even when I try so hard to resist them I just end up in a spiral. I miss when I was comfortable in my nonbinary identity and didn't have TOCD and now everything feels wrong and conflicting. I miss when I wasn't depressed and disabled. I know I can never get that person back. I haven't seen that person since high school. Ive spent years with this disorder and i havent gotten better despite therapy and meds. I don't know if I'll ever be happy again.