When I was eighteen, I made poor decisions. I was a teenager, trying to mask depression through different outlets that life had to offer. I thought I was able to write the pain away. I thought I was able to sing the pain away in my vocal class. I thought I was able to fix the problem; the problem being how I was as a person. I had strong moral values, even in the midst of going against everything I believed in. I based my decisions solely on emotions, even when I knew that wasn’t the right path to analyze things.
Because of that, I carry tons of trauma from that time; no matter how much unpacking I’ve done in the last 13 years. It’s something that I learned to accept as simply trauma, and it’s going to come up when familiar-feeling situations arise.
What I didn’t know was that I was unknowingly dealing with something that was undiagnosed this entire time.
Hi, my name is Liz, and this summer I was diagnosed with OCD, or Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, specifically OCD that is considered high-functioning.
Lemme explain.
At first, I didn’t feel like OCD was something that I had. The media portrays this image of OCD being organized, and anything out of place would cause great distress and anxiety. I wasn’t “checking the stove 5 times before leaving the house” or washing my hands after everything I touched due to the fear of germs. Surprisingly, it was something as minor as trichotillomania that began the conversation of it possibly be OCD-related.
It took some time to fully understand what it looks like on me, as I am the only person I personally know with OCD. It wasn’t like depression or anxiety, something I could pull experience from; it was a completely new breed to learn and dissect. This summer, I took the time to fully process things and train myself to be mentally present. This included me taking a break from writing blog posts and posting on social media in general. Not only did I want to enjoy my summer and take it in before it was over, but I wanted to simply live life in the moment.
I’ve been learning to rewire my brain, to say the least. I’ve been learning how to analyze my thoughts through a different lens; one that puts the logic side in the forefront rather than the emotional side. In regular English, I am simply learning how to trust my logic thoughts so that I am able to distant myself from the emotional ones when they turn obsessive and intrusive. I am learning to accept the fact that thoughts are just thoughts, and there isn’t any way to control them from potentially happening. For me, that meant that the worst case scenario can potentially come true, but I determine how I handle it should it become reality.
A part of that was accepting the fact that this could possibly answer a lot of the unanswered questions I had about myself over the years. Sure, I’ve grasped the idea that I did experience social anxiety, major depression, and developed poor mental health as I was growing up, but nothing ever explained the thoughts. The obsessive ones. The ones that were hard to let go on hours, days, weeks on end— replaying situations and scenarios over and over in my head until I exhausted myself mentally. The ones that randomly pop into my head, no matter how long it’s been, and leave me in distress and anxiety because I’m reminded of all the things I wish I did differently. Sometimes, they even influence how I react to situations that feel similar, making the thoughts feel even more real than they did just thinking the initial thought.
In the gist of learning this, I was also trying to enjoy the days I had off during the summer, considering I unfortunately do not get a summer break, despite working in higher education. Nevertheless, my days out of the office were spent at a Mets game with my father on a rainy day, going on our annual summer vacation with my partner to Atlantic City, hanging out with my boss’ new puppy, and even going to the community pool to get my annual summertime tan! I didn’t want the summer to feel like I was solely focusing on getting to know the disorder better. The days were filled with fun activities, and the nights were reserved for self-reflection; writing in my journal and listening to YouTube videos to unwind for the day. It was seeing physical change once I began taking medication for OCD, finally feeling like the fog was gone on most days.
One thing that I am learning in my 30s is how important it truly is to take care of yourself. You begin to notice the changes in your body; your perspective on life begins to sound a lot like the adults had growing up, and ironically enough you gain this hyperawareness of yourself that feels kind of like an out of body experience (especially having therapy in your 30s; it feels so completely different to having it in your 20s). You’re more honest about the things you are going through; not because you don’t hold many guilt or shame behind them, but because your happiness and your way of living life has completely changed. You just want better for yourself.
In a nutshell, I am learning to be my own best friend. I am learning to be gentle with myself in terms of self-talk, but also understand that thoughts will always be thoughts– they shouldn’t carry so much weight on your mind.
Here’s to having more difficult conversations to learn important lessons, not to obsess whether or not they were good or bad. Here’s to learning how to be okay being uncomfortable because you know the end result of being uncomfortable will becoming more comfortable. Here’s to trusting and listening to the logic side of my brain the same way I do for the emotional side. Here’s to breaking this impossible expectation of trying to feel good to prove that I’m good, and allowing perfectionism to determine how good I truly am. Here’s to imagining myself in positive situations after coming out of difficult ones, knowing I am still growing into myself as an adult.
Here’s to… being Liz’s best friend for life.
Letters From Liz. 