This Burden....

        I have spent my whole life trying to make up for being broken. I have always been a nice person, hoping people will accept me before they know my dysfunction. My life has been full of apologies and trying to swim through the swamps of my mind while trying desperately just to keep my head above water. I have always wanted to be liked. I put everyone else before me. Laying down my feelings on the sacrificial alter for others to trample on.....I have always tried to be so good to prove the things my mind was showing me were wrong. I am always trying to help others while helping myself. Sometimes I fail on the myself parts. And I apologize for that.

I beat myself up for not being perfect. I chastise myself for not being good enough. For not being a hero. For not being able to fix myself. For not being able to fix everyone else. For not being able to be there for everyone and everything that goes on this world. I blame myself for too much and do not forgive myself nearly enough. I lay my body on the concrete steps letting others scrape away my flesh and pick apart my bones till only my faults lie there in my place. Still it seems as if it is not enough. The suffering has become something that somewhere along the line, I picked up thinking it is all I deserve.

This burden has become too heavy and exhausting.

I know now that this is untrue. No, I am not perfect but I am no longer certain that is something I have to apologize for. I am a good person and I do not need to sacrifice my emotions to prove that to anyone, least of all myself. After all of this time, I should know who I am and what I am. I do not need to prove my worthiness or my sweetness or my goodness. I am a good person. I am a sweet person. I am a worthy person. I do not need reassurance for the first time in my life and it is exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time.  I feel hurt by those that have hurt me simply because they can and yet I feel stronger than I ever have. Finally, I have broken through this wall made of bricks and clay that I had carefully erected with my own childish hands trying not to keep others out but to keep myself in. Because I felt that is where the monsters belong. I can see the light shining through the holes I have clawed away and I can feel the sun's warmth on my face. I will no longer live with the darkness that I placed myself in. The empty blackened chamber I made for myself. The punishment I have inflicted upon myself for simply existing. I am no longer afraid. I do not believe that no one will ever love me, truly. I am no longer afraid others will not accept me. I am no longer unsure of my place. Those people's feelings about me do not change who I am. Their opinions on who I should be or what I am do not change my worth. I am not them. They are not me.

The more I look at myself in the mirror, the more I reflect on my own reflections, I realize that this burden I have been dragging behind me is not my burden to carry. No one is perfect.
The blame I have carried is not my blame to cock and point at myself. I do not need this damp and musty overcoat of shame anymore. It never fit me very well anyway.

I am Learning... I don't need anyone else to confirm who I am. I already know and I deserve to treated like the good, caring, responsible person that I am. I don't need to hold on to this self hatred any longer. There is nothing I could ever do that would make me deserve the punishments I have given myself on top of the suffering I already have. This stops today. I will no longer apologize for who I am or what I can and can not do. No one is held to these kind of standards and I shouldn't be held to them either. Even if those standards were something that only I have placed on myself.  So this is me dropping the lies, the blame, the guilt, and the overwhelming sense of shame and letting them all fall away. This is me accepting me, wholly and completely...and I am learning that those that can't stand be behind me on that, don't deserve to be standing beside me as my friends. It is they who are not worthy enough to be in my life and not the other way around....

Here is a short video of me talking about my acceptance of my OCD.
Neurotic Nelly

Inspiration.....Go Whitney!...Haters Need Not Apply....

Sorry I was unable to write last Thursday and Tuesday but I have been under the weather lately. A head cold and a case of "the blahs" will do that to you. But never fear, I am back!

I was watching this television show called "My Big Fat Fabulous Life" the other day. For those of you who haven't heard of this show, it is about a woman who wrestles with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome and has become obese due to the weight gain of her disorder and depression. It is inspiring to me because she has such a wonderful outlook on life. She is working on losing weight but at the same time, she refuses to let it stop her from living her life. She dances. She goes on dates. She laughs. She LIVES.

Of course she gets haters, because people really don't like when someone "out of the mold" as they say, defies social norm and learns to love themselves, or pushes the media fantasy of what a "real woman" is, or refuses to be an unhappy recluse shamed to tears because she is fat.

And this show resonates with me on a number of levels. For one, I have wrestled with two separate eating disorders in my lifetime. A binge eating disorder I have struggled off and on with for most of my life and unspecified anorexia, which I had at the age of eighteen. Basically, I ate only tiny bites of food and exercised for six hours a day. My bones were sticking out, my face was sunken in, my hair had started to fall out.  I have never felt so fat as I did when I was anorexic. I was under 120 lbs which on my frame looks sickly, and yet in the mirror all I saw was fat. The scale was the weapon I used to torture myself with. Then after around a year and a half of this kind of horror with an inept therapist and a bad marriage helping to take it's toll in flipping me to the anorexia, I swung right back to the binge eating like I had done all of my life. I ballooned up, gaining one hundred and forty lbs leaving me at 260 lbs. My weight for me, has been a struggle and it still is a work in progress. I am finally for the first time under 190 lbs and eating completely healthy. I am for the first time, not worried about what the scale says, but what my doctor says about my blood tests. I am not binge eating anymore and have not for over a year.

