ANOTHER ONE IN THE DARK

I admire your courage so much, and I want nothing more than for you to keep holding on and beat this mindset because you absolutely can. I love you. <3

Sun, 09 Dec 2012 17:47:24 -0500

This means everything. Thank you. I love you too <3

I didn't see this coming.

Sun, 09 Dec 2012 12:51:33 -0500

If you had asked me last week where I would be today December 9th, 2012 I would have said at my home is Richmond, living with my two best friends, and working at my mediocre job. I was fine. I had a wonderful weekend. But i’m not there. I’m here. At my home on Long Island, with my family. This is because I had such an extreme panic attack after smoking weed that I ended up in the emergency room with a heart rate of 118. The next few days were the scariest of my life. Feelings of extreme fear, unreality, and a terrifying fear that I wasn’t going to make it to see the next day. I am too exhausted to write the details of all of this, but I wanted to write something. I feel depressed now. I forgot how awful this feels. Why is it that we can’t remember how that feels until we feel it again? Anyway, i’m scared. I wasn’t prepared to deal with this again. I didn’t see it coming. Not at all.

Is anyone out there?

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:59:12 -0500

This is so fucking hard. This compulsion is never going to go away, I swear. I honestly don’t know what to do. I have gotten myself so deep into it, so tangled, I am so lost in it I can no longer see a way out. Everything I do to get rid of it is just another compulsion, is just something more taking me further away from letting it go. Why do I need to figure it out, why can’t I just forget about it. Why am I trying to understand it. Why am I treating it like an intricate math equation where the answer is a solid, even number. No maybes, no faith, I need a concrete answer. I need proof. I don’t have a clue what I am even looking for, what I am even trying to get out of it, what it is i’m trying to understand. And the more I try to figure it out the deeper I get. The worse this gets. I can’t do this anymore. I really can’t.

OCD often feels similar to suffocation.

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 19:51:00 -0500

OCD often feels similar to suffocation.

Fear is still the driving force in my life. I can’t do it anymore. The fact that I feel the...

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 22:11:17 -0400

Fear is still the driving force in my life. I can’t do it anymore. The fact that I feel the need to write here again, which is something I really haven’t done since i’ve been back at school, makes me realize how lonely and unhappy and confused I currently feel. I’m tired of searching for answers. I’m tired of spending all day, every day trying to convince myself to be happy, to not think about things, to not let the never ending pain in my heart take over. I’m tired of trying to convince myself that I am okay. I want to just be okay. I don’t like myself right now. At all. I want a peace of mind, more than anything.

Tip #2

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 11:35:37 -0400

It is good to laugh. Do it. Laugh at everything.

You know that feeling where something just hits you. Whether it be self-consciousness, sadness, a memory that breaks you heart right there on the spot. Yeah well when you feel that tell yourself it’s okay. Look around you. Recognize how lucky you are to be here, on this earth, alive and breathing. Even if things are less than perfect right now, even if you are struggling to make it through everyday there is no reason to ignore the fact that life in itself is a miracle. Take a deep breath. Remind yourself that you are you. You are happy with who you are. Even if you don’t believe it tell yourself you are beautiful and you are comfortable with yourself. Everything is fine not final. Let it be and let go.

The Good

Sat, 20 Aug 2011 15:16:21 -0400

I have never loved myself more than I do right now. That feeling is absolutely priceless. I just felt the need to document it, because I honestly think this is the most important realization I have had in the past few months, perhaps my whole life. I don’t hate my OCD. I am not mad that these things happened to me. That I was born the person I was, with the difficulties I was forced to deal with. I am not alone in this, I know my story is not unique. I know that so many other people have walked this road, and I think letting go of the anger you have towards your circumstances is Number One. Number Two is seeing it for the good things that have come out of it, because there are plenty believe it or not. And Number Three is loving yourself, accepting yourself. Realizing what a strong person you are. That you have this willingness and inner-strength. Through all of this that is what I have realized. How I did everything I could to overcome my OCD. It is not completely gone. I still struggle everyday to get better, but the more I learned about it the more I wanted to beat it. I have worked as hard as I possibly could, and have made so much progress. I am so proud of myself. It has made me realize what a passionate person I am, and how I am willing to do anything I can in order to achieve things for myself. It has showed me that I am hardworking, and I am smart, and capable, and worthy. Going through this has caused me to fall in love with dance al over again. It was something I turned to for hope and support, and has made me realize how inspiring art can be. I have also fallen head over heels in love with literature. This summer I have bought over 20 books, and am working on reading all of them. I have made the decision of being a Double Major in English. That dream would have never been possible without this year. The most important thing I discovered was my desire to help other people. I have always had that feeling, wanting to volunteer, but I have never been so serious about it. I want so badly to intern with TWLOHA, and any other organization that will have me. I honestly believe that is why I was put on this earth. WIthout this year, without me going through al of this I would not have become the person I am right now. I would have not been this passionate, loving, person that is so excited about life, and is so eager to learn everything that comes her way. My only hope now is to go back to school, and to continue on this journey, and use what I have learned to help others.

