Talk it Out

     I've mentioned before that I was a loner who thought she might be too logical to actually have feelings. (Or, at least I pretended to be too logical while my feelings were actually trying to drown me on the inside). I've also always been a very private person, which means I've never felt the need to talk about my worries, problems, and especially not my feelings with another human being. I never minded listening to other people talk about those things, and I was glad to help in that way. If I thought about talking to someone about something like that it just seemed too...mushy and attention-seeking. I had to be tough and logical, always logical. I was afraid that feeling things meant I wasn't logical, so I was afraid of the feelings. (That wasn't logical, now was it?)
     One problem: I have lots of worries and lots and lots of feelings. It is pretty much impossible to be logical when your feelings are all bottled up inside, going all over the place like a toddler hopped up on caffeine chasing a Great Dane puppy around a small apartment. Trying to keep up with all the worries and the feelings to process them all so I could let them go when I wasn't even really allowing myself to admit that I had feelings that I needed to express just turned my mind into chaos. I tried writing about everything in the form of journaling or writing poetry, but that still didn't get me out of my own head so I could take a step back and process all the things. I was still giving the worries and the feelings so much power in my mind, even though I was expressing them in writing, that they were getting stuck and not moving along. So, things piled up and piled up, and I just kept bottling things up. Then the anxiety disorder kicked in.
     Then I went to therapy, and talking to my therapist about all the things helped. She offered me a simple explanation: she said that by keeping everything locked down and pretending I didn't feel things I was giving my own thoughts too much power, the power to overwhelm me and shove me down all these little thought trails of catastrophe because it's impossible to be logical when you feel so overwhelmed and afraid of things. By saying my thoughts and feelings (even my intrusive thoughts) out loud, I was taking away the power I had given them.
     When I heard some of my thoughts and resulting worries out loud, I realized that the thoughts sounded insignificant. I had let my mind blow things up into unreasonably catastrophic proportions, and then I was jumping to the conclusion that all those things were the worst possible things in the world. I just had to verbalize them, and then I could verbally logic my way back to the actual reality where I could realized that my thoughts were just thoughts and my worries were small. Then I could begin to process, and I didn't feel like I was drowning.
     I realized that I couldn't keep bottling things up like I had been. I had to talk about things so I could work through them. Even talking out loud to myself (when I'm home alone on particularly bad days with my OCD) helps me think more clearly and then I can process and move on.
     On issues when my OCD isn't the cause, like I feel weird or I wonder if my reaction to something is a typical, healthy reaction, or if I'm worried about something else, I talk to my mom or a friend that I know I can trust. I talk about any problem that bothers me now instead of keeping it bottled up or just writing about it, and talking about it always helps me, even when the other person doesn't offer any advice. It helps just because verbalizing my thoughts gets me out of my head. (I don't typically need advice or reassurance. I just need to say things and then logically dial it back down.)
     I also realized that talking to someone about something doesn't mean I'm weak or that I'm being an attention-seeking person. It just means that I've realized I don't have to deal with everything alone. I also realized that talking to someone about my OCD or anything else isn't some OCD compulsion for confession or reassurance seeking (because not everything is I do pathological). It just means that I'm human and humans need other humans.
     I'll end with this: You don't have to go through everything alone to be tough or strong. Talking about a mental health condition or your jumbled up feelings or something as simple as your everyday happy moments or concerns with someone is a good thing. It doesn't mean you're an attention-seeking person. It just means that you are human, and sometimes things (even happy things) can be too much for one person to deal with on their own. You don't have to go through everything alone, pretending everything is fine.