Drag Me To Hell

One step forward, a zillion steps back.

OCD fucking sucks.

There I said it. It’s not eloquent or comforting. It’s not clinical or profound. But it is 100% true. Having Obsessive Compulsive Disorder FUCKING SUCKS. It’s relentless. It never really leaves you alone. You have to work so hard to relax, to enjoy, to live.

This isn’t a ‘rising above it’ blogpost. This isn’t an ‘I can do this’ article. It’s quite simply that, if you have OCD like me, then it fucking sucks.

I’m tired of it robbing so much time from me. I’m sick of it being the last thing I think of at night and the first thing I think of before I’ve even opened my eyes. I’m not giving up, or giving in but I’m acknowledging that this disorder of the brain where we have unusually high levels of brain activity and/or low levels of a chemical called serotonin, fucking sucks. Then add to that any traumatic event or your family history and it feels like the odds are stacked so greatly against us. Can you fight genetics? Can you win against a glitch of brain chemistry? Can you fully put trauma behind you?

I, logically, know the answer to be YES. With things like medication, therapeutic help, family support, the courage to carry on, OF COURSE, you can.

In my heart, it feels impossible and it fucking sucks.

Sometimes you have to just say - out loud - that you’ve been dealt a rubbish hand but that doesn’t mean you can’t still play in the game.

I endlessly say “I want my brain back”. I’m not even sure what I mean by that. Maybe I mean I want to go back to how I was before I gave birth? But was I OCD-less back then? No, I wasn’t. I have and always have had OCD. That’s how my brain tries to solve problems and there’s no bigger problem than something shocking, unfair or heinous happening to you. My brain has been problem-solving ever since, trying to right a wrong. Reset to factory settings…but that’s not reality, is it? That’s a fucking pipe-dream.

Having an incredible memory, only for it to be used against you, is cruel. I remember things so clearly that I can recall them at will, perfectly, and then distort them. I can go over and over and over a snippet of time so much that I can make a new reality. I can see images so distinctly, it’s like I’m watching real life - a nightmarish real life - play out before my very eyes. You will do anything to make it stop, so you do (mental) rituals, almost automatically, to prevent it. But the shame and guilt of having such thoughts or images in the first place, eats you alive. It’s death by a thousand cuts every single day.

I wish there was an answer for me. And for you. And for the person, you love, who suffers with OCD. There isn’t. But there’s hope that you can make your brain work for you. There’s a future time when you won’t spend your day obsessing and doing compulsions. There’s a world in which these thoughts will come and go and you’ll laugh to yourself and wonder what the hell you ever worried about.

It will be here soon.

I know it will.

We just can’t give up hope.

We fight another day.

Kim x