I'm Not Going to Tell You That

     I'm willing to share a lot of things about my mental health journey. I talk about OCD. I talk about Pure O. I talk about medication. I talk about therapy. I talk about coping and lifestyle changes. I'm not shy about having a conversation about mental health with anyone and everyone if I think it might help someone or at least make someone think about mental health as sort of a normal topic to think about and discuss.
     Some people even share their own mental health stories with me. Others are simply curious, and they ask me lots of questions, which is great. However, there is one question that I never answer. People ask, "What are your intrusive thoughts?"
     Once someone knows that I have Pure O, and that intrusive thoughts are a huge part of that condition, they always want to know exactly what my intrusive thoughts are. I'm never sure if it's a genuine need to understand or a morbid curiosity about how weird and depraved I am that drives the question. Either way, I always find myself unwilling to disclose that information. Sometimes, I've even had to bluntly say, "I'm not going to tell you that," because people keep asking and asking. I'm not offended by the question, just unwilling to answer it.
     I will tell them about intrusive thoughts in general. I'll talk about the categories that intrusive thoughts can fall into. I'll even provide examples. I just intentionally leave any personal information out of that topic. Yet, people still want to know what scary thoughts are blaring through my mind stereo, even after I explain that intrusive thoughts come from a person's worst fears. All I can ever bring myself to share is this: my intrusive thoughts all come from the fear that I am a bad person. Some people still ask, "But what are they?"
     Logically, I know that thoughts are just thoughts. Logically, I know the thoughts that play through my mind like a broken record don't say anything at all about me as a person. Logically, I know that thoughts mean nothing. Yet, emotionally, I'm not in a place in my recovery to disclose such traumatic information with someone that isn't my mother or my therapist. There is still some guilt, shame, and anxiety associated with my intrusive thoughts. I may never be willing to share my exact intrusive thoughts with someone else because they are so personal and traumatic. That's my choice.
     I sort of felt bad for not sharing my intrusive thoughts. What if someone else in the room was having the exact same problem, with the exact same thoughts, and by sharing mine, I could help them? Then I realized that I don't have to share every single thing about my life with OCD to help someone. I don't have to feel bad for deeming something about my mental health condition too personal to share with someone else.
     I'll end with this: You decide what, as well as when or even if you share about your mental health condition with other people. Don't let anyone pressure you into sharing more than you feel comfortable with. Just because you can't or won't talk about something doesn't mean that you aren't still slowly healing from it. You can be in a different healing place logically and emotionally, and that's okay.

Coping Over Time

     Before I knew what Pure O was, and even for a little while after I received a diagnoses of OCD and Panic Disorder, every time I had intrusive thoughts (which was constantly), I wanted to flee the "tainted" environment where the thoughts happened. If I was at home, I tried to cope by leaving my house to go anywhere that wasn't my tainted home environment. If my intrusive thoughts happened out in public, that environment was also tainted, and I avoided that place like my life depended on it. I used the public places and people as a distraction. If I was out and about, whatever was happening there had my attention so that I had a few moments of peace from the OCD and the panic. Then that stopped working, and going out while I was suffering through particularly high anxiety made the anxiety worse.
     These days, I find that if my anxiety spikes or my intrusive thoughts are particularly hard to deal with, my preferred coping method is to take a few minutes by myself. I'll do some deep breathing or meditation alone to cope instead of using people and public places as a distraction. If it's particularly rough, I'll even try some yoga for anxiety. (My favorites are Child's Pose and the legs-up-the-wall pose.) I also find that feeling useful helps my anxiety, so I might clean or cook or play with my cats, Lola and Clementine.
     Over the years, how I cope with my mental health condition has changed. Things that worked in the beginning stopped working. Some things work only once in a particular situation. Some coping methods work sometimes, but not all the time. Then some coping methods work pretty consistently.
     Changing up my coping methods isn't a negative thing. Sure, I get frustrated when something that worked last week doesn't work this time, but the fact that it doesn't work isn't a bad thing. It doesn't mean that my funky brain is onto all my tricks. It simply means that my needs have changed. A person's needs change all the time, so of course, my coping strategies have to change to help me meet my needs in any given situation.
     I'll end with this: Coping with a mental health condition in a healthy way isn't always easy. Just because a coping strategy worked yesterday doesn't mean it'll work today, and that's okay. You just pull something else out of your bag of tricks. Just because something didn't work last week doesn't mean it won't work this week. It's okay to try the same things again in a different situation. Just don't give up because you haven't figured out what works to help you feel better.