You are not broken or a monster

A reflection I never saw myself being able to write✨ One year ago today, I was spiraling for a second time because I wasn’t sure what was happening to me, again. Getting through it once was doable but twice? I truly thought I was losing my mind. OCD wasn’t just a shadow in the background — it was a loud, relentless voice narrating fear, doubt, and compulsions into every corner of my life. I couldn’t trust my thoughts, couldn’t rest in silence. I was questioning everything. I was exhausted coasting through the motions of life trying to survive every minute of every day. But today — I’m here. Still imperfect, still human, but finally free in a way I didn’t think was possible. I got here by learning the hardest, most empowering lesson of my life: I had to stop depending on anyone else to pull me out. I had to stop outsourcing my safety, my certainty, my worth. I had to become the person I could rely on — not in a cold, lonely way, but in the most solid, liberating way possible. You see, healing didn’t come when others gave me reassurance — it came when I stopped needing it. When I realized no one could fight the war in my mind for me. It had to be me. Not because others didn’t care — but because I had to be the one to stop running from fear. I had to choose courage over comfort, again and again. And boy was that rough. But I did. Through therapy, I retrained my brain. (Shout out to Casey Knight🙏🏼) I stopped dancing to OCD’s obsessive rhythm and started rewriting the song. And yeah — the beat dropped a few times. But I kept moving forward. Slowly, I started turning my mind into a place I wanted to live in. I made it beautiful. Not by forcing positive thoughts, but by planting seeds of truth: 🌱 Not every thought deserves attention. 🌱 Discomfort doesn’t mean danger. 🌱 Uncertainty is not the enemy — it’s just part of being alive. I started treating my mind like a garden instead of a battlefield. I let go of perfection and started watering what was real, what was kind, what was mine. And let’s be honest — there were still a few weeds. (Hello, OCD — always trying to “check in.” ) Because healing isn’t linear, I still have days where I feel back to square one, but it’s a day, not a week, month, or another year of surrendering. But here’s the “punny” truth: OCD tried to check me, but I checked myself — with compassion, courage, & a whole lot of practice. To anyone still caught in the spiral — I want you to know: you are not broken. You don’t need to wait for someone else to save you. No else will. The strength you’re looking for? It’s already in you. It might be buried under fear, doubt, and rumination, but it’s there — patient and unbreakable. Start small. Start scared. Just start. Because when you stop relying on the world to reassure you, and start trusting your own ability to face uncertainty, you get something even better than comfort — you get freedom, resilience, power & SO much more. You don’t have to control every thought/urge to have a beautiful mind. You just have to stop believing every thought/urge is the truth. You don’t have to be fearless , you just have to act in spite of fear. You are not crazy You are not a monster You are not evil You are human You are capable And if OCD ever tries to take over again, just smile and say, “Nice try. But not today.” — Someone who came back to life, one brave thought at a time 🧡

What are mistakes? I have a set of values. My speech or actions contradict those values. I feel deep remorse and disappointment in myself afterwards. Logically, it would make sense to truly feel the remorse, let it impact you, and say, “I wish I didn’t do that. I wish it didn’t happen. Not because it would relieve the guilt I feel now, but because it was genuinely wrong.” Where people go wrong is forgetting the “I”. After stating this, they’ll go back to feeling that remorse, and beat themselves up because they identify with the version of them that’s actively making the mistake. But the very fact those sentences exist from the mouth of that person shows that who they are in this moment isn’t who they were then. The “I” in the statement. Who is that referring to? Certainly not the person before the mistake. If it was, the mistake wouldn’t have happened. So, if you’re now someone else, that wouldn’t do those things, why are you putting yourself down as if you’re still that person? Are those “I”s in the statement nobody? But maybe you knew it was wrong when you were doing it! If you knew the extent to which it was actually harmful, you still wouldn’t have done it. You had the knowledge of it being wrong, but there wasn’t emotion involved. Remorse associates feeling with that knowledge. You begin to feel empathetic for whoever you harmed. This empathy, when felt healthily, and not ignored- is a tool. It’s so that next time you’re in that situation you can feel the effect you’ll have on the person and not do it. Empathy creates the opportunity for you to learn and become more emotionally intelligent, sensitive, and moral. I’ve used this tool all wrong. Feeling bad for what you’ve done is an opportunity. It allows you to grow and become more empathetic. It allows you to change who you are by saying “I…” Imagine if you didn’t feel remorse. How would you ever learn? That would be worse. Thank God for remorse Remorse should be used wisely. To allow for genuine moments of growth, to come back when placed in the same situation again. When the lesson is learnt, remorse has served its purpose. Any further berating serves no positive cause. It can only be used as an excuse. “I’m so bad, there’s no hope for me to be good”. I learnt this idea from Rabbi Akiva T. Maybe there’s a chemical imbalance which causes you to ruminate on your mistakes. Whatever it is, guilt is not meant to be a punishment. It’s a tool. When you regret what you’ve done, you literally become a different person. The you that understands what you understand now simply wouldn’t have made that mistake. Tests are your desire to do something v.s your knowledge that it’s wrong. Remorse allows you to empower the latter for future situations. Sometimes we cling to self deprecation. That's all we know. You can’t just rip it out. It’ll show itself from time to time. Just know that’s a force of habit. Your true essence is still good. The truths are still true. You’re. Not. A. Bad. Person. All I know is that the “me” right now does the right thing. Don’t let remorse hold you back from changing the world. Use it like the tool it is, then let it go. If it comes back, wave at it. Smile. “You helped me, you’ve served your purpose.” Don’t let the growth go unused. Don’t let it be for nothing. Use the new, sensitive you to bring good to those around you. Don’t let the remorse hold back the good that came from it. You’re free. You’re weightless. You can change the world for the better. So do it :)

