Diagnosis

So I have had a rough couple weeks.

I feel the need to write about it but I can’t seem to gather my thoughts to resemble anything coherent. So this may just be a jumble so bear with me folks.

As I’ve mentioned before I started counseling about a month and half ago. I have been struggling with depression and extreme anxiety for quite a while, among other things that I have been dealing with silently for years. I didn’t really feel like they were out of hand until about last May when the anxiety attacks started. I had so many thoughts crowding my head that I was convinced I was going crazy. In fact, I thought that I had probably been crazy for a while I just never noticed…if that makes sense. (Although it probably doesn’t to you.)

You see, I have been plagued with obsessive and horrible thoughts since I was a teen but I’ve kind of developed a system to bury them and move on. Except I haven’t really moved on. I created routines to help me. Then about the time I got married I started needing to do certain things or avoid certain things to ensure the safety of others. I became so obsessed with my family’s safety that my mind created completely irrational things that would ensure my family’s safety. Ridiculous things that to a normal person would seem silly or crazy.

This became  a part of my daily routine and for me it was normal. Until I got stuck. Until there were times when there was no safe option and I started having to pick between who  gets hurt. (Keep in mind that no one actually got hurt. This was just my mind creating scenarios. Convincing me that if I didn’t make the right choice these things might happen, though they never did.)

The pivotal incident happened some time last year. I was doing a normal chore, laundry, and I had to make a decision again but there was no “safe” choice and no choice that sacrificed myself. I had to choose between the “deaths” of one of my kids or my husband. I was petrified. I couldn’t possibly do that. I was standing there frozen and breathing heavily and started to sob. My husband noticed and literally had to pry the clothes from my hands and pull me away. I fell into his arms and couldn’t control the sobs and I couldn’t breath. We stood there with him holding me tightly to “keep me together”. Then when I calmed down he finished the laundry while I sat on my bed disgusted at  myself, thinking, ” I am truly crazy”.

So finally this year, after a few more incidents, I made the decision to get help. About three weeks ago I came out in tears and told my counselor all these things. I was embarrassed. It was so hard because she was the first person I’ve ever told these thoughts to. My husband knew a little but he did not know details of what went on inside my head. ( This post also lacks specific details as well because they are just too personal to share with the world.)

So for the past three weeks we have been exploring these thoughts and when they started. Let me tell you that this has been so hard for me. Some of these thoughts I have buried deep inside as to forget them and pulling them back up has caused me to slip a little further into depression. I know it’s doing good though, you have to dig deep to really understand things. So now I am being treated for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

Last week she came right out and finally said that’s what I have. So the past few days it’s all I can think about.

I have OCD.

I have a mental disorder.

I am having trouble coming to terms with this.

I mean, I knew  something was wrong. That something wasn’t right with my thought process. But hearing it out loud, being labeled and being put on medication just makes it so real. So final. I don’t know how to deal with it. I feel…hopeless. I know that it’s treatable. That it can be managed, but from everything I am reading, it is a forever condition. Something I will always have, will always struggle with. I may have “seasons” where it isn’t a problem but it will always be there.

I am having a hard time accepting this.

I can’t seem to believe that I have it even though everything I’m reading clearly proves I do. It’s just hard to accept that there is something wrong. I’m so angry that I have to live like this. That my mind can’t just accept things. That I have to over analyze and worry and pick things apart. It kills me that I have been living with this for so long and I never realized it until now. I keep thinking about what it would have been like if I would have spoken out when I was a teenager.

Uhg. This is just so much to process, so much to think about. My head is already so full. I am just so tired.