well, i might as well write something here. I'm feeling especially miserable today, came across this app and installed it. can't hurt, right? I'd be here all day if i had to talk about how and why and when my mental health started significantly deteriorating. i don't feel comfortable talking about why i deal with the issues that i do. I'll try to keep it short and focused on ocd. i guess I've always had these tendencies, and taking my lived experiences into consideration, i was pretty much cursed to be stuck where i am now. my ocd was initially a relatively standard harm ocd subtype. it had some peculiar aspects to it that I'd rather not get into at the moment. it was easy to get frightened and consumed by my unwanted thoughts. as a kid I'd spiral over conversations around me that triggered some sort of disgusting mental image. and the apparently unrelated physical rituals that i performed to calm myself down really only made it worse in the long run. here i am now, disabled by pocd, harm ocd, pure o, some sort of moral compass ocd. a lot of it has a sexual nature to it. i fear experiencing attraction or arousal to whatever causes an intrinsic response of disgust in me. a lot of it has to do with my fear of being destined to become an irredeemable person. I'm ruled by my own self hatred. after years of dealing with this illness and other comorbid issues, sometimes going into remission, the best way i can describe my case is as an "autoimmune disease of the psyche". i have developed many, many coping mechanisms, but my brain seems to adapt itself to the remedies i come up with, eventually weaponizing my own coping methods against me. i spend most of my daily energy containing whatever is haunting me in the back of my head. I'm sure I'd go insane if i just let it go loose. i deal with a vast network of thoughts that connect simple words to horrifying concepts which require me to engage in some sort of compulsion. it's inevitable for the most part. every single slightly alien sensation in my body causes an instant delusion-like belief in me that the worst is bound to happen. it's up to me to prove to such a superior force that it shouldn't make it happen by moving my eyes a certain way, coordinating some abstract notion of... something...? inside my head. it doesn't make any sense to anyone but me. I've tried to explain it in detail but so far i haven't met anyone else who can put themselves in my shoes when it comes to such a complicated ocd case. but obviously, I'm keeping it vague here. fear of uncertainty and the despair that accompany it govern me, i no longer feel like a person. I'm pretty much a walking corpse at this point. I've given up the hope of ever living a normal life. I'm grateful enough that i survive each day that passes by and i will continue to do so. my pessimism would probably depress most people, but it's strangely helpful. when i hoped for good outcomes, I'd get disappointed eventually. it gets better, but it never did, so there's no use establishing goals or milestones. i expect the worst, so nothing disappoints me anymore, and when good things do happen, it feels especially great. i made peace with my own miserable future.