I Wish...

     I always talk about accepting the fact that I live with OCD as my new normal and being unashamed to live with a mental health condition. I believe in that idea that I project to the public wholeheartedly. Yet, at the same time, a tiny part of me still gets caught up, sometimes, in wishing that I didn't have a mental health condition that I had to deal with everyday. I catch myself thinking back to a time before THAT DAY (the day I experienced OCD symptoms for the first time) in Art History class, and wishing that my life could be as simple as it was before OCD reared its ugly head.
     I think back, and I remember that before OCD, my biggest worries included, "I have a test in class X...did I study enough?" Or something like, "I've worn a (different) Carson-Newman shirt almost everyday this week, but could I get by with wearing another Carson-Newman shirt?" Or, "I wonder if my grandparents will get me some ice cream after class?" Or, "Hey...that guy is cute, I wonder if he'd take me on a date?" All of those things were normal high school student, teenage girl stuff. Sure, my Advanced Placement classes stressed me out, and I was stressed about going to college in the fall. Those were very normal things.
     In one day, all that stuff changed. I was suddenly having these thoughts that I was repulsed by. I was worried about things like, "Am I going to burn in Hell...yes, I am, just accept my fate now." Or "Am I evil?" Or "Do I need to be put in a mental health facility for a while?" Later, that would change to, "I still have the will to live, right?" And, "I don't feel like giving up, do I? I'm okay, right?" In one day, it seemed like my life got a whole lot harder to deal with, and life sort of just stayed difficult after that because my OCD symptoms never went away.
     Even now, after months of therapy, I still think about my OCD everyday. I imagine my brain has a stereo of intrusive thoughts always playing in the background. Sometimes the volume on the stereo is turned down to nothing more than faint background noise, and I hardly even think about it. Then other days, the stereo volume is cranked all the way up, and it's all I can think about. I also think about the environment that I'm in at any given point during every day, and I sort of watch out for things that I know can trigger my OCD so I can avoid them or at least brace myself for them.
     Sometimes, it's so easy to get frustrated with the fact that I seem to live life a lot more carefully these days. So, I get frustrated, and then I catch myself thinking something like, "Man, I wish I didn't have to think about this." Or, "I wish I could just wake up in the morning, in a different life, where I didn't have OCD so that life might be easier." Sometimes, I daydream about what a life without OCD might be like, and that's sort of hard for me to remember since I've been dealing with it for close to a decade. I even tell my mom sometimes, "If I could somehow take my brain out, bleach it, and put it back, clean of intrusive thoughts and anxiety, I totally would." But, I can't.
     Wishing for a different brain, a different life, or to go back in time never helps me. I usually end up feeling more frustrated because I can't change the fact that I have OCD, and I even feel a little guilty for being ungrateful for the life I was given. I learned in a psychology class that wishing your life was a certain way and telling yourself that life should be a certain way aren't really a good thing, but I catch myself doing those things anyway.
     I'll end with this: There are just some things in life that we can't control, and having a mental health condition is one of those things. Beating yourself up by wishing you were different or thinking that you should be different won't help anything. I've discovered that If I accept myself in whatever moment I'm in with OCD, instead of wishing for a different brain or a different life, or whatever else I could wish for to take away my discomfort, it becomes easier to manage my mental health condition and to see that it's just a bad day that I can recover from.