had a very important realization today

I just learned I had OCD this year so it’s been a whole new can of worms for me to open and before I realized I had it I thought what I was dealing with was just “anxiety”. I thought slowly not being able to enjoy the idea of roadtrips with friends anymore because of imagining numerous scenarios where we either get into a gruesome fiery wreck or something irreparable going wrong with my car and leaving us stranded was just run of the mill anxiety. l also thought not being able to sleep on the window side of my bed because it’s super windy outside and i’m afraid it’s gonna blow my window off the frame and smash on my head in my sleep was just anxiety. long story short there are numerous other scenarios just like those that kept me up at night most days that I thought they were just normal bouts with anxiety. so naturally thinking it was anxiety I developed a system to cope with these thoughts and sort of coach myself out of them as if it was just like regular anxiety. I would quite literally talk myself down in my own head while i’m having distressing thoughts. it would always provide temporary relief but it would never fully stop it from happening. after I found out I had OCD, I didn’t think anything of it and continued to talk myself down from these thoughts. I did this to combat the OCD for months, but then I started thinking to myself… why is it that I realize i’ve dealt with these OCD thoughts since the moment I had conscious thought… yet it’s never been ~this~ bad. and I would ask myself, “why are you such a wreck now? what’s making you in a constant state of crisis all the time? why isn’t the self talk working?” and that’s when it hit me… coaching myself to not have these thoughts was literally a compulsion. and it became one of my most go to ones without even realizing it. the moment i’d have a distressing thought throughout any given day… waves and waves of encouraging words would scatter my brain like a flock of birds flying around me chirping as loud as possible till i drive myself insane. and then last night I just so happened to be scrolling a reddit post about having a song stuck in your head with OCD where someone commented something along the lines of “I know it may seem easier said then done, but try not to give energy to the thoughts. the less energy you give it your brain will get bored and move onto something else”. It hit me in that moment, all this energy i’ve been putting into talking myself down in my own head to fight these thoughts was literally like me dumping a gallon of lighter fluid on a fire to try and get it to stop. since I had that realization the world has seemed much quieter to me. I feel more inside my body, and I feel so much more secure with myself than I have in honestly the last 2 years easy. I’m not naive enough to think this is even remotely close to the end of me fighting these thoughts, it’s just simply a crucial weapon to have the upper hand way more often than I have in the past. it just reminds me of as a kid when i’d get disgusting intrusive thoughts about food i didn’t like at school, or have an existential crisis mid class, I wouldn’t ever really stop and think about “why” I was having these thoughts I’d just be like “that sucked” and move on. Figuring out the “why” in adulthood was crucial to me figuring out why I am the way I am, but the awareness sent my OCD into such an overdrive at first that took me a minute to get a hold of. *phew* I’m back. I hope this helps others too