The second reason for loving this show, is that I don't fit the mold either. Not just because I have been both overweight and too skinny, but because I have a mental illness. And just as there are several stigmas and untruths spread around about being overweight, there are equal if not more stigmas and untruths being spread about mental illness. Some of them are similar i.e. laziness, weak willed, pathetic, disgusting, worthless....and some of them go a step further i.e. dangerous, scary, unhinged....ect. So, even though, I am not as big as the woman in this television show, I feel like we could have been sisters in the discrimination department. We are similar in the discrimination that she faces and the battles she has dealt with because of other people's judgments making her judge herself.

I doubt she knows how inspiring she is, not just to those people with weight issues but also to those of us who have also unknowingly let our disorders steal life away from us. Those of us that too, do  not fit the society's mold of perfection. Because we are scared of what other people would say. Of what other people might think. Of how we forget that we have every right to be seen and be loved not just by others but more importantly, by ourselves.

She says things that inspire me. When she was about to teach a dance class and she was talking about her weight and struggles. Her words hit me like a ton of bricks," It's about a passion and if you feel it you gotta bring it."  And I thought about all of the things I am passionate about but I am afraid of and it made me realize I have a right to do what I am passionate about, to admit that there are big things I am passionate about, and that I have a right to be passionate in the first place. Because she is human, and I am human, and we are all human and to be human is to dream, to learn, to love, and to be passionate.


Case in point, next weeks episode preview was about her buying a swimsuit for the first time in twenty years. I sat there and tried to remember when I bought my last swimsuit, which was over thirteen years ago. Then I tried to remember when I last went to a beach or public swimming hole and I realized it had been at least fourteen years. Not because I was overweight or not, but simply because even though I enjoy swimming, I have OCD and being in a large group makes me feel vulnerable and nervous. It took a television show to show me how far I have let my OCD stop me in things I could be doing. I should be doing. Things I used to love to do but somehow became complacent in because I was worried how other people would react if I had an anxiety attack.

The woman in the show is not so different from the rest of us. She is different from what the media force feeds you to believe everyone should be but she is so much more than that. She is beautiful, she is strong. She is an inspiration and she is a bad ass. She is everything all of us are but many of us just haven't been able to see it yet.

She is learning to say yes to things and she is doing things for herself. In spite of other's ignorant comments and opinions and it inspires me. Maybe one day soon I will go and try a new swimsuit on and go to the beach. Because if she can do it, and not give a flying fritter what other people think, I can too. If she can dance and kick ass then I can too, even though I am a horrid dancer. If she can say yes to things that make her uncomfortable simply because she is an amazing, positive, and inspirational human being, than I can too. Because as she says," I have one life to live and it damn sure better count"

No one deserves to live in shame whether it be for weight, mental illness, or anything different. Difference is what makes us unique and beautiful. Difference is what makes us...us and we are fabulous.

You go girl! Thank you for reminding me to keep trying even when things are scary and rough. You are an inspiration to more than you know!
Neurotic Nelly

Stronger In The Broken Places...

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places...Ernest Hemingway

Mr. Hemingway, besides being a famous and talented author, was also one of us.  He suffered greatly from his mental illness. He suffered from depression but it doesn't matter which mental illness you have. This isn't necessarily an exclusive club of individuals. The only requirement to be one of us is to suffer like one of us. All mental illnesses apply here....

If we had a badge, I would like to think it would be bright and shiny. It would have the word "Brave" on it because to face everyday, we are brave. We walk this world with so much on our shoulders and we keep going in the face of stigma and ignorance, and that my friends, takes bravery.

 We have a ribbon and it is lime green, but I kinda hoped it would be green with large red stripes. I like the stripes idea because we are unique. Each and everyone of us, so our ribbon should reflect that we are....magnificent and we stand out. (course I tend to air on the gaudy side, be thankful I didn't say it should have glitter on it because I looove glitter). Green represents renewal which makes total sense, we grow everyday. We renew everyday. We live each and every day. The red would represent that we are here and we stand in the face of misguided judgement and false preconceived notions of who and what we are. We are us and we are nothing to be afraid of. We are not bad or scary or freaks.

If we had a flag, I would like it to be big and bold. I would like it to have the word "Strong" in huge black letters. Because if nothing else, if we are nothing else, we are strong. We carry so much, do so much, feel so much and yet we get out of bed every morning and have the strength to face the day no matter what it may throw at us. We get up and try over and over and over again. Knowing we might stumble. Knowing that we might fall. Knowing that the world will see us differently. Knowing that somethings may seem absolutely impossible and yet will we do them anyway. And even if we can't do them today, we can try again tomorrow  because we are powerful in our own lives. We are the masters of our own journeys. We are intelligent, we are beautiful. We suffer and struggle and yet still continue to push back and fight against not only our own illness but also against the discrimination and stigma that we all face daily, and that makes us strong.

