*Trigger Warning - Sexually Explicit, Self-Harm* Worrying about Worrying But somewhere in my soul, I know I’ve met the thing before. Real Riches, - Emily Dickinson It is healthy to worry. It is okay to worry. If we didn’t worry, we wouldn’t plan for things and have backups and contingencies in place. Worry [...]
Recovery is Non-Linear Recovery is non-linear. Anyone who says that getting better is a straight line - I want their secret. I want to be stable, but what does that mean? It means sometimes being unstable, wobbly, broken in particular ways. We shatter and come together. We hurt and we heal. We scream, cry or [...]
Prozac stopped my nail biting I used to be a nail biter. I can remember biting my nails from the time that I was a small child (probably only six or seven) I would do it when I was nervous because I needed something to focus on rather than anxiety . But at the time [...]
“But what if I drop the baby?”: my life with postpartum OCD I always wanted to be a mom. When I met my husband, even though we were young and knew that starting a family was years away, it was something we still talked about and planned for. We picked out names that we liked, [...]
Although I have had an opportunity to rack up a fair share of successes, there was a time when I could barely leave my house as I struggled with the crippling symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which causes uncontrollable, reoccurring thoughts and behaviors. This struggle occurred due to one major reason: there was little access [...]
I've fought my battles with mental health for years. I never really stepped back to take a look at what was going on because I never thought about having a mental health disorder, no matter how I felt, because it wasn't something that people spoke about openly. I knew the symptoms for a flu, I [...]
For the past 25 years I was oblivious to the fact that what I have been living with is considered a mental health condition, instead I went about my days thinking the others around me were strong and confident individuals whereas I believed I was just not. As I grew up I came to learn [...]
The first time I can ever remember my OCD showing itself was fourth grade. My sister, only three years older, was showing me a rated R movie, and my mother walked in. As any typical mother would, she scolded us. Something switched in me that day. I don’t really know what it is that just [...]
I can make planes fall from the sky! I can cause the earth to shake, cars to crash, and buildings to tumble violently to the ground. That’s what my OCD had me believe anyway, though I was never fully convinced. No one has superpowers. Still, I became extremely nervous when thoughts of destruction entered my [...]
I was six years old when I realized something was wrong with me. There had been signs before then, of course, which I had dismissed as being part of my temperament. Even at four years old I remember feeling sad, anxious, and uncomfortable. Back then, my anxiety manifested itself in a less harmful way. I [...]
