Most people think that having OCD is needing things to stay in place, having your room organized, and your closet color-coordinated. Well, sorry to break it to you, but that’s not the only thing.
During my senior year of high school, I was having a hard time coping with my emotions. My thoughts were out of control and they weren’t your typical thoughts. They were so bad, they haunted me. I would think about it all day, I’d go to bed, and repeat.
It had gotten so bad, that I went to the doctor. I couldn’t handle it anymore. During that appointment, I was diagnosed with anxiety and OCD. It wasn’t something I was expecting.
Days went by and it wasn’t getting any easier. I was meditating at the time and trying to learn to control it. It worked for a while. Then out of nowhere, I stopped. That is when it got really bad for me. I got to a point where I put my phone on Do Not Disturb, ignored my boyfriend, my friends, and my mom. I laid in my bed for 3 days straight and slept. I just wanted them to stop. I hardly ate anything and if I did, it was something quick and I would go straight back to my room.
I realized that I didn’t want to live like that anymore.
I was hanging out at my friend’s house and I was alone. She had left for work and I was just watching Netflix and hanging out. I then started to cry about a thought I had that wasn’t leaving my head. I fell right into an anxiety attack. I couldn’t breathe and my heart was racing. I started screaming and I remember just wanting to breathe. I just wanted a moment of silence.
In that moment, I had wanted to die. Nothing seemed like it was getting better. I looked around the room and I had found a bottle of pills. I sat there with them in my hand, crying. Thinking about how if I followed through, how much it would help me. The thoughts would stop, I would stop annoying people with the reassurance, and I would not need to feel guilty for everything that I had thought.
I felt the weight fall off my shoulders and I had told myself that it was OK to let go.
After a good 10 minutes with pills in my hand and telling myself to take them, something in me said to stop. I then, without hesitation, put them back into the bottle and cried harder. I wanted to die so bad, but in that moment, something in me said "no." That moment, I knew that the only way to fix it was to step up my game.
After that day, I went to a psychologist weekly, I meditated every night, and I learned to ride the wave of the anxiety attack. I learned it was OK to think the way I was thinking and not to feel bad because everyone has those thoughts. I learned that my anxiety doesn’t define me. My OCD doesn’t define me. I knew that I was going to be OK.
If you ever get diagnosed with OCD or even Intrusive Thinking, just know that everything is OK and that it is OK to think whatever you are thinking. You do not need reassurance, you just need to ride the anxiety attack. Once you get it under control, you’ll feel more in control and you will gain your life back.
I am living proof out of thousands, and I am writing this story to let you know that you are not alone. Everything will be OK. I promise.