I guess if you had to call us something we would be a club. A club of amazing, creative, intelligent, and wonderful people that just happen to have mental illness. We are unique. We are magnificent. We are great people. If the world saw us as we really are, they would see that we are just like everyone else except that we suffer from an illness. No different than a physical illness because it is a physical illness. The illness just happens to be in our brains. There is no shame in that and it is high time we start understanding that. No one is ashamed to have heart disease or diabetes. No one should be ashamed to have mental illness. We are not less than we are equal to.  We are virtually exactly the same as everyone else except maybe, just maybe, we are just stronger in our broken places.


Neurotic Nelly

Maybe Just A Little Bit......

Last Sunday was my thirty fifth birthday. My mom and I celebrated our birthdays as we have always done, together. It was nice and calming and the food was good. I got to visit with my grandma which is always a plus. She is so adorable and it got me to thinking....

If you listen to the media and how it portrays mental illness you would think that sufferers look different than other people. You might expect them to look crazy or scary. Dirty or aloof. Awkward or zoned out.

For instance you might think that people with depression look sad....or that people with PTSD look unhinged. You might expect people with Bipolar Disorder to look disheveled or manic....but the truth is that underneath all of the pain and emotional dysfunction and confusion, we are all only human. We don't have our diagnoses printed on our heads in big bright letters. We do not wear our disorders pinned on our sleeves for the world to see.

Look at this picture for example: this is my mother who is a wonderful human being that just so happens to suffer from PTSD, Chronic Depression, and Bipolar Disorder. 

You would never know by looking at her that these are her daily struggles. That sometimes just to get out of bed in the morning seems like an insurmountable task.

And this one: You might never have guessed that both of these people suffer from severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

That I suffer panic attacks and have medical and germ fears so badly I fight them on a daily basis or that she (my grandma) worries and obsesses about things until she gets so full of anxiety she cries. That we both avoid certain triggers that make us uncomfortable. That we both suffer from a tremendous amount of undeserved guilt and shame.

We look fairly normal. We look like the millions of other people that walk the earth. There is nothing in these pictures that show our trials and our struggles. We look like everyone else because in reality we are so much like everyone else. We just happen to have mental illness.

I grew up in a family full of strong women. Compassionate, loving, kind, but also fearless. Not because we were born to be fearless but because there was no other way to be and survive. We are women that have lived through abuse. We are women that have lived through mental illness. We are women that have fought for our lives and triumphed because there was no other option available and we are too stubborn to back down. 

I guess what I am trying to say is that depression doesn't always show on your face. You can be a smiling face to the world but be wounded and alone on the inside. You can be Bipolar and look like the neighbor that cooks out on Tuesday nights. You can be OCD and be the mailman that wears that funny little safari hat in the middle of summer. There is no "mental illness look". There are no physical traits that show our pain or our issues. We look like everyday people because we are everyday people. We just have different struggles to deal with.....

The media would have you believe that people that suffer from mental illness look like glazed eyed ax wielding murderers. They would have you believe that we look like kidnappers and boogeymen. They try and paint pictures of us that are neither helpful nor factual. We are not the thing that goes bump in the night. We are not the monsters hiding under the bed. We look like a thirty five year old woman and her fifty six year old mother on their birthday and their seventy five year old grandmother. We look like a beloved always smiling for the public sixty three year old comedian and actor. We look like soldiers coming back home from war. We look like doctors, and lawyers, and car salesmen. We look like children, and parents, and siblings because we are all of those things..... We look like other people because we are other people. We are just ordinary, regular, everyday people that just happen to suffer. We are no different and we are no less magnificent. We are still beautiful. We are still worthy. We are still lovable, courageous, intelligent, fascinating, purposeful individuals except maybe we are just a little bit stronger. A little bit more aware of the struggle of others and maybe just a little bit more compassionate about it.

Neurotic Nelly

It's An Idea Though.....

Tuesday was not my day folks. I wrote and I cleaned but I also suffered self inflicted boo boo's. Not on purpose mind you, but due to my ever present clumsiness. I often wonder if I was meant to be the fourth of the three stooges. I am still recovering and mad at myself for being so......me.

First I was cleaning the litter box and stood up without realizing I was under the valley of the ceiling and hit the back of my head so hard, I literally saw stars. I didn't know that could actually happen. I always thought that was a cartoon thing not a real life thing. Well, it is and it hurts. Then I managed to bump my head two more times on the table and cabinet door while picking up things.....wonderful.