I thought this was something that would be great to share. This...

Sat, 20 Aug 2011 14:57:54 -0400

I thought this was something that would be great to share. This is Renee, the inspiration for the founding of the non-for-profit organization To Write Love On Her Arms. I have always been a huge fan of theirs, and I admire the work they are doing. During the video she says something that a friend had said to me at the beginning of my journey. That is, “It gets worse before it gets better.” He had been through his own battle in the past, and I think that anybody who has seen the light at the other end will tell you the same thing. If you are just starting to face your problems, if you are somewhere in the middle which is where I believe I am, it is so important to remember that there are going to be shitty days. There are going to be days where you wake up tired of the fight, and you just don’t have the energy to do it anymore. Don’t give into that feeling. Don’t believe it. It is a lie. You have to take it one day at a time, and you will find how much stronger you get everyday. Believe in life, and more importantly believe in yourself.

Tip #1

Sat, 20 Aug 2011 14:50:16 -0400

It’s okay to not be in a good mood.

For so long I was petrified of myself. Of my mind, of my thoughts. I was afraid of having the wrong thoughts, reading something that would spark a bad memory. I was so afraid of not feeling one hundred percent, because to me that meant I would spiral into depression again. Not being 100 percent all of the time meant I was weak. I’m sure you have heard the saying that goes along the lines of “You cannot keep out the bad, without also keeping out the good.” It is more than true. By being afraid of the bad I kept the entire world at arms length. I became numb, and I no longer was participating in my life. I was so focused on not rocking the ship that I ended up not moving anywhere. What I have learned from all of this is that it is okay to feel upset. It is okay to have that emotion, just as much as it is okay to feel happiness, or joy. What you have to do is not harp on it. I was always afraid of getting stuck in it, and I thought the best solution was to just push it away. Ironically, pushing a thought or feeling away will only cause it to come back later, and stronger. What I realized the best thing to do was to first Identify the Problem. By this I mean stop, and recognize what exactly that is making you feel this emotion. Whether it be sadness, anxiety, pain, disappointment, embarrassment, etc. You must first understand what it is you are feeling. Once you have done that, you have to think to yourself whether this is something that you can change, or if it is something that you need to simply accept. Once you have decided that, you have to accept what it is you decided. If you came to the conclusion that it is something that you can change then you must take the necessary steps to go about that, but if you decide that it is something you have to just accept, which is usually the case when it comes to pain, and hurt, then you must simply accept it. This probably sounds a lot harder than it actually is. Things happen, people come in and out of your life, sometimes there is no explanation for something that happened, or the way somebody acted and all you can do is accept it. Harboring pain, or resentment, or guilt will stay with you far longer than what the situation rendered. So just accept it. Just like that. Now take a deep breath, recall what it is that is hurting you, and as you exhale just let it go. You can do this as many times as you need until you feel it lift. Breath in and say to yourself let go. Let go. Let go.

