Written word..... written like spoken word but only on a page rather than in my voice because I write better than I speak.

OCD.....this is my life.

Unmedicated. Learning to relive again without the comforting numb.  As I sit here at my dining room table tap,tap, tapping away on my keyboard. The same dining room table that no less than three hours ago I was crying my eyes out at and losing my mind one strand at a time because my side has been hurting me and my mind refuses to believe it is just a pulled muscle. It instead wants to make me believe that it is from my metformin, or my liver is damaged, or my pancreas is bleeding, or it is something else horribly horribly wrong. I sat there begging my husband for reassurances he can't give and I feel bad because he has only known me medicated and now he has this. This heap of a woman on the floor pleading and praying and at the same time snotting and desperately looking for some answer to my malady. Or even better, all of my maladies. He is unsure of how to proceed and I could tell him but I don't want to fall into old patterns.  I want to be free of this fucking hell hole of a mental disorder and getting reassurance is giving in and I refuse to let it beat me one more time. I refuse. I refuse. I refuse.

The medicine, the only medicine that as ever worked for me, was a killer and so I had to make a choice. Be crazy and alive or not crazy and dead and so I chose crazy. I chose to be here and it is so fucking hard. Sometimes I forget that I used to be better. I was so good I forgot what a panic attack was like, or that the coppery taste of fear does not simply go away with a breath mint, or what the world feels like when it is closing in on you while suffocating you at the same time.

I wish I could fully describe it. The fear and dread and shame but words although powerful are simply too inadequate. There truly are no words. None.

I know it must be frustrating because I look so average, I play normal so well. Others see me and think to themselves that I am making excuses. I should call another doctor about my side and yet the very thought of researching for one causes me so much dread that I simply can not do it right now. I am unable to do it. Unable......people fail to understand that word and take my inability for laziness or procrastination. It never occurs to them that I am unwell no matter how good I look in pictures or how broadly I smile in public. I look well and therefore there must not be anything wrong with me.

But if they could see.....OH God if they could take a long look into my eyes they would know. They would feel it. They surely would see.

If they could hear inside my head they would hear me screaming over and over again. I want to yell and rage on myself for being broken and lost and so fucked up that I can't even do the most simplest of tasks. I want to just stop....just stop already. I feel like I am picking the same scab over and over and watching it bleed and yet am completely unable to leave it the fuck alone. I am so very very exhausted.

Surely, if people could look in my eyes they would see. This is what pain looks like. This is the face of someone being haunted. This is torment and torture and the shattering of a soul. This is not simply a ploy for sympathy or a cry for attention, I already have enough attention. I just want peace...but my mind wont let me. It refuses peace like it refuses reality and I am unable to make it accept either one.

I have ghosts in my head. I have demons inside of my body. I am left feeling broken and shattered and lost. I am left feeling alone and disregarded and ashamed. I am angry because of my emotional weakness and yet so completely devastated by it at the same time. I am tired of the fight and yet I am unable to stop fighting. This is my life. This is my life with OCD.

I fall to my  calloused knees and weep. My heart is fluttering full force. My palms are sweaty. And just when I think the pain and fear can get no greater, the terror sets in. I am terrified. I am being terrorized. I am in a state of complete and unabashed brokenness.

As the warm wet tears spill from my eyes, all of my wishes slip from my tongue onto deaf ears. All deaf but my own. I wish I could touch things and not feel the germs on my skin....I wish I could feel my children's hands touch my face without flinching....I wish I could stop being afraid that my body is secretly trying to kill me...I wish I could just feel life with my fingers and hands ...I wish I could touch things...I wish I could drive...I wish I could work...I wish I could be normal...I wish I could stop crying myself to sleep every night...I wish I wasn't racked with guilt every single fucking second of my life ....I wish I could forget what dread feels like...I wish I could get up off of this floor and be strong, be brave, be proud of myself.

And just when it seems that my list could go on forever and the pain could get no deeper, I stop. I wipe my runny nose with the long black sleeve of my shirt and I and dry my eyes. I stand up from the floor because I realize that I am strong, I am brave, and one day I will be proud of myself. I shuffle up from the floor and I breathe deeply, because tomorrow is another day and I have to prepare for it. I have to prepare to battle my OCD again in the morning and again at noon and again at night. I have to get ready because I refuse to let my OCD win one more time. I refuse. I refuse. I refuse.

Neurotic Nelly