Humbling myself

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.

Hi all!! It's been a while since I've been on here and I just want to say everybody can do this. When I was diagnosed with ocd and specifically so-ocd I thought oh lord I'm lying to myself and my sexuality. No! I've always been straight and will be!! Anyway, what I have learned is to let thought be a thought (that is harder than it seems). But if you try to not force the thought and let it leave when you want and show the thoughts that you are unbothered things will become easier. But today I have the realization that I no longer have the urge to figure it out because I do know who I am and that these thoughts are not of me. I no longer feel like I am lying to myself and I feel more and more like my old self. Anyway, if you have read all the way here just know you got this I'm proud and I feel myself beating ocd every day. You will have your down days and that's ok just get back up and keep moving forward. Love you all❤️

Hey everyone! It’s a long post (sorry😂). I just wanted to share something I experienced today, hopefully it will encourage many of you to see that there is a life that you can enjoy whilst battling OCD! I have been pretty much compulsion free for 5 months! I have been really proud of myself and I have genuinely been loving life! However, today, was not a good day. It was a complete nightmare in fact. I had this intense feeling of anxiety, fear, panic, doubt, and guilt running through me all day. I kept avoiding things because I knew it was going to trigger me, and I was expecting my unwanted intrusive thoughts to pop up (which obviously they did 🙄). I found myself engaging in compulsions all day. I struggled to watch a TV series as I kept thinking that I wasn’t paying attention, and then OCD would tell me “what if I wasn’t actually paying attention to the TV series, and what if I did something bad and don’t remember it?!”. I found myself constantly rewinding the programme in order to relieve my anxiety and distress, and to gain certainty that I saw every single scene perfectly to reassure myself. Obviously as you can expect, this did not do me any favours. It only did one thing, it made my anxiety worse and increased the amount I was doing compulsions. This has easily been one of the hardest days I have had in a very long time, and I kept thinking to myself, “why is this happening to me?”. I sat down in the evening and started to think about my day. I realised that OCD will do whatever it can to keep us in this cycle. It can pop up at anytime, and it will try the same old tricks it always has. But the most important thing I realised today, is that progress isn’t linear. One bad day DOES NOT mean I am back to square one. I just had a bad day, that’s all! It doesn’t mean all the hard work and everything I have accomplished has gone down the drain, in fact it is actually an opportunity! An opportunity for me to use all the skills and tools I have learnt to be able to deal with setbacks! After this, I told OCD to bog off, and I watched the TV series without engaging in any compulsions! Did I feel scared? Hell yes 😂 Did I have doubts pop into my mind? Of course I did, it’s what OCD is, it’s the DOUBT DISORDER! But most importantly, I chose to do the hard thing and not give into OCD, I chose to lean into the uncertainty and discomfort and just let it be! I just wanted to share this as a message of encouragement for anyone on their recovery journey! It’s okay to feel overwhelmed. It’s okay to still have doubts and “what-ifs” pop into your mind. It’s okay to be uncertain! This is how OCD works! It targets the things we love the most, and it will target our values and intentions! Remember, you are so much more than your OCD! You all got this! Keep going!🙏🏽🫶🏾