Today I turned 20 and had a great day and night with my friends and family. My mom was very kind, yet when I get home from hanging with my boyfriend, she’s drunk. Intrusions come about blaming myself, I know it’s not fault, but I feel the urge to fix very broke people. I did it with many friends and my mom, but those are just compulsions. Besides that though, my birthday was one of the best and I’m so grateful to live in an amazing state

Hi. I'm just sort of feeling kind of shitty and in moments like these I tend to swing to one extreme or the other, like methodicially and intensely trying to pull apart every piece of what I am feeling and why, determine what is a "real" problem and what is just a bad mood, and take action to "fix" myself, the problem, or ensure that future me will fix it by setting reminders, planning, or just generally freaking out lol. That can all be a bit compulsive, but I don't want to do my other thing, which is just aggressively ignore or try to deny my feelings because they are "not real" or I just need to "let them go". But I'm feeling a little frozen in my fears so I am hoping de-tangling it a bit in words here will be a good middle ground. I'm about to be a senior in college, and I live in the city where my school is. I haven't seen my family for a bit and I am currently spending a weekend with them at the beach. Today was just kind of rough and has made the past, present, and future collide in my head, fanning fears of both external problems and the fear of fear itself, the fear of OCD spirals. I want to more specically describe the problems I have been having since starting college, but I guess for getting through today that isn't really the point. I guess just....I've been trying to create a life for myself and become someone who is strong enough to live it. I have ADHD and OCD and sometimes it just feels like half my energy goes to functioning through that, and the other half goes to resisting the OCD-urge to spiral about the future, to fear I'll let my life fall apart or won't be able to fix the normal, big and small problems life brings. Today has just felt.....hard. I ate something that made me really sick last night, and I didn't take my normal dose of Adderall today or yesterday which can just make me sort of sleepy. On both phsyical counts, I think I'm fine and don't really feel bad anymore, it just sort of triggered some overthinking. I feel scared that feeling kind of tired has/will effect my ability to enjoy what is supposed to be a relaxing time, or that I won't' have as much energy as I should to do things with my family and will disspoint them. I'm scared that the journey back to the city tomorrow will be chaotic and awful, and that when I return I will continue to make mistakes that put me in negative cycles. Strangely, I'm kind of aware that all of these concerns are either possibly not going to happen, or are just things I definetely cannot do anything about right now. I'm just sort of...frustrated that I can't easily shove away worries I know to be "illogical" and deeply afraid of spiraling deeper. All of these different things overlapping right now just sort of make me feel like I've failed. Failed to.....I don't know, resist compulsions and get over them faster, accomplish things in life and school faster/more, be less socially anxious. Failed to get on the right track, to make any kind of progress. Strangely, a lot of the discomfort I'm feeling in this moment indirectly sort of comes from things I am doing "right", to break cycles. I didn't bring my meds because I want to work on the discomfort I feel with spending time without the goal of productivity, I don't have an exact plan for everything I need to do and I have not psyched myself up to tackled my most urgent goals when I get home because I've also been working on finding ways of doing uncomfortable things that don't involve motivating myself through terror when I can't do anything about it. I'm letting myself take time to cry about all these feelings and write this out here because I don't want to deny myself what I need to get better because I feel like I shouldn't need it. I'm hoping, in a way, even the shitty day I've had today is a sign of progress, my OCD desperately seeking a host in fear of fear because I am beating other compulsions. I think there's also something to be said for the unserious but still powerful issue of just fucking being on vacation with your extended family. Like....its hard to take a moment to cry it out or calm yourself down when you're sharing a bedroom with your mom and sister. I'm feeling glad I'm going home tomorrow, scared of how I might feel when I do, and I guess....fearful of what it means that I wasn't "able" to enjoy myself for the whole time I was here. But those feelings do feel much more distant, after writing this. The time will pass and I will go home regardless. When I get home, maybe I will make "better" choices or be "stronger", maybe I will dig a deep hole for myself. Either way, that's not my burden right now or today. I've tried that method and it didn't get me what I want.