I think i’m going to keep doing these “Tip” posts. Along this journey, I have not only gotten a lot of valuable advice and information, I have also had a lot of realizations myself. I think this will greatly benefit me to reference in the future, as well as the other people reading this. Even though it’s not many… lol

Note to Self

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 23:50:22 -0400

Letting go/Moving on doesn’t mean giving up. It doesn’t mean you and that person will never speak again. It doesn’t mean you and that person will never be in each others lives again. The truth is you do not know what is going to happen. We spend so much energy trying to predict the future, we forget that we don’t even know what exactly is going to happen ten seconds from now, let alone weeks or months, maybe even years. Because we can’t predict what is going to happen there is no way to prepare for it. When it happens we will deal with it then. Letting go/Moving on means that you are no longer letting that person or situation dictate your mood/day/thoughts. There are far bigger things in the world for you to spend your thoughts/time/energy on. Focus on the good things in your life, do things that are productive and that bring you joy, and when things happen you will figure them out then. The only thing worrying about the future does, is take away what you have right now. There is no better way to move on, or to simply be happier than to be in the now. Be present. Be right where you are. What has happened, has happened. What will happen in the future will be dealt with then. The only thing we have is right now. The only thing we are sure of is this very moment. Live right here, and good things will come to you.

Revelation

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 22:58:02 -0400

Today, for the first time in a really really long time, I saw the person I really am. And for the first time in a really really long time I was so happy to be myself. I am an extremely ambitious person. If I want something, or I am interested in something I do everything in my power to understand it. I will research everything I have to, and I do everything whole heartedly. For a while now I did not realize this about myself. I actually believed I was the exact opposite. I thought I had no motivation to do anything, and honestly didn’t care about much, even though I knew deep down that I did, and I never understood why I was never willing to do anything about anything. I didn’t know anything about OCD, I didn’t even know I had it. The more I learn about it the more I realize how much mental energy it was taking up everyday. Everything I said, everything somebody said to me, every moment of my every day was analyzed like a line of poetry, everything was gone over a million times as if I was studying for a test about every detail of my everyday. It makes sense the my OCD was feeding off of my personality trait of doing something fully. My need to understand things, and to perfect them. My OCD used this, and made me waste it on unnecessary things, instead of things that were actually relevant and important. Now that mostly all of my compulsions are gone I am seeing how much more alert I am in everyday life. How I am so much more interested in my own life, in doing productive things, in learning, in reading, in talking to people, in starting new projects, and in working really hard at things that are important to me. This makes me so excited, and the fact that I am so passionate about all of these new interests in my life makes me so much happier. Even though I feel like this now, and I know that things are different with me I am still a little scared. I know I am in a different place right now, but I so desperately hope I can remain this person. The person that I know I am. I don’t want to go back to school and be that friend again, the one that brings everyone down, the one that never wants to go out. That’s not me. I don’t want to go back and not give a shit about dance, not work hard, not talk to my teachers, look so disinterested. That’s not me. I don’t want to let all of my plans and interests and passions pass me by. I want to do something about them. I want to have fun and enjoy myself and just be the person I know I am. I ~~think I~~ can do it. I know I can. I just have to keep working with my OCD. Keep making an effort to be happy, and do the things I love. I have to go out even when I don’t want to, talk to people even when I don’t want to. I need to really listen to people, I need to read, and study, and work hard. I will be fine. I will be better than fine. I will be great.

Hope 2

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 15:11:02 -0400

Today my psychologist told me what amazing progress I have made this summer. This made me feel really good about myself and inspired. You know the fact that I don’t think I can handle future situations has been the driving force of my OCD for some time now, and I guess in the past two days I realized that dealing with things is actually one of my strengths. I was so determined to beat this, I thought so much in depth about my OCD, learned everything I could, and tried my absolute hardest, and I have made so much progress. To the point where I actually have impressed myself. I am proud of myself for getting through this year. Most of the time my need to understand everything is a bad thing, but I think in this particular section of this situation it helped me drastically. I have such a greater understanding of myself, my OCD, and the way the world works in general, and that has aided me greatly this summer. I am going to take this back to school with me and do everything I can to become a better student and a better friend and a better person.

Hope

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 14:16:40 -0400

I just had a really lovely phone call with my dance advisor at school. A few weeks ago I was informed that I was placed back into Level 1 for both Ballet and Modern next semester. As you can imagine this was really upsetting for me, considering I really thought I did the best I could under the circumstances that arose last semester. During our conversations she told me how talented I was, and what a beautiful dancer I was. She said that I had beautiful technique, my own style, and honestly did not see me as behind at all in my class. In fact, she explained that she thinks I am at the top of my class, somewhere in the top third. My problem was my focus. And this was a direct result of my OCD and all of my mental compulsions. They were way out of control, and were extremely debilitating to me. I had informed her of what had occurred last year and she congratulated me on doing as well as I had under those circumstances. One of the last things she said was that she is excited to see what I will do this year, and that she feels that this year is going to be great for me. I feel the same. She said that if I continue working on these things, and I think my school is the right place for me to do this, then I will do great things. This was so important for me to hear. I have been so upset, and discouraged by my feedback. Although lately I have been so inspired by dancing and choreographing this reality was always in the back of my mind. I am so determined to work my ass of this year. And I am so excited.