The worst part was when I made dinner in the wok. I was cooking pepper steak and I had failed to realize that the meat was still frozen on the back side. When my oil was hot and ready I dumped the frozen meat into the wok and instead of it being chunks falling into the oil the whole slab of frozen meat clunked into the  pan. The frost on the back side of the meat hitting the hot oil coupled with the force of the meat hitting the pan made it splash all on the underside of my left arm.....wonderful. Now I have several red angry burn marks and a headache. Tuesday was just dandy.

Wednesday was better albeit sore and that leaves today. Good ol' Thursday.

I was checking the news and reading about mental illness as I usually do. I like to know what is being done or rather mostly not being done to help with our cause, our issues, and our treatments. I'm obsessive like that. Anyway, I was reading a really good article from USA Today called, "People With Mental Illness Face Legal Discrimination" and my initial reply to the title was, "no shit Sherlock". I mean, the article is great but this is hardly news. All of us with a mental illness are aware of this fact. I like that the article is bringing to light how the U.S. government views mental illness but I am not sure that articles and news stories will change a great deal. They are often overlooked and ignored, sadly.

What do I think we should do to change this? Well, I have some ideas, keep in mind I am crazy, but my main idea is to be counted. In the past when a group of people were openly discriminated against they protested. They held parades, they made flags, they were and are public and open. There is a gay parade. There is a Martin Luther King day. The reason many of these ideals and discriminations were changed was by the sheer force of numbers of minorities standing up and being proactive. Being public. Showing that they were out there and they were tired of being ignored and judged.

Yes we have walks, but they are not broadcast on the news. Yes we have mental illness month but it is largely ignored. We are not represented in a way that is positive enough nor are our protests heard as much as they need to be to make said changes to our broken system. We are still very much afraid. Don't get me wrong, news articles help but it is not enough.

Yes, even though there are parades and special days for other minority groups that have been discriminated against there is still some discrimination going around. But the big difference is that it is now considered politically incorrect to talk negatively about someone because of their religion, race, political affiliation, or sexual preference. It is looked down upon and is considered to be rude and ignorant and yet, it is perfectly acceptable to talk despairingly about people with mental illness. It is done in books, movies, and even on the nightly news. There is no political correctness  preventing people saying that we are worthless, scary, dangerous, or broken.

It's okay to deny us medical coverage when we need to be hospitalized for long periods for mental reasons. It is okay to say that we aren't employable or productive. That we are a plague on society. It is okay to arm chair diagnose people with supposed mental illness on television when they haven't even been seen by the diagnoser. Or to promote the idea that all mental illness sufferers are homeless or vice versa. It's kinda crazy out there folks.

And no one shames them for it. No one stands up and calls them on their obvious ignorance and misinformation. It is left where it lies and we are the ones that have to deal with the negative labels and false misconceptions.

We need a peaceful showing of solidarity. A walk through cities and towns with not just thirty or forty people but with thousands. We need our own color shirts and our own support ribbons, our own flag, our own representation that is positive. Just like how AIDS is looked at now. Where it was once treated with stigma and shame people now openly discuss it and wear support ribbons for it. It is no longer shrouded in ignorance and left under the shadows of indifference. It is remembered and recognized, mental illness is not.  And in many ways it is our fault because we let the fear and stigma hold us back. We do not convene by the thousands and walk so we can be positively promoted on the news. We do not hand out pamphlets that promote acceptance and understanding of mental illnesses. We are covertly operating when we need to be openly active. We have to demand change in this country and the only way to do that is by being seen and heard not by a few articles when the news is slow or a post or two as an after thought but by large numbers, by masses of sufferers and their supporters saying,  'We are here and we matter". We need to erase the stigma and shame that the title mental illness has draped over it. We shouldn't be ashamed. We have no reason to be. We shouldn't have to live fear. We shouldn't have to hide ourselves from the rest of the world. Mental illness should be viewed the same way as every other ribbon represented illness. It should be viewed the same as diabetes or heart disease. It should be viewed the same as lupus or cancer. It is an illness not a crime. It is not evil. It does not make you a threat no more than having HIV and yet there is plenty of support for all of these other medical issues. There should be no difference in support just because our issues are mental rather than medical.

And if you really think about, mental illness is discriminated against but it does not discriminate who it affects. It affects all races, all incomes, all religions, all sexual preferences. Statistically, that would mean it shouldn't be a minority, There are literally thousands upon thousands of us and that is just the people that have been diagnosed. What if we are not a minority group? What if we are just led to believe that because believing that we are small makes it easier to ignore what we go through and easier for us to not stand up and ask for our rights as human beings?

Every group that has changed the way they are viewed has had to do this and if we want things to change than we have to peacefully do it as well. We can't just hide behind our fear. It changes nothing when we do.

I don't maybe I hit my head too hard and I just over thinking things. I just feel like if we want things to change we have to be more outspoken and more visible....maybe this headache is taking it's toll and I am just rambling on like a mad woman. It's an idea though. What do you think?

