Really depressed.

@strugglebusman I’m not home but I’ll send a message explaining everything when i get back

@Firefly girl I’m here when you’re ready

@strugglebusman I’m in a really intense and transitional phase of my life. I graduated from college not too long ago, and around that same time — a little over a year ago — my OCD symptoms began to get much worse. It started as perfectionism and themes like sexual orientation OCD and existential OCD, and eventually bled into relationship OCD after I met my current partner. Since then, it's been an exhausting loop of doubt and overthinking. I’m also a spiritual person, and OCD has made it really hard to balance my faith in things like divine timing or a higher power. I want to live a meaningful life, be in the “right” relationship, do the “right” career, make the “right” choices — but that constant striving for perfection becomes completely paralyzing. I also feel a lot of guilt. I know I’m more fortunate than many, and that makes it so much harder to talk to people who don’t experience OCD. It can feel like I’m selfish or ungrateful, but these thoughts and fears aren’t something I chose. I’m not trying to feel this way — I’m trying so hard not to. Things got especially hard recently after a really painful fight with my family. I realized how much of my relationship OCD might be rooted in past trauma, especially from childhood dynamics. I was at the airport with them, and I ended up leaving and going back to my college town alone because I just couldn’t be around them. I needed space to feel safe — but now I feel even more alone. I lost my job recently, and I’ve been so unmotivated and depressed. I spend a lot of time using ChatGPT to process my thoughts and anxieties(i even used it to write this more organized) because I feel scared to trust myself. I also struggle with things like imposter syndrome, especially when it comes to creating content or helping others — something I want to do, but I feel like a fraud because I’m still struggling so much myself. I also only see my therapist once a week, sometimes every other week, and I’m starting to think that’s not enough. I think I need more support than I currently have. The intrusive thoughts are everywhere — even astrology becomes a trigger. Yesterday I saw a horoscope that said “you need a break from romance for a while” and I immediately spiraled. It made me question everything about my relationship with someone I deeply love and don’t want to lose. The worst part is feeling like the only way to feel safe is to stay frozen — stuck in indecision, stuck in my room, afraid to take the next step in any direction. I keep wondering if I’m playing the victim or being dramatic, and I hate that too, but I just feel stuck in a cycle that I can’t seem to escape. If you’ve read this far, thank you. If you’ve ever felt like this and made it through — I’d love to hear how. I just don’t want to feel so alone in this anymore.

@Firefly girl Well, I can tell you right now from my current experience. I am dealing with an extremely similar situation with a lot of different dynamics and factors myself. I know what it’s like to isolate and feel as if you need to hide from the world because that’s the only sense of peace you get when in reality for me it just makes things worse because nothing right now seems to bring me any joy except sleeping. The only difference with us is I’m a bit older, I have also already experienced this once before, so I’m in a current relapse after years of not having any debilitating symptoms from life. I struggle just as much with sexual intrusive thoughts relationship, career worries and major depression that have seemed to completely take over my life. I’ve dealt with this before, got out of it before and plan to get out of it again. Right now it just seems impossible to do so. You are still young and we both have so much time to figure this all out. Life doesn’t need to be followed by a written scripture, meaning we can write our own stories and live it and figure it out however the hell we want. Which is much easier said than done because I feel as so my life should be way better and different than it currently is, but I am also extremely blessed and fortunate compared to others also. We just have to remember life can always and will always get better if we just put in the effort. I want to have kids and a family one day without any of this stepping in the way. We’re going to figure this all out and make it work whatever that may be just keep fighting. I’ll have to read this to myself probably tmrw when I get stuck in the loop to help motivate and pull myself out of the dark hole once again. We got this!

@ERP is the way to be My insurance doesn’t cover NOCD:(

@ERP is the way to be They’re qualified to treat OCD and do ERP but I think we need to cultivate a treatment plan with more structure because I have a lot of autonomy with my ERP and it leads me to just not do it and try to find the answers in other ways