Jumping to Conclusions

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 00:07:59 -0400

Today at therapy we talked about a lot of things that really shifted the way my mind was. I left feeling really good, and as a result today has felt so much different. I don’t know how else to explain it other than my world just looks different to me, and in a good way. For my OCD we have been using Cognitive Therapy in order to fight my compulsions. For those of you who don’t know, with this technique you basically have to stop each compulsion and recognize the underlying reason for doing the compulsion. Whether it is fear of anxiety, you think something awful will happen if you don’t perform this compulsion, the list goes on, but either way there is always a reason behind your every compulsion. For every compulsion there is an obsession, and by that it means an obsessive thought. You have to find the root of this obsessive thought and then you will have the ability to simply not perform the compulsion. It sounds impossible, especially if you suffer from OCD but it’s not. You have control over your compulsions. You simply have to let the thought go, but be careful not to force it away. The phrase they like to use is “to do nothing.” And that is literally what you are doing. Don’t force it away, and don’t give into it, just let it go. Now what we talked about today is how Cognitive Therapy is actually used more for Depression. It has only recently been exposed to OCD. The difference is the way of using it for Depression is actually the complete opposite approach. You cannot just let the thought go, whichever depressing thought pops into your head you have to face it head on. The best way to do this is to first recognize the initial thought. Whether it be “Life sucks”, “Life is unfair”, “Nothing good ever happens to me”, you must recognize this first before you go any further. Once this is done you must make an argument for and an argument against. Your argument “for” may include the event that just occurred that caused you to have such feelings, or other things in your life that are not what you want, or things that happened that were not expected. Your “against” column will be longer. I promise. Write down anything that you can think of. For example: You have your family, you have your health, maybe you got into a college, or got a new job, or maybe you had a really good day a couple of weeks ago. It is going to be different for everyone, but you will quickly see how much there is in your life to be grateful for. And you will see that there are far more better things than there are good. Now you will be able to evaluate your “for” list. You may realize that many of the items on this list are temporary things. When bad things happen in our lives we tend to blow them out of proportion and we are only able to focus on that bad thing and all of the other bad things we can think of at that time. Because one bad thing happened we may come to the conclusion that “Life sucks, and nothing will ever work out.” That is called jumping to conclusions. Just because one thing didn’t work out doesn’t mean nothing ever will. We tend to put so much more importance on the bad, instead of focusing on the good that is still evident in our lives. This helped me so much. I cannot even express to you. We also talked about other ways to beat depression. One being continue to do things you love. I know firsthand that when you are depressed one of the first things to go is your love for things you once thoroughly enjoyed. Do not stop doing them. I am telling you, that is only feeding into your depression. Another thing to do is to do something that is productive. I know that being productive, and finding inspiration is one of the hardest things to do when depressed but if you can just force yourself to do something you will feel better. I promise. Learn a foreign language, learn how to play an instrument, read a book about something you have no idea about, start a new exercise routine. Anything you can think of. If anyone wants to talk about anything please, my ask box is always open. I tend to only get messages when I am posting out of desperation during a really hard time and while I appreciate that more than you will ever know I would love to talk to anyone who is out there and would like someone to talk to.

This is just a rambling of nothing. Don't even bother reading.