Neurotic Nelly

The Author......

Sorry I have been sporadic on my blogging lately. Life has been giving me some fumbles and some great days as well but all of them have been rather busy. Thankfully my kids will be out for summer break soon so my schedule should start to go back to normal.

I was remembering my great grandfather the other day. He died when I was rather young but what I remember about him was his quiet demeanor. His strong meaty hands. His bald head, plaid shirts, and glasses. I remember he was not one to love nonsense and since I was a rather bubbly hyper little girl it must have been tiring when I came to visit. He was nice but I remember being intimidated by him because he didn't say a whole lot. He had had throat cancer and although they had cured it, he still didn't talk too much.

Growing up I always thought of him as strong. He was a farmer since childhood. He raised three great kids and had many jobs. He was the one who found his brother after his brother had killed himself. His real mother died early in his life. His life had been hard and yet he had made the most of it. He took care of his family but he was the type of father that was strict and demanded respect. Not necessarily a bad thing just different than what I was used to. He was a family man and he was a good man.

Living the way he did in the time that he did he was forced to quit school after third grade. He was needed to help provide for his family and so this interesting, strong, and definable man was unable to read or write. He could sign his name and write a few small words but he was unable to read the newspaper, or a book, or even a pamphlet.

My grandma was telling me a story the other day, about how he had gone to church and got saved. He had started going to Sunday school and at one visit they asked him to read a page from the Bible. He became so embarrassed that he left and  never went back again.

And it made me sad to hear this. First of all I am a very literary type person. I love to read. I love to write. Language arts has always been my best and most favorite subject. I can not imagine how it would be to not know how to read.

And it also made me realize something. Everyone has something they feel ashamed of. Whether it be something like not being able to read or something like mental illness. We all have something we are embarrassed about. Even if we don't openly talk about it.

My great grandfather was not one to discuss his lack of literacy and in fact, I didn't even realize that he couldn't read. It wasn't his fault that he had to quit school at such a young age. It wasn't anything to be embarrassed about really, in that generation many people couldn't read. In fact that is why in the eighties, this country started a huge adult literacy program. But he was a proud man and he didn't want to be looked at like he was stupid or ignorant.

I may not have known my great grandfather as well as I would have liked but I do know we have some things in common. I too know what it is like to be embarrassed about something that isn't really my fault. I too know what it is like to feel the need to hide the things I perceive to be wrong with me. I also know what stigma is like, even if we were stigmatized for separate reasons.

It pains me to think that there was something that made him feel less of a person. I know exactly what that feels like. And maybe in honor of his memory I can choose to look at myself in a different light. I can refuse to let the things I am embarrassed about keep me from doing the things I want to do. I can be open about them because I know that I am not alone just as he was not alone in his. I can choose to not look at my dysfunctions and disorders as a negative and just look at them as they are. They are a part of me and a part of what makes me who I am today. Maybe I can look at my strong, wonderful, enigma of a great grandfather and see that one of the things that makes him seem more human to me is that he wasn't perfect and maybe if I am open and share mine as well, I can be more relatable. I can be seen as more human through my faults. Because I am human and all that being human entails. I can embrace my faults and shed the shame that tends to come with them. After all, no one deserves to go through their whole life feeling less than, simply because their lives dealt them a hand with a couple of crappy cards in it. It doesn't mean that we can't accomplish things or have to hide from our own imperfections.

It occurs to me that we are the authors of our own lives. We don't have much control over what life throws at us but we do have control over how we choose to deal with it. We have control over how we choose to look at the hands we have been dealt. We have control over whether we are going to let shame and embarrassment rule over our lives like evil dictators. Dictating what we think we can or can't do.

We write the stories of our own lives and we have the ability to change our own plots, our own character summaries, our own titles. Do we want our titles to say defeated, afraid, and ashamed or do we want our lives to have titles like strong, resilient, and unstoppable.

In reality, it doesn't matter if we falter. It happens. It doesn't matter if we are sometimes unsure of our next step. It doesn't matter if we get scared that we may take a misstep. It doesn't even really matter if we can read the stories that we have written. What matters is that we live them and that we try our hardest to be proud that we do.


Today, my title is going to be Acceptance, because I refuse to be ashamed of something I can't help or embarrassed because I fail at something other's don't. I want to be proud that I tried and trying is everything. Never give up. Never surrender. We can do this and we can do this well. We are more than just victims of our lives, we are the authors of them. We can't rewrite history but we can write the future from here on in.

Neurotic Nelly

Terrorized.....

I am doing something I don't usually do. I am writing this at 11 at night. I usually write around noonish on Tuesdays but today was hard for me. I actually purposely avoided it. I knew that this would be hard for me to write and even harder for me to think about. I knew that when I write I feel what I type and I had tried to avoid what I have been feeling all day.

