The good people in your life are really important. The bad people not so much. They are not necessarily bad people just highly misinformed. I can not count how many times I have been told to "just get over" my OCD. Just stop it already. Yes, because I am doing this on purpose. I enjoy the stigma and torment of my diseased mind. (Insert sarcasm here) Trying to explain OCD to someone who either doesn't get it or just refuses to get it is time consuming and emotionally draining. I have friends that shall remain nameless, that I love dearly. I mean I have your back, would do anything for you without question kind of friends. Some of them just can not grasp what I am going through. Some of them suggest I go out and get a job.( I should note that being a stay at home mom is a job and I am a pretty damn good one) I know that these people want what they think is best for me. I love being around people. Staying at home almost all of the time can get monotonous and boring. Wouldn't it be better to go out and make something of yourself? They are not trying to hurt me with these comments and yet they wound me deeply. They are a testament to how much these particular dear friends do not get what I am dealing with. It is not their fault and yet the years of explanations have fallen on deaf ears. I have had teachers scold me for absences that were because of severe anxiety attacks.They never asked what was going on. They just felt the need to judge my absences as I just wanted to skip school. I have had people look down on me because I do not work. I have had some family members at one point or another act as if I can control my OCD. If only it were that easy. Many people with OCD can work and live mostly normal lives, but there are some of us who don't. There are some of us who can't. Does that mean that we are less worthy or "faking it". I often think if I had been born with no arms or legs would they still throw having a job in my face? No they would see that there is a problem with their rationale. And yet it is perfectly acceptable to throw verbal spears in my direction because I look like they do. What they don't get is that I was born with no arms and no legs. When the anxiety attacks come my feet melt into the pavement. My legs refuse to budge from that very spot. They are frozen and therefore no use to me. They are in that moment for all intensive purposes gone. When I walk into a room or business and the contamination of germs fear forms, I can not touch things. My hands curl into balls and I couldn't grab a pen sitting on a desk if my life depended on it. For that moment for all intensive purposes my arms have ceased to exist. Yet, this information never seems to sink in. They never seem to get it. Their judgement on how I should live my life has put up a wall between our lives. You would not proceed to tell a man that raises horses how to take care of his horses, if you have never even owned a horse would you? Of course not. Well maybe some people would but who would take that person seriously? I will not be told that I am less of an individual because I can't work and you can. I can not lift three hundred pounds with my left pinkie either. That does not mean I am less of a person than someone who can.
Neurotic Nelly
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