Before ocd did you guys have hobbies you were really into? I love music but ever since all of this I have 0 motivation for it.

I know everything im dealing with is OCD. I have accepted that, but I just feel down. I don’t want to live the rest of my life like this. I just want to be free from this horrible illness. Any positive stories and recovery journeys will help. What did recovery look like for you? I used to be so happy, I miss it so much. This feels like it’s taken everything from me. How do you just live your life despite how you feel? Any hope will help!

In 2023, as I was finally getting sober from harder substances, I found myself in one of the scariest mental spaces I'd ever known. I was still smoking daily, my relationship was rocky, and one night—it all hit me. It felt like I had slipped into a video game. Nothing felt real… or maybe everything felt too real. The world around me was distorted. I had always dealt with anxiety, but this? This was something else. I was spiraling—drenched in guilt over everything I'd ever done, every person I thought I hurt, every wrong I tried to make right all at once. It was suffocating. At 23, I tried checking myself into a mental hospital—something I hadn’t done since I was 17. I was desperate to understand what was happening. My relationship took a hit as I spilled every ounce of guilt I carried to my partner, unable to stop the cycle. It wasn’t just anxiety. It was OCD. And while the diagnosis was terrifying at first, it was also reassuring. I finally had a name for the storm inside me. I wasn’t alone. People I admire—like Jenna Ortega—deal with this too. It’s not just me. It’s real, it’s hard, but it’s also something I can face. Since then, I’ve made big changes. I stopped smoking—realizing it only made the noise in my head louder. I started therapy. My partner didn’t understand at first, but as we both learned more about OCD together, we grew stronger. We’re now engaged, and I’m happier than I’ve ever been. But now it’s time to reconnect—with myself. I want to find the me before everything. The creative, passionate, connected me. I want to start streaming games again and hopefully rebuild the following I lost. I want to connect with people again—I don’t have many friends left, but I’m determined to find my people again. I’m also diving back into my art. Journaling. Sketching—even when I don’t like it. Because it’s the act of creating that heals, not just the end result. I won’t let OCD run my life. I will prevail.

I hate how ocd targets everything I love to do. Walking, excercising, gym… I used to love those things. It was my therapy. It were the things I could escape my thinking. Now those are the things i get stuck in my head. Why? It makes me sad. Sorry not so positive today.