A deep rush of dread has been in the background. It isn't the most powerful of my emotions but it is underlying. Like layers of paper, it is under my other feelings. It resides under my daily activities. Under my phone conversations and chores. Under my laundry lists and planning for Thanksgiving. I can smile, I can laugh, I can have a peaceful cup of tea but underneath is that niggling feeling of dread. Much like the feeling of waiting for a bad report card to show up in the mail or an abusive parent to come home. That feeling of dread of what is to come. I know it will come just not when or what will set it off. Not necessarily the face I present to my children or my husband but it is there waiting for me be still. So it can creep up and rush over me in waves of horrible dreadful fear. It is so palpable I can taste it. It is it's own being. A monster lurking in the shadows. I can hear it breathing.

It's hard to describe what having an "episode" like this is like. I try to find words or euphemisms that make sense to my understanding husband. All I can come up with is pure unadulterated terror. I am being terrorized by my mind and I am unable to describe it. I am left mute by it. I try to avoid it. Mostly, I try to not be still.

You see, having OCD means that I can not just let go of things. I can not simply be fine with certain issues. I worry. I fret. The harder I try to deny what is going on the stronger the feeling of dread is. It waits patiently for me to go to bed. When my hands are not busy washing or cleaning, when my mind is not occupied by lists and plans, when my body is simply too exhausted to have the will to fight it off. It doesn't need to be loud or intrusive. It simply waits. It always gets what it wants in the end. Eventually, I will feel the fear in full force, so it just lingers around to let me know that it is there. Always stalking. Always waiting.

I went to the doctor's yesterday. I have been worried I may have another stone in my bile duct. I have been doing good so far, but I feel I can't really trust that. I have had stones for eight years and this year I had four surgeries in a four month period to remove them. I became extremely ill and turned yellow before the last surgery. As someone with severe OCD I am paranoid of health issues anyway. This did not help things.

I was told that I am now diabetic. Borderline mostly and I need to lose weight to see if I can get rid of the diabetes. It was a shock to say the least. Diabetes runs in my family. I am not an extremely large person but I need to lose around sixty pounds to be where the doctor thinks I should be. I have put on weight after having my children and the medications I used to take for my OCD. I still was not prepared to hear my diagnoses. I had no symptoms or any idea that I had become diabetic. I knew I should lose weight but I had no idea what was really going on inside my body. The problem for me is not that I am diabetic per say. It is the unknown. I am not good with the unknown. My doctor put me on a medication. She rushed me through and didn't answer any of my questions. I have had surgery not to long ago and although rare, this medicine can cause death if certain criteria are met. Recent surgery adds to this criteria. My doctor didn't tell me this but the little sheet of paper on the pharmacy package did. My doctor did not order me a script for a blood glucose monitor. She did not tell me to check my sugars. She in essence told me nothing. I felt angry and scared and mostly in shock.

Here is where the fear comes in. I do not see the dietitian until the fourth. Because I have OCD I am terrified to eat. Terrified to not eat and too exhausted to figure out which way is the best way to handle this. Because my doctor is not answering the questions that I think are pertinent, I had to call my GI surgeon to ask if it is okay on his front to take this medication. Is my liver healthy? Do I have any renal problems they are unaware of? I have to ask these questions because for six months after my last surgery I was on a liver medication. My doctor didn't seem to be interested in that fact. This scares me. I am still waiting on my GI surgeon to get back to me. So I am waiting and as anyone with OCD knows the longer I wait the worse my fears become.

Eating terrifies me. Not eating terrifies me. The medication terrifies me. The not taking the medication terrifies me. I am completely terrified. To hold all of this back instead of being strong and facing what I know is going on with my OCD, I decided to clean. I scrubbed the floors, made the beds, got my house ready for Thanksgiving. I put up the boy's Christmas tree, that they are going to decorate on their own.( more about that on my next post). I hung Christmas stockings and planned meals. I vacuumed, swept, mopped, washed, scrubbed, till my knuckles were raw. I avoided each fear, each feeling that threatened to rush over me with taking out the trash, doing laundry, and straightening picture frames. Even going so far as to clean my yard and porch in twenty degree weather while it snowed down on me while my fingers became numb with the cold. Knowing that if I stopped for one second, if I let myself even look at the feeling of dread, the fear would rise up like a wild fire in the pit of my stomach and spread throughout my body with the hot scorching flames licking at my limbs, torso, and face until I was so engulfed in it that I would become immobile. I would become so absolutely terrified that I would break into two halves and fall to the floor. I would lose all composure and be lost.. I was, no am desperate to not feel this misery I know is going to attack me when I lay my head down to sleep tonight. Except I wont sleep, because I will be worrying. I will lay my head on a pillow of dread and wrap myself with the blanket of fear. I will cry myself to exhaustion and then maybe I will get a few moments of complete emptiness enough to nod off. Stuffy nose and tear streaked face to accompany my dreams.