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 16:10:05 -0400

I really wish I took next semester off of school. I am not ready to go back. I am only like three-quarters of the way done with this process. Yes I am going to compare it to rehab but seriously you don’t leave rehab halfway through just because you start to feel a little different. That’s when people relapse as soon as they are thrown back into the real world. I feel like that is what home has been like. Rehab. In the respect that I am away from all of my friends, all of the drama of school, all of the shit that happened this year and I have spent these past few months working through my problems. I am not finished. I feel like when I get back to school I am just going to relapse. All of my compulsions will come back, all of the depression. I am depressed right now. I can’t seem to shake it. I hate it because I feel like it is such a waste of my time, it is a huge waste of the person I am and the things I could be doing. I know all of this, but it doesn’t make it go away. I can’t make it go away. Why can’t I make it go away? I really don’t get it. I can’t let him go. I really don’t get that either. I guess part of me doesn’t understand why he gets to be happy. Why again does he get to be in this great situation and here I am being miserable. That’s not fucking fair. He did this to me. He got me here, and he is what is stopping me from leaving here. I know that is stupid but I am honestly trying my best to let go and move on and make peace with it but I am literally on the verge of tears everyday. Fuck. This is so frustrating. This is not a big deal. It is actually a fine situation. There were no promises broken, no harsh words, it was just a lack of right timing. Something just got in the way. Life got in the way. And i’m not mad at all. I would have done the same thing if it were me. I’m not mad, and I kind of wish I was, I think that would make this easier. I am just disappointed. It was something I really wanted to happen even though the reality of it is it is actually a horrible situation to be in. I know this is right. I know it is helping my OCD. I know it is helping me to realize that I am my own person again, and find that person. And maybe that had to happen, because without that happening I wouldn’t have realized that and it would have just came back to bite me in the ass later. I have to let this go. That is the only way I can keep moving. I guess what breaks my heart is the fact that with me and him it is all or nothing. We are either together or we are not in each others lives. It is just too complicated and never ends nicely. I need to let go now but maybe that doesn’t mean forever, that is something that I can’t predict. Maybe this is what I need to do now, and somewhere down the road we could be friends again, maybe we’ll be in the right places for that. Maybe something more could happen. Who knows? Nobody. The future is so unpredictable. Maybe I will find somebody who it is not so hard with, who makes me happy instead of making me feel like this. I don’t know though. I wish I could just accept that it is not about me. It’s nothing personal. Just once again the timing wasn’t right, and life got in the way. Nobody knows what will happen in the future. God has a plan, and everything is going to be okay. Why is that so hard for my brain to accept. Ughhhhhh I was hoping writing this all out would make me feel better but I don’t know. I just really don’t know what to do anymore.

Strange

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 01:09:23 -0400

Something really weird and unexpected just happened. I realized that recently mostly all of my compulsions are gone. It’s so strange how they can be so intrusive in your mind, and it feels literally impossible to get rid of them, and then they are gone and you don’t even notice. I realized that the two I thought were going to be somewhat impossible to get rid of have been improving drastically lately. There are traces of them still there but for the most part they are so much better than they were a week or two ago. The weird thing is that when I noticed they were all disappearing I got kind of upset, kind of scared. I’ve heard of people who didn’t want to get help for depression and things along that line because they are afraid to feel something different. As awful as it is, that is what they are used to. And I guess that is what I am feeling right now. If there is no more OCD I feel like there is kind of like a void in my life. These past few months have been solely dedicated to freeing myself from these compulsions and now as I see them going I am feeling sentimental. I guess I feel like working through all of this gave me some sort of purpose, it gave me drive, and hope, and passion for something. I know that sounds strange but it just made me feel like I was doing something important. If it’s gone what am I supposed to do now. The more I think about this, and the longer I type this the more I realize that these thoughts are simply emotional, not rational. Not having to battle my OCD will free up so much time and energy for me to focus on things that I love, and things that I enjoy. I will have plenty of time to work my ass off at school, and at my future. I will be able to be exactly where I am and enjoy the place that I am, and the people I am with, instead of living the life I created inside my head. Life will be so much better, and I guess I know this is normal (it is right?) because I have heard of this reaction before, I just never really understood it until now. People don’t want to get better, until they do and they realize how wrong they were for ever resisting it. I will get there. Until then I still have a good amount of unwanted anxiety on a daily basis, so I still have that to work on…

I would also like to say that I don’t think anybody that doesn’t suffer from OCD could ever understand it. Not even psychologists, therapists, psychiatrists, etc. I just think it is something that is so irrational that it is nearly impossible for people suffering from it to understand in the first place. OCD is such an extremely hard thing to conquer and I don’t think there is enough awareness about it at all. People have no idea the pain, and the hard work this journey requires. I am not done with my journey, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. All of this really makes me want to raise awareness about mental disorders. I feel like OCD is one that is joked about. It is one that is used as an adjective, and used to make fun of someone because they got annoyed that the tv volume was an uneven number. It is so much more than that, I honestly think most people don’t have a clue about it. I know this because even though I was suffering from it, for the longest time, I knew nothing about OCD. So much so, that I had no idea that is what my symptoms were a result of. I think that if people were more aware of the realities of it, more people could get help a lot sooner in their lives.