this is probably kinda jumbled but over the past almost year or so i've slowly realized i have ocd (i'm diagnosed audhd but over time i started feeling like those alone didn't cover the whole issue yk?), and recently i've been kinda worried i guess. it’s just that i’m turning 21 in 6 months and i’m afraid that this disorder is going to rob me of joyful adult milestones in my life. honestly being 20 has sucked, i can’t even remember wtf being 18 was like, and my childhood in general wasn't the best either, but i've been struggling a lot as of late and i don't want how i feel now to be the same as how i feel next year. my meds have helped quiet my compulsions a significant amount (i literally felt like i was going kinda cray cray when i was off them 😭) but they’re not completely gone. sometimes it just seems like this is all it's ever gonna be forever and i’m always gonna feel ashamed of myself for just like… existing. my 21 year old self deserves to be happy but idk if i’ll be able to give that to her 🥲🥲🥲

If you’re sensetive to the topic of divorce, needles, or self harm don’t read this. I’m really sorry for how long this is going to be I promise it has a point. So this morning I woke up. It was around 11 when I woke up. I had to get in the shower for a dentist appointment I had to get a cavity filled, which is literally horrible. I can’t describe how much I fucking hate getting my teeth filled the pain of the needle is so bad and the dentist is awful for me because I always think about how many other mouths might’ve touch the equipment. I got a shower and just went with my hair wet and I noticed a huge bruise on my leg from my bf accidentally kneeling on me and I thought about how much it hurt and I worried that the bruise might become something else because I read up on how sometimes small bruises can lead to really horrible blood pooling and internal bleeding. I got in the car and me and my dad left to go to my dentist appointment. When I was sitting waiting I was sitting alone with no distractions so I thought a lot. I thought about how this is the second dentist appointment I’ve been to in a month that my hair was wet for and how my dentist probably thinks my hair is greasy and that im gross. When my dentist gave me the needle to freeze me my vision went a bit wonky and I remember worrying that he sent the freezing to my nervous system and how this was just gonna be how my vision gets stuck forever. They finished the filling and I worried that my invisiline treatment would stop working because of the slight change from the filling and how I’d waste thousands of my parents dollars from one filling. When I was coming from the dentist my mom texted that she was taking me somewhere to eat so I went home with my dad and waited for her to come get me. We went to eat and it was amazing. And for context me and my mom usually can’t get through a car ride without being at each others throats. She even bought me a slice of cheese cake to take home. We got home and I was talking to my parents about whatever. I went into my kitchen to snack on something and my dad told me to get out of the cupboards. He told me to come here and sit down. I thought he was gonna tell me that I need to diet. I asked worriedly what they wanted to talk about. My dad said “oh just life and stuff” I figured they were gonna tell me some type of advice. That they were gonna give me the talk (I’m a teenager in a teenage relationship so this makes sense) I remember the hot feeling of the anxiety in my body. Of what he might tell me. Up until this point my life was all those worries I talk about in my so far day. My life was wake up worry about crazy impossible shit, worry about everything, the worst thing in my life to this point was my self harm that I ended up falling into around 2 years ago (I’m clean for the most part now). Up until this point my parents were together for 18 years. But today my parents sat me down and told me they’re separating. Right when my life finally felt so right. When the only issue was my ocd. When that was my complaint. There’s no one to blame for it. It’s just how life ended up happening. I’m so utterly confused. I don’t even know what to think. For the first time in my entire life I have no idea what to think. It is impossible for my brain to muster up something, anything. I just can’t. And the last time I felt like I couldn’t think I cut myself. And I can’t do that. I just feel so freaking lost. My life is about to begin. I’m about to graduate high school this coming year. And my senior year. My last year. It about to be so hard in so many ways. I just can’t. And I feel so alone in this because their separation is gonna go so smoothly with no issues they have it all figured out and they still love eachother. So I can’t complain that it’s gonna be messy. My brothers still very young so he’ll deal with it differently. And any of my friends who have divorced parents their parents divorces were messy and horrible and they were all so young when it happened. But I’ll be a legal adult next year. So I feel like I’m not supposed to be upset about it because it happen to me later in life. I just really don’t know.