She Deserves!!

This wasn't the blog I intended to post next but I wanted to share this as this is a massive milestone in my journey.  

My God, I can not tell you how good it feels to be sitting here writing this. 

After years of therapy, years of reading, trying to understand and years of determination,  it has all just started to fall into place.   I can not just see the real me, I can actually feel her and I am very excited!!!.

I am hoping I can write this piece to do this moment justice as it is so powerful for me.

For years I have just been a shadow of the real me, controlled by OCD.  The need for safety, the need for instant certainty, the need to please, to be good, to be so bloody honest, the feelings of not good enough, ugliness, feelings of being unnecessary to this world and that place is painful, it hurts and is exhausting.     At times I have been aware of this but in some bizarre way being a shadow was safe for me. I was hiding behind OCD because it was the only way I knew. I had no self confidence, decisions were so hard to make. I could make decisions, I can make great decisions but I did not have that confidence to execute them because I've always been scared, so scared that I was such a bad person, such a failure and just not good enough for anyone.    Consequently, I advised from the sideline where no one could see,  I was always there for people, quietly pushing them, giving them the confidence, the ideas, their self worth but what about me?     

 'Hello!!! I'm here too'   I would think to others and say to myself but I  would hardly get a response and the little response I did get the OCD would not allow me to feel any positive without giving me some negative to deal with and that is a very, very lonely place. It was just me and my OCD!      

The amount of times I have fought to be seen and heard.  The amount of times I have wanted to be acknowledged and noticed as the real me and not the girl controlled by OCD but somehow the gremlin always won by wearing me down, telling me I am not worth anything.    When you are having this battle multiple times a day, day in and day out, for years and years, it becomes extremely exhausting until your only option is to stay on Mr OCD's side and pretend to be his friend because he is the only one that seems to understand you in some odd way. 

 If I am honest, there are very few people who know the real me as I had almost forgotten who she was myself!

 As time went on and the OCD continued to put me down it somehow seemed the safer option to stay in that place because the only other option was very frightening.  The other option was to break away from it but the OCD holds my coping mechanisms and without them how would I be able to function? 

There have been times that I just thought

'I have OCD, this is my life and I will just spend the rest of my life on the sidelines watching, silently screaming, being there for everyone else. There is no cure for OCD, this is the card I've been dealt and this will be the rest of my life' 

However, today I can say there is a way.   Yes, there may not be a cure for OCD but there are certainly more positive ways to manage it. Ways to make you feel almost free. These are the skills I have learned from my psychologist, through reading and understanding my condition and actually believing that I do have OCD.    They do take time to learn, they need a lot of practice and determination.  There was a lot of heartbreak, pain and frustration as I learned these skills but they give me good, healthy coping mechanisms and they are worth every bit of heartbreak, pain and frustration.         I still have a long way to go to perfect these skills but I am on my way and as I practice, the progression becomes a little more natural and takes a lot less effort.  My episodes have become fewer and when they do happen the healing process is much quicker and so much more effective.   The proof is in the original blog I was going to share. This was me last Sunday. This is how it started.....

As I wake up this morning, the darkness has hit again!
It's too early to be awake on a Sunday morning.  I try to get back to sleep - my escape but I can't. The knot in the pit of my stomach sits heavily and then my mind starts wandering. 
Why do I feel like this? Then the feelings, the emotions come flooding back from yesterday. 
It was a bad day yesterday. It started well but then life just got to me again! Urgh!  Why can't I just stay strong? Why can people and life hurt me so much? Answer...because I am sensitive and I suffer from a severe mental illness. But for some reason I do not answer these questions as kindly as that to myself. 

I really believed I had dealt with the feelings effectively at the time but I didn't because today I feel like this.

This knot in my stomach is so debilitating, it makes me feel so numb, so pathetic, weak and leaves me feeling I have nowhere to turn. The gagging feeling is my sign of how bad I actually am today.  So I lay there feeling almost paralysed and thinking what the hell am I going to do? My arms, my legs, everything feels so heavy and I feel hopeless, lonely, so sad and it hurts.

Our daughter comes in to see if we're awake and dread washes over me as I realise I have to drag myself out of bed feeling so heavy and numb but I force a smile on my face and say a cheery morning ( so much bloody effort). The tinges of guilt start now because she is my pride and joy and this should not be an effort.

We go downstairs, everything is a bit surreal as the day begins.  I really have no idea what I am going to do and how I am going to get through this day with so much pain.    Music? I always put music on to help me but not now.  How can I play music when I don't even know what feelings I'm trying to express? These feelings are all just one big mass in my stomach.....

I did get through the day and the week because I am sitting here a week later, music on ( that part only lasted a couple of hours as music really helps me process) and I feel the best I have felt in years. 

I can now see who I am, what I'm about and again I have to say I am so excited!!!   I still have so many more skills to learn and I will make mistakes as I enter a different chapter in my story but if this journey has shown me anything, it is that these things take time. 

So the real me then...
The real me is still me!  She's still nice, kind, honest and would do anything for anybody. When she says she wants something, she means it because she has weighed it all up and when she has decided she wants it she will give it her all, intent on getting it.  She still absolutely loves music, feels the music, and can tell her story with music. Maybe it's because she was a dancer or maybe it's just the way she was born, who knows? She still loves to dance and will dance anywhere!    

All these things are me and always have been, however as I come out of the shadows of OCD, I feel stronger to say this is who I am, I am no longer just a shell of that girl.     Goodness, don't stand in my way if I want something. I already have a reputation  of a dog with a bone!!!   

 My point though, is that I am not scared, I will not be put off by lack of self confidence and the negative whispering.  I will continue to work hard, practice identifying and using the correct tools.    As for the rest of the real me. Well I am keeping her to myself for just a little bit longer.  I know who she is and with continued determination I will be letting her out bit by bit .

 I am under no illusion that the OCD will be there in the background trying to bully me, to hook me in and some days I know he will win but I have these new coping mechanisms now that I am not afraid to use because I have been brave and strong enough to trust them.

I have not really touched on how I managed to pull myself up from that dark place to where I am today but I will, another day,  I promise because the skills I have used are so important to me.

I really wanted to use this blog to say that 12 years ago I was completely broken.  OCD had smashed me into tiny, tiny little pieces yet today I sit here and say I feel the bloody best I have felt in years.  So it is really possible!

There were a lot of times I was so low and felt that there was no hope at all but believe me when I say this feeling that I feel today is worth it!    I can actually say that I am looking forward to tomorrow, to the rest of my life and you know I don't think I have ever been able to say that. 

And finally I am going to put it out there and say 'this girl deserves. She deserves to be seen, deserves to be loved, deserves respect and above all deserves to be happy. 

This is not easy for me to say, believe me and I am sure if my psychologist reads this she will fall off of her chair!   because people have no idea how hard that is for me to recognise, let alone believe and how brave that is for me to say! 

 I originally named this blog 'She's having a good day' I am now going to rename it  'She deserves' because she does!

And as an upbeat Beyonce song  comes on and I have a 'geek' dance around the garden, not caring what the neighbours think, I  reflect on the times that I have truly believed there was no hope, that I was going to feel like this for the rest of my life, what is  the point of me? But today I can see that each of those tiny steps which took so much effort and which the OCD let me feel such little reward for have finally started to pay off because today I can say she deserves!!

I would like to thank you for reading today's blog and until next time.

That Girl With OCD xx