Defining Success

     I've mentioned before that I started doing desensitization exercises with my therapist. I do them as often as I can (meaning I do them when I don't have other things to cope with or that my anxiety is low enough to do them safely). Currently, my exercises are to listen to some Christian music, usually church hymns, that I heard as a child in church or as an adult in college chapel services. This past week, I chose a song that I began desensitization exercises with (what feels like) a long time ago, and things did not go as I expected.
     I had been doing well with the exercises for the past few months. No tears. No panic. No shaking as I tried to force myself to hang in there until the end of the song. Sometimes, I didn't even feel like I was forcing myself to hang in there at all. I was so proud of myself and my improvement. Then I went back to the song that I began my exposure exercises with because I wanted to go back to that song and prove that I had improved, I guess, and for a nice change from the Alan Jackson renditions of traditional hymns. I only made it about halfway through the song before I had to turn it off.
     I got this rush of anxiety. Then came a couple of intrusive thoughts. Then came the guilt. Tears threatened to spill over. So, I made the decision to turn off the song and take a moment in my mind library (the safe place I created specifically for exposure exercises in case my anxiety got too high). I felt like I was right back there in my pew during a college chapel service, terrified to the point of shivering that the intrusive thoughts were going to come and that some well-deserved by still terrible divine punishment was going to rain down upon my head.
     Because of this recurrence of old feelings and fears and the fact that I had to stop the song, I felt like I had failed. I chalked this exercise up to a failure that I needed to work on. I was pretty upset about the setback after so many months of doing so well.
     My therapist did not agree with me. On the contrary, she thought my decision to stop the song and take a moment was a success. I didn't understand that, and so she explained it to me. I made the decision to stop the song, and I gave myself a moment to regroup and manage the anxiety. By allowing myself to stop the song and take a moment, I had taken control of the situation instead of just helplessly subjecting myself to torture because I felt like I had no other option as I had done for the past eight years of living with OCD. For the first time ever, I basically said, "I don't have to prove how good I am by subjecting myself to this. I can choose to turn this off, and that doesn't say anything about who I am as a person." For the first time, I was in control, and my actions weren't motivated by my OCD.
     I used to be the person that would sit in church or chapel services and shake uncontrollably, and I'd swear to myself that I'd stay there even if it killed me. I used to be the person that would listen to Christian music wherever I had to, and I'd swear I'd hide my anxiety even if it killed me. I'd also purposefully hold my rosary or my cross necklace that had been a confirmation gift blessed by a priest, just to see if anything bad happened to me while I held them just to prove to myself over and over and over again that I wasn't evil or possessed. Looking back on those things and my desire to prove to everyone, and most of all myself, that I was good, the decision to stop the song was a success. For the first time in eight years, I had decided that I didn't have to prove anything to myself.
     I've been thinking about that for a few days now. That exercise has changed the way that I think of successfully dealing with my mental health condition. I realized that success doesn't mean sitting through song after song and hoping that it doesn't bother me so that my anxiety doesn't spiral out of control. Success isn't counting the number of days that are free of symptoms. Success is being in control of my OCD enough to say, "This is affecting me, but I don't have to prove to the OCD that I'm a good person by enduring this mental anguish until it's over." Success is realizing that I don't have to suffer just to prove something.
     I'll end with this: Success with a mental health condition isn't defined by the number of exercises you complete or the number of days you don't have any symptoms. Success is realizing that you don't have to believe everything your funky brain tells you. Success is admitting that something is affecting you and your willingness to take the necessary steps to lessen the negative effect, even if those steps aren't the ones you wanted to take. Success is sometimes picking your battles instead of constantly fighting a war with your mental health condition because a small victory is better than no victory at all.