Sometimes I don’t even realize how consuming my OCD is. I catch myself doing my routines and stupid little ticks all the time without me even thinking about it beforehand. At this point it’s a habit, an unconscious decision that my mind makes so I don’t have to think about the fears in my head. But if I unconsciously skip over doing one of my routines, my mind pounces and I have no choice but to think of all the bad things that could happen if I don’t do that annoying little compulsion that my mind craves. Is it an addiction at this point? Probably.
I sometimes feel like the people around me think that my OCD isn’t that bad. I suffer in silence. Most of my routines and compulsions are either in my head, how I look at things with my eyes, how I touch things, or how things feel. All of them are overwhelming and equally powerful. All of them can be secretive. If you’ve ever been around me, you’ve been around me when I have these thoughts and do these “routines”. I do a compulsion probably once every two minutes or so. When I think about that, that’s insane and I feel crazy. Once every two minutes?? That is 720 compulsions a day on average. Some days more, some days less. Constantly counting in my head the amount of times I have to look at something, or touch something, or turn a light on and off. Whenever I go to a new doctor, they always ask the same thing — “How much of your day do your compulsions take up?” I can never give a straight answer because it takes up my. whole. day.
I have learned to live with it. I have tried exposures to make me stop doing these routines and to try to be less afraid of the outcome of not doing them. But my OCD revolves around my fear of bad things happening. I cannot come to let myself let go of that fear, that if something bad happens to me or someone I love, it would be because I didn’t touch my door handle the right way. It would be my fault. In some weird, messed up way, this is my way of control. My mind thinks I’m controlling the outcome. I feel a sudden wave of relief that everything is okay when I do my routines the right way. Will my mind ever realize that it isn’t that powerful?
I don’t often look up quotes or anything that have to do with OCD because the most stupid, absurd things come up. But I had to to find a cover photo for this blog post. None of the things I ran across were good enough. Most of them were puns about having “CDO instead of OCD” (Get it, because it’s alphabetical. Funny right? NO. Most OCD isn’t even like that, but we won’t get into that right now…) or “Tips to Get Rid of Intrusive Thoughts” as if it’s as easy as reading an article and everything will turn around. That one really pissed me off because tip #9 was “keep your OCD to yourself.” Who would this help? Would this make other people more comfortable being around me? If no one knew, it wouldn’t be a problem, right?
I realize I’m going off on a tangent right now, so I’ll explain why I picked the quote that I did. “Resilient'“ has been a huge word for me lately. I am resilient because I keep going every day. I don’t let my OCD hold me back anymore. Yes, I have fears, but I am not afraid to speak my truth. I live my life every day and I will not give up on myself. So therefore, I am resilient.