I feel like I more than anyone have committed horrible acts. Specifically, when I was a teen. I don’t want to talk about them because I feel ashamed of them. I think that is something I would rather converse with my therapist instead. Recently I learned of remorse. I thought I felt remorse for what I did but I learned I in fact felt guilt. There’s a difference. People who feel guilt feel ashamed because they think it means they’re a bad person. People who feel remorse feel ashamed because they think of how the other person felt. I am still trying to understand it to be honest. I find it hard sometimes to understand how others feel. I do worry if that makes me a psychopath but I’m not going to go into that because I have a message to tell and reassurance will only pursue the cycle. I haven’t been diagnosed. I feel like many of us feel guilt not remorse. Or maybe it’s just me. I think, for me, my guilt is causing me to push someone away and further ruin my relationship with them. But when I learned of remorse yesterday I had the impulse to go hug them and talk to them. At first I wondered if this made me a predator for wanting to do that but as I tried to understand the emotions a little more I felt not a sexual drive like a big brick in my pants but rather like a warm embrace. One that my mom gave me when I was a baby. The emotion was not sexual, it was a nurturing love. I also heard a wonderful example where a woman said she was afraid of being something she wasn’t. Another woman told her she was that thing. Immediately the woman felt fear and anxiety and then the other woman said, “You are also a spider.” The other woman was confused. You think you are that thing because you focus on it so much. You are not that thing. You are not a spider even though you may have acted like one. This leads me to another wise saying that I learned of a man who was worried about his past actions and another man told him, “Your past does not define you and your acts of redemption do not redeem you.” That was as much as I can remember but I’m going to add a bit more to it. “Your past does not define you and your acts of redemption do not redeem you. Your guilt will stay with you, and it will also remind you. The car has a fuel tank. It has to have that to keep moving. But if the whole car was a fuel tank there would be no room for the engine or the passenger seat and the drive would likely die from the intense sleep of fuel. So, feel guilt, but leave it a fuel tank.” I feel too much guilt but forgot to feel remorse. I personally am going to try to change it. If you were harmed, would you rather that person apologized but then never see you again and not try to regain your trust out of guilt? Or would you prefer for them to come over and treat you better after they apologized? Some have done irredeemable mistakes and I feel like the those people who felt guilt over those mistakes now know that the world isn’t black and white. I don’t mean to exalt myself but I am planning this scene in a book I want to write about where the protagonist is about to kill a man who he trusted and who personifies the devil. “The devil is worshipped by all, boy. The devil always wins. You think killing me will redeem you. It just means I win. Those who love God pursue righteousness. But those who hate God follow me. And those who hate me follow me as well. And those who love me follow me as well. Because those who hate me do what I do in order to accomplish their hate. And those who love me forget I exist and follow in my footsteps. You let me live and I live on. You kill me. I live on through you.” Then I’m thinking the boys says, “Then I’ll cripple you.” But he does end up killing him, unfortunately. I’m still workshopping it. Anyways, I think what I’m trying to take from this is, your guilt happened. Stop trying to redeem yourself because you never will. Learn from it and move forward.