ANXIETY.

Sun, 31 Jul 2011 14:02:12 -0400

I have been having such unbearable anxiety these past two days. I don’t remember it ever feeling like this. Yesterday I could hardly control myself from bursting out crying, or throwing myself in front of a car. It took everything in me to respond to people when they talked to me, and those responses consisted of uh-huh, yeah, and a forced fake laugh. It lasted from the second I woke up at 8:00 until about 8:00 that night. It has been a while since my anxiety has been at such a heightened level for such a long period of time. Today it’s like every few minutes I get this feeling of absolute terror. Of hurt. Of depression. I have never had it like that before. Like completely out of nowhere, so frequently. I am trying so hard, I don’t even have the energy to write this, or the brain power to think anymore. I am tired of my life being so hard.

“Until the age of twelve I thought I was gifted with the power to shape the future, but this power...

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 21:05:56 -0400

“Until the age of twelve I thought I was gifted with the power to shape the future, but this power was a crushing burden, it manifested itself in the form of threats, I had to take just so many steps before I got to the end of the sidewalk or else my parents would die in a car accident, I had to close the door thinking of some favorable outcome, for example passing a test, or else I’d fail, I had to turn off the light not thinking about my mother getting raped, or that would happen, one day I couldn’t stand having to close the door a hundred times before I could think of something good, or to spend fifteen minutes turning off the light the right way, I decided enough was enough, the world could fall apart, I didn’t want to spend my life saving other people, that night I went to bed sure the next day would bring the apocalypse, nothing happened, I was relieved but a little bit disappointed to discover I had no power.”

—

Édouard Levé

Epiphany.

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 14:14:11 -0400

I’ve decided from now on I am going to be one of those people who just go with the flow. I mean seriously why not. Why do we waste all of this time worrying, and planning things out when we are proven time and time again that it doesn’t help anything and things never turn out the way you plan, and the future is so unpredictable. None of us knows what is going to happen in the future, but we all try to pretend that we have this super power. I don’t understand why I have always thought like that. Like it was so important for me to know what was going to happen, so that I could prepare for it. You can’t. That is a gigantic waste of time, not to mention a huge drag on your emotional well-being. From now on I am just going to go with whatever happens. Not take things too seriously. Spend time with the people I love, and try to make the best out of the worst situations, because that is all any of us can do. Seriously. Whatever comes my way I can handle it. Without a doubt. So get the fuck at me. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not running scared from my life anymore.

Not Afraid

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 20:52:34 -0400

Today I found out that he now has a girlfriend. We have been home on summer break for months and this was my biggest fear. I was so afraid of this day. To hear him say that. I didn’t think I would be able to handle it. At all. It was the driving force for many of my compulsions. Well it happened today and you know what i’m okay. I realized that something like this had to happen for me to let go of him, because I wasn’t just going to do it on my own. I know in my heart that this is a good thing. For the past 8 months or so I have had this dark cloud hanging over my head. Poisoning everyday. And now it is gone. It feels like a whole new world today, I swear. I feel free. There is so much out there, so much in this world that I haven’t been experiencing at all. I have been completely stuck, standing still for these past eight months. I am actually happy because I know that no matter how much progress I made with my OCD I was never going to get 100% there because of this. It was holding me back and stopping me from getting there. It was stopping me from getting anywhere. I am so excited about life. I haven’t felt this way in such a long time. I want to learn, and read everything, and travel, and explore, and create, and see so many things, and be so many different versions of myself. Of course this is going to hurt, but I know in my heart this is a good thing. I feel free, like really free. Free from all of it. And I am so excited to see how much better my OCD gets. Today I have seen the immense progress I have already made cause the old me would have let this kill me. And I didn’t. I’m embracing it. I no longer have anything to be afraid of. So many shitty things have been happening lately and you know what I am dealing with them. I am doing okay. Actually I would say I am doing better than okay. I can handle whatever life throws at me. I’m not afraid anymore.