Ugh.
That’s the word I’d use to sum up this month.
Honestly, I don’t ever enjoy being negative, but to say it’s been a great month would be a blatant lie.
If I do choose to look for the silver lining then I can acknowledge that there have certainly been good moments and good days, nestled between many of the blah ones.
Yesterday, for example, was a good day.
I didn’t know where my day was going to go, but while I was reading and sipping on my tea yesterday morning, I decided to set the intention for a great day by simply saying “today is a great day” despite the little nagging and lingering OCD voice at the back of my mind.
Because, you see, OCD has been coming up for me a little too often for comfort recently.
I’ve accepted that managing my mental health is a life-long commitment, and I’ve made peace with that.
I uncovered my anxiety triggers years ago and, while my depressive triggers took a bit more time to figure out, I can say with a little more confidence now that I’m a lot more familiar with those triggers too.
I know that when I don’t eat right, don’t take my supplements, don’t take breaks to manage the overwhelm that comes with ADHD, don’t move my body or address conflict and so on, that I’m likely going to feel anxious or down.
Understanding my triggers means that it’s a little easier to follow the thread back to the source when anxiety or depression comes up for me now.
However, OCD is a dance I’m still learning the steps to, and at the moment I keep tripping up.
I started a book on my kindle recently called Phantasma, because I was looking for a fun and spooky read, and had heard it’s similar to Caraval, a book and series I loved.
While I certainly could see the similarities, and while it wasn’t bad, the spicy scenes got a bit too tedious for me and so I had to softly DNF it, book talk for “I did not finish it, but may come back to it at some point.”
Anyway, the main character struggles with OCD and I was impressed by the OCD representation, as it was so accurate and not something you often see people understanding so clearly.
Here’s a part I highlighted:
“You don’t get it,” she whispered. “No one gets it. They only judge. The girl who has to tap on walls before she leaves a room or everyone she’s ever talked to will die.
The girl who can’t run a simple errand because a dark thought popped into her head that something catastrophic would happen if she left the house that day.“
I relate to this deeply, and much of my OCD showed up (and still shows up) this way for me too.
“Don’t leave the house today, you won’t come home.”
“If you stop reading on this specific page, something terrible will happen, read a few more pages.”
Of course, there are many different forms of OCD and ways it can show up so I do recommend pairing this blog post with a much longer OCD post I wrote a few months back.
In that one I go in-depth into my struggle with OCD, as well as share some tips/resources to help.
I’ve felt like I’ve stepped into my old skin, the one riddled with anxiety and obsessive fears, even though I thought I had shed this skin long ago.
This just goes to show what being human really is.
How you can come so far yet still have moments that feel like all your progress was for nothing, despite that being so incredibly far from the truth.
Sifting the logic out of overwhelming feelings can be tricky business, as intense emotions will always win in the moment.
We often have to wait for emotional tides to ebb, before we can start unearthing the logic that was always there, just hidden by layers of emotional intensity.
So, logically, we have not lost all of our progress simply for being human and having anxiety come up again.
I even had a panic attack last weekend (after ages of not having one) and share what I believe triggered it and what I’ll be doing going forward in this episode.
I’ve also been having weird dreams that OCD has been latching onto and then I walk around all day feeling unsettled.
A big part of my flare-ups are due to my hormones, especially during ovulation and the Luteal phase, as well as being completely overstimulated with everything we are exposed to on the daily.
Sure, it’s up to us to get off our screens, but man, it’s easier said than done.
I always do feel much better when I’m off my screens and spending time reading or getting outside.
Walking helps me tremendously, but I somehow managed to hurt my foot, which means I haven’t been able to get out for my usual long walks, something that has put a huge damper on my month and my mental health.
Fortunately, it’s been feeling better, and I’ve been slowly easing back into walks, just walking to the park and back or even just up the street so as not to overdo it.
Another way OCD has been kicking my butt is with health anxiety.
When I’m in any kind of vulnerable state due to stress or hormones etc, this is when health anxiety is easily able to slip in and, well, I don’t have to tell you just how much health anxiety sucks.
Health anxiety and OCD go hand in hand, as you also may well know, as we obsess and analyze over and over and over.
This can be done by checking or feeling something on our body repetitively or googling constantly or simply going over a checklist in our mind, on a loop, as we go over our symptom(s).
Fortunately I no longer go to Google (something I never thought I’d achieve) and actually wrote my Anxiety A to Z for any Googling addicts, as a book I wish I had had access to during the peak of my anxiety and awful Googling habit.
But I do still have a brain that likes to overthink certain things, meaning I have to consciously pull myself back into the present, into my body, and out of my head before things get too scary and out of hand.
Everything is so much worse when it’s in our head.
This is why talk therapy or writing it out or finding ways to move it out through movement, meditation or breath work (somatic therapy) are all so helpful when thoughts are too loud and clouding your sense of logic.
Don’t let them build, don’t let them drag you under their hypnotic, yet devastating spell, as they envelop you in yet another health anxiety spiral.
Do what you need to do to interrupt the pattern.
Book that therapy appointment, grab a pen and paper, get on your yoga mat (or your floor or your bed) and stretch out your body gently.
Try this grounding yoga flow or listen to this sound frequency as you go about your day or night.
When we’re in it, it feels like we are stuck in quicksand, with no way out.
However, when we pause, take a breath and take a step back we can see that, sure, things may seem pretty rough, but there are many tools available to us should we choose to pick them up.
Deep breathing alone is one tool available to us whenever we may need it, we just have to use it.
Try taking some slow, deep breaths in through your nose and out through pursed lips to extend your exhale, an instant tonic for an overworked nervous system.
Take it one day at a time.
Scroll my blog and my podcast to find what you need each day.
I wanted this blog to simply be an update and validation if you’re in the same boat as me.
The waves may be rough, but we can ride them together.
If you’d like to read more of my personal experiences with health anxiety, death anxiety and the OCD cycle then my book Health Anxiety is Ruining my Life is the one I recommend.
These are tools I still use to this day and ones I have been coming back to recently as my OCD has been an unwelcome visitor.
You don’t have to do it all in one day, you just need to begin.
Your beginning could be 5 minutes of one tool and that will be more than enough for today.
Once tomorrow comes we’ll decide what’s next, but you only have to get through today.
You are safe and supported here.
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