- Date posted
- 4y
- Date posted
- 4y
Update: Did that journey entry in pen! Made mistakes! Living with imperfections, and actually proud of it! Take that, OCD! šŖš¼
Related posts
- Date posted
- 15w
A reflection I never saw myself being able to write⨠One year ago today, I was spiraling for a second time because I wasnāt sure what was happening to me, again. Getting through it once was doable but twice? I truly thought I was losing my mind. OCD wasnāt just a shadow in the background ā it was a loud, relentless voice narrating fear, doubt, and compulsions into every corner of my life. I couldnāt trust my thoughts, couldnāt 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 ā Iām here. Still imperfect, still human, but finally free in a way I didnāt 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 ā not in a cold, lonely way, but in the most solid, liberating way possible. You see, healing didnāt come when others gave me reassurance ā 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 didnāt care ā 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 Knightšš¼) I stopped dancing to OCDās obsessive rhythm and started rewriting the song. And yeah ā 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: š± Not every thought deserves attention. š± Discomfort doesnāt mean danger. š± Uncertainty is not the enemy ā itās 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 letās be honest ā there were still a few weeds. (Hello, OCD ā always trying to ācheck in.ā ) Because healing isnāt linear, I still have days where I feel back to square one, but itās a day, not a week, month, or another year of surrendering. But hereās the āpunnyā truth: OCD tried to check me, but I checked myself ā with compassion, courage, & a whole lot of practice. To anyone still caught in the spiral ā I want you to know: you are not broken. You donāt need to wait for someone else to save you. No else will. The strength youāre looking for? Itās already in you. It might be buried under fear, doubt, and rumination, but itās there ā 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 ā you get freedom, resilience, power & SO much more. You donāt have to control every thought/urge to have a beautiful mind. You just have to stop believing every thought/urge is the truth. You donāt 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, āNice try. But not today.ā ā Someone who came back to life, one brave thought at a time š§”
- Date posted
- 15w
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 nightāit 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 spiralingādrenched 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 hospitalāsomething I hadnāt 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 wasnāt 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 wasnāt alone. People I admireālike Jenna Ortegaādeal with this too. Itās not just me. Itās real, itās hard, but itās also something I can face. Since then, Iāve made big changes. I stopped smokingārealizing it only made the noise in my head louder. I started therapy. My partner didnāt understand at first, but as we both learned more about OCD together, we grew stronger. Weāre now engaged, and Iām happier than Iāve ever been. But now itās time to reconnectāwith 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 againāI donāt have many friends left, but Iām determined to find my people again. Iām also diving back into my art. Journaling. Sketchingāeven when I donāt like it. Because itās the act of creating that heals, not just the end result. I wonāt let OCD run my life. I will prevail.
- Date posted
- 11w
Just noticed something that helped me today. I was having the realization a lot of my issues stem from me not taking responsibility for my own life, and also not recognizing my own self-limiting beliefs (SLBs) and automatic negative thoughts (ANTs.) In doing this, I learned that the only way forward is confronting my deepest darkest fears head on and associated irrational/self limiting beliefs- and that for years and years, I have simply retreated and run away. One of my deepest darkest fears (one of my obsessions) is rooted in the understandable fear of the worst of humanity, and the 'what if' I was that (like many of us.) I actually can have compassion for myself because it is perfectly okay to be scared of the worst of people, and if something like that is perpetuated throughout pop culture-media- it would make sense to have associated thoughts about it. The fear is that I am a serial killer or have motives of one. And the OCD has caused me to constantly question my motives and actions to no end (how OCD latches on- makes you look for evidence where there is none.) For the longest time, I have been convinced I am one, and need to hide myself from the world, avoid people more than just because of social anxiety, what my main anxiety was back then. I look for signs everywhere- and the OCD latches on to any perceived (not real) evidence that I am one, that people think I am one. When I decided to confront this fear rather than run away like I have for years, it made me realize it is just a fear- it has nothing to do about who I am as a person, despite how strong the OCD tries to convince you otherwise. It is so sad how strong OCD can be, to make so many of us good intending people be convinced that they are something horrible. Anyway, I hope this can help people realize the best way forward is to confront it head on. It's akin to shining a light on the monster and seeing it for what it is - a goofy thing with fake prosthetics for a movie that isn't a monster after all- a sheep in wolfs clothing. It's just you have been running from it so long, your imagination has gotten so detailed about how horrible it is, hearing its fake growls, instead of turning around and blasting it with a spotlight. This is I guess what ERP is about. For me, one of the struggles with ERP and a specific exposure is that the OCD will jump to a different obsession , which then tells me ERP is a waste because Im not confronting the 'most recent' fear. This is faulty thinking though- because the solution is to confront the fear, not the specific thought. By doing that, you learn to not run away and do all the compulsions in your mind. Tl;dr- long winded post about me realizing how I have actually been avoiding the solutions (ERP) and making up reasons to not confront my fears this whole time. I have been running instead of shining a light on the sheep in wolfs clothing.
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