- Date posted
- 32w
A message of hope
Hey guys! So I'm about to post a message of encouragement by using my story to inspire others-if you are in a place where you are probably going to compare your journey to mine and that won't be beneficial to you, please do not keep reading, and preserve you're own mental health :) So since I was 8 years old I have struggled with OCD that could be at times debilitating. By the time I was 13 I had spent years of my life with a combination of intense anxiety, and extreme depression from the anxiety. I often had existential fears that I was a terrible person, and my undiagnosed ADHD at the time didn't help-I could be impulsive, which would then later lead to OCD making me feel shame for actions I regretted to an unhealthy and unmanageable degree. When I was 14 I developed a serious eating disorder that affected me throughout all of high school. I underwent treatment at an inpatient, residential, and php level for about 6 months or so midway through junior year. I was convinced that my entire life would be just bouncing from one obsession to the next, and that my eating disorder would be ever present-that I would never eat normally again. I was convinced I would never be able to exercise in a non-disordered way again, that I would hate myself forever, and that my moral OCD concerns would plague me forever. As I was recovering from my ED and my life started to open up again, that left room for all of the OCD that I had never unpacked, and had just buried underneath my eating disorder, to rear up again. That floored me and caused an intense depressive episode in senior year. But throughout all of this I worked my ass off-I kept trying medications (with the help and expertise of a psychiatrist), I found a great therapist, and for the first time in my life, I actually confronted the fears and self-hatred, instead of just doing compulsions and seeking reassurance. I kept improving and improving, and then when I went to college I told myself that I was gonna hit the ground running with ED recovery, and I did. By establishing that basis and training my brain that this new environment was an environment for my recovered self, I made exponential progress. I just finished first semester of freshman year and am happy to say that I love my body, I accept its potential changes, I eat whatever I want, whenever I want, I am balanced, and happy, and I don't think about food beyond the normal amount whatsoever. I also am working on the OCD and have managed to build a healthy, communicative, and growing relationship with a wonderful guy who I absolutely love to pieces. Over Christmas I had several little anxiety moments and days, but not once did I go to him for reassurance, and I coped through all of them, breathing and leaning into the discomfort. I have never been so mentally well in my entire life. I was told I would never be ED free. I was told I wouldn't go to college even. And yet...I am an eating disorder survivor, with autism, ADHD, and OCD, and I have friends I absolutely love, a full life, an amazing college experience, a man I love, and a love for myself. I am not perfect. Now that I am able to be in relationships I tend to struggle with an anxious attachment style that I am working on. But I now know that my family and friends were right all along- I could do it. Everyone is different. There is no shame if you struggle more than someone else, and no shame if you don't "fully recover" from something. What is true though-is that your life can feel completely empty, broken, and over, and within a year it can completely change. As someone who never, ever, thought they would be here..who has had significant mental health struggles since I am able to remember-I have never known a life as good as this, and you never know how good it can get. I think a lot of us are scared to find out how bad it can get. If you have lost hope, try to get curious about how good it can get.