You see, I have health fears so to me, I am afraid my body has turned against me and I just don't know it. It's hard to describe except that I often fear my body will betray me. It will make me sick or hurt. I constantly fear my organs aren't working properly. Sounds weird but it is how I feel. This is health fear OCD folks, and it is a doozy. I am usually able to ignore it but not today.

I also have contamination fears. After I had to get off my medication for OCD because it was known to cause a severe heart arrhythmia and was killing people, I began to look at medicine as poison. Not intentionally but because my OCD picked up on it. Medication or at least the thought of it terrified me to my very core. When I had to take the liver medication, I prayed every night, sometimes twice, that it would cause no damage and would just do what it was supposed to. Make me better... Please just make me better and please don't hurt my liver, or make me sick, or make me...die. Please don't take me away from my children. Please don't make me miss them growing up. Please don't let me hurt them by leaving them without a mother. They need me. Please. Please. Please God. Please..... crying silently into my pillow until my body became wracked with exhaustion that I would fall asleep. I did this every night for six months. I never told anybody. It was ridiculous sounding. It seemed silly to cry myself to sleep as an adult over something I didn't even know was going to happen or not. More than that, it is extremely painful to spill out my deepest fears, my weaknesses, my shame. To say them aloud is to own them and it is beyond  agonizing to admit them to my loved ones, my friends, let alone anyone else. To admit that I am sometimes so very strong and sometimes so equally devastatingly weak. Sometimes I am broken. Sometimes I am simply, overwhelmingly, terrifyingly broken..

When I got off the medication I was a little scared the stones would come back. I was afraid of more surgeries and hospital stays. More terrible food and anxiety attacks because I was far away from the safety of my home and I had to deal with strangers on a daily basis. They were nice but they weren't my family. I was also grateful that my secret nights of crying would be over and now I would get to be me again. No pills that could harm me. No one would have to know about my weak nights. My silent crying until my pillow was soggy nights. My begging until I fell asleep nights. I was free, finally.

Now, I know with my brain that medications are important. I know this. I know that this diabetes medication is taken by thousands of people and they do marvelous on it. I would most likely be no different. And after I lost the weight I wouldn't have to take it anymore. But the fear is there. It is back almost as if it never really left. The unfounded yet extreme fear that this medication is actually more poison than help. That this medication could harm me more than heal me. It may not be founded as the complication is rare, but that is how OCD works. I have a fear of catching the plague in Wal-mart. It isn't factual but there it is. No one has reported a mass outbreak of the plague at Wally World recently but it still goes through my mind. That is why I love hand sanitizer. There is no hand sanitizer for poison that comes in pill form.

Then there is the fear that by not taking the medication my sugar level maybe too high. I don't have a monitor to check it and even if I did, I would still be terrified. The only way not to worry me would be to have one surgically implanted so it could read it every second of every day and they don't have anything like that. I am terrified when I eat things. I wonder if my sugar has gone through the roof. I have to force myself to swallow and not think about it turning into pure sugar as it goes into my bloodstream. I don't know what else to do until I see the dietitian, so I try to avoid breads and things with a lot of carbs. Then the OCD sets in and I am scared that I am not eating enough. Maybe my levels will go too low and that could cause diabetic coma. I am sometimes alone. This could be really bad. And how the hell will I know either way if I don't know when to check it or have a monitor to check it with?  I now eye every fruit, every vegetable, every single piece of food as suspect. I now am terrified of what I drink. I have no idea what is going to spike my levels nor if they are spiked without me knowing. I feel like I am being tortured every time I walk into the kitchen. I am being terrorized in my own home and it is by me. I am terrorizing myself.

So, today I did what OCD sufferers do best. I avoided. I avoided writing and thinking and anything that remotely resembled obsessing about it out loud. Until now, because I feel that I have to and need to, be honest about my OCD. Because you can't write a blog about mental illness and pretend that everything is okay all of the time. Everything is not okay. Sometimes I do not have great days. Sometimes I do not have great weeks. Sometimes not even great months. I need to purge my fears even though they are extremely painful and scary. Even though I know to normal people they seem completely ridiculous. Event though I am afraid of being judged by them. Even though a million reasons of why I should just shut up and deal with it like an adult goes through my mind, over and over and over again. I need to tell my readers because there may be a million reasons not to tell but, there is one extremely important reason to tell, because there are others out there like me that are too scared to talk about it. And they need to know they are not alone. I want them to know that there are people that go through the very same feelings of believing that they are weak, that they are broken, the very same feelings of fear and dread, and yes, the very same feeling of shame because they feel that no one understands. I have to be honest because I don't want one more single person to have to cry silently in their pillows at night. And worse yet, keeping it a secret because they feel ashamed by it. My shame ceases to be shame if it helps one person feel less alone.

I am going to be okay. I know that whatever my surgeon says I will be fine. I am going to do what I need to do to be healthy and if it is this medication than I will have to just learn to deal with it. I may cry myself to sleep at night and beg til my voice is but a whisper but I will get through it. I may be scared but I will forge on. I will find out what I can eat and can't. I will go to the gym and exercise. I will get healthier so that this does not define my every waking moment. So that my OCD  takes a back seat and is no longer trying to drive the car. I will win this battle, not just because I want to but because I really have no other choice. It's fight or drown and I have no desire to breathe in water today.

I heard once that the strongest of steel is forged in the hottest of fires....If that is true than we surely will be stuff cities and civilizations are built on. We will be the strongest of beams, the toughest of walls, the tallest of bridges, and the sharpest of swords. We will be unbreakable....

Neurotic Nelly

Confession...........

I am not Catholic and yet I often times wish I had a wandering priest following me around so I could have someone to unburden myself from all of my constant guilty feelings. I feel the need to confess. I need a portable confessional, anyone know where I can get one? Anyone?

I try very hard to hold in the urge to confess my imagined sins. Intrusive thoughts that I would never act on and that horrify me. Something said that made me uncomfortable. The feeling that I may have inadvertently insulted or offended someone or said something that was bad about them. I can feel it rise up my throat like bile as it threatens to explode out my mouth in a wave of mass hysteria. The more I bottle it in the more pressure bubbles to release it.

Always the guilt. The dread. It bogs me down like wet concrete threatening to close off my wind pipe. I am weighted down. I am drowning in my own mind. I can't breathe. I need to confess. I might have said something that would be offensive. I need to apologize, I might have overheard something that makes me feel like I have done something to be ashamed of. I must let it out. I must let it go. I must be absolved.

.................................................................The voice in my head plays over and over like a broken record that suffers from Tourette's syndrome. It yells at me, randomly. It damns me. Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! Bad! Bad! Bad! Pathetic! Pathetic! Pathetic!

I feel bad. I feel like an evil, awful, terrible excuse for a human being. I must be reassured that I am decent. That I have not done anything bad. That I am not a bad person. That I am not lower than dirt. I go out of my way to be good but for my OCD it is never enough. It won't stop until I have called my absolver. I guess she is kind of like a priest except that she is a Southern Baptist, and a woman, and my mother.

It is so hard to openly discuss what goes through my mind. My insanity is overwhelming to some. I know that explaining the feelings I have of guilt, even though I know I have done nothing wrong, is hard for many to understand. Hell, it is hard for me to understand and I have been going through this for thirty years. I don't know how else to describe it except that it is a soul shattering awareness that your mind is often times your own worst enemy. That you suffer needlessly because you can not totally accept that what your mind tells you and reality are two different things. That you are not alone and yet at the same time feel excommunicated from the rest of the world. It's difficult and sad and frustrating.

To say I have an overactive guilt complex would be an understatement. I blame myself for everything. The eco system, what the neighbor said to me, world hunger, the fact that I can't work, the ozone layer depleting, the Pope's caravan driving down the wrong street. I realize that I am not responsible for these occurrences but I feel guilty about them non the less. I have so much guilt I could seriously share some with the rest of the world and still have plenty to go on myself. Overactive guilt complex wouldn't be the right term for me anyway, because that seems to indicate that at some point you don't feel guilty. Like you can have some days where you don't feel like you are drudging through a tar pit of guilt. That doesn't happen to me. I am always feeling guilty about something. Always.

So I confess. I try to rid myself of this warm, wet, suffocating cloak of shame. I try to save what's left of my day. I confess to my mother, sometimes my husband, occasionally my friends, mostly to this blog.......My personal confessional. My personal journey from out of the mouth of madness to the reality of what I go through looking back at me on the computer screen with the little blinking line patiently awaiting what I decide to type next. Sometimes it comes easily and sometimes I swear to God, I am pulling my teeth out trying to figure out how to describe what I am dealing with. Always afraid in the back of my mind that others will think I am insane......kind of ironic actually. Because I am certifiable. Not that I am proud of that fact but I have just recently decided to stop being ashamed of it. It is what it is. I can not change it. I can only keep getting better, stronger, and doing the best I can. I can only do what I can do. I can offer support to those that suffer the way I do. I can be an advocate, a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, and a friend. If that means that I feel guilty over and over again then so be it. I have to confess. I have to be honest. I have to open because I am incapable of being any other way.

So, this what the guilt of OCD is like. This is what it does to people. It makes them feel bad when they are the complete opposite. It makes them feel guilty when there is nothing to feel guilty over. It makes people feel lost and alone. Always second guessing. Always doubting. Always unsure..........


I hate OCD but I refuse to be shamed any longer because of it. This is my confession.

Neurotic Nelly