Day 50 - OCD: From Hiding and Feeling Unwanted to Living and Expressing Fully
8:02 PM
Any kind of
mental disorder is still taboo in our society, unfortunately, and the result is
that those that need to speak up and reach out most end up being those that
hide and isolate most. Having a mental disorder myself, OCD, dermatillomania –
a self-harm disorder, I know from first hand experience what it is to be alone
with intense emotional baggage and how big and overwhelming it can become
within the experience of isolation. I stand here now as an individual that has
begun to take self-responsibility for my own personal healing and correcting,
and would like to share about learning how to come out of the hiding and
isolation of OCD, to emerge from hiding within self into Life and living.
Not understanding what is going on
within self, not knowing how to manage it, and feeling like it is coming from
anywhere but self had, especially as a young child, created a world and reality
that seemed cruel and harsh. My inner experience felt like a sort of inward
spiral, a self-perpetuating black hole that sucked me into isolation and hiding.
Within this, one of the most prominent experiences for me was feeling I needed
care, and needed people that I trusted to come in to my world and connect with
me on a deep level to assist and support me to navigate my experiences, and to
find a way to bring me out, and to see and realize another way to live and
experience life.
This continued on into adulthood and
influenced how I felt about my innate value and worth, as I had over time taken
it personally that no one could see what I was going through. It’s ironic that
in hiding and isolating myself within and as the disorder, and presenting a
fake front as my ‘social self’, I was sending out the message that I am fine
and don’t need anyone, while the reality was one where all I really wanted was
to be saved.
What I didn’t realize until recently
was the fact that everything I longed for from others, where I wanted others to
reach out to me, to pull me through, to help me, to save me, to make me feel
good, to make me feel loved and wanted – all of it was only there because I had
never learned how to give it to myself or how to be that for myself. Even when
I realized that that is what I had to do, I still had to walk a process of
making it real, of really doing it for me.
What I had not been shown, seen or
realized as a child was my responsibility to reach out and ask, to invite
others in, to show and reveal what it was that I was experiencing. I felt alone
in an unfriendly place. I felt abandoned and left to fend for myself. Without
learning how to take self-responsibility and unknowingly leaving my needs unanswered
in the hands of others, the lack of understanding felt as though I must be
doing something wrong, or that there was something innately undeserving about
me. Instead of learning how to take self-responsibility, I learned to punish
myself through self-harm. I learned to carry a burden of guilt, shame, anxiety
and frustration as atonement for unnamed sins I did not understand.
The point that is missed here, and
the point that we don’t teach children is this point of self-responsibility
within the understanding that no one can change they way you live, the way you
experience yourself, the hundreds of little decisions and choices made
throughout the day regarding the kind of person you will be towards yourself
and others. The truth is that yes – there is medication and drugs that can
influence and change the internal experience, but without the understanding and
with no life skill development or support teaching us how to manage ourselves
and our internal realities, all we are creating is the continuous dependency on
factors outside of ourselves to make us feel ‘right’ – all the while,
perpetuating low-self esteem, diminished self-worth, self-damning depression,
and a lost people looking to everything but themselves to save them.
Through walking a process of
self-forgiveness to ease the burden I had been carrying, and to better see what
my needs were and also, how to create an independence within my life, I was
better able to see how to assist and support myself to walk out of hiding and
out of isolation. What I began to do and what I am still working on is how to
clearly define and express my needs to others in my world instead of waiting
for them to notice or figure them out for me.
There are many things I can do for
and by myself as well, in terms of moving myself to do the things I know will
support me. Within and as the disorder I have in my life at the moment, I am
always walking a fine line between being sucked inward towards hiding and
isolation, and battling feelings of worthlessness an low self-esteem. I have
many opportunities throughout the day, moments of choice and decision where I
can pick myself up and get myself out and moving instead of staying in (both
physically in my house or my room, and emotionally as not speaking up and
speaking out). Or if I stay in, to do it in such a way where it is a decision
made in awareness, where I have a plan or a structure for myself so that I don’t
fall into self-harm and self-sabotage.
For me it starts first with what I
can give myself, doing writing and self-forgiveness to investigate my mind and
the issues I face, and script out a better way to be, like a blueprint to guide
me as I move throughout the day. And then pushing myself to participate in self-supportive
activities such as yoga, small gatherings and game nights with friends, or
simply going out for coffee with a good book. Anything to pull me out of my
mind and into this physical reality where I can see that I am ‘normal’, I’m
okay, I can do this.
It has been a process, that is for
sure, and one that continues and will continue for as long as I live. But as
tough a pill it was to swallow at first, it is only without understanding that
taking care of oneself seems like ‘the hard way’. What I have lived and learned
is that in stepping up and being there for me, I have eased the burden and
actually received from myself and others that which I need to live a better and
more fulfilling life.
Some self-forgiveness and self-commitments to consider:
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to
look to others to show me my value and my self-worth, instead of seeing and
realizing that I have in fact not been showing it to myself, living it for
myself, and strengthening it within myself.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to
make decisions throughout my day that tend to cater to my subtle expressions of
giving up on myself and calling it ‘relaxing’, giving in to my addictions and calling it
‘treating myself’ or ‘spoiling myself’, and not living my self-worth and
calling it ‘giving myself a break’ – and then wonder why I react to and feel
hurt when others do not consider me, instead of seeing and realizing that all
that is being mirrored to myself is the ways in which I already do not consider
what is best for me in my living actions.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to
make it someone else’s responsibility to show me my value and worth instead of
seeing and realizing that only I can live that as an actual self-creation
point, it is not something that can simply be shown to me or experienced as a
feeling or emotion, but rather something that I must live for and as myself in
many moments and decisions throughout the day in order to give to myself and
make it a real, substantial, untouchable, unwavering point of myself that is
here within and as me.
I commit myself to stand in awareness in moments of decision
throughout the day, where I see which choice/decision/path will contribute to
my self-creation as self-value and self-worth, and which will lead to the
self-creation of self-diminishment, self-limitation and self-compromise, and I
commit myself to stand as the self trust that I will, in those moments, push
myself to chose what is best for myself.
I commit myself to take self-responsibility for my own
self-consideration and self-regard, until I see the evidence in my world that I
am in fact standing as that for me by seeing that I no longer react and feel
hurt when I think and perceive that others are not considering and regarding
me.
I commit myself to stand up for myself, and speak up for
myself when and as I see that I am being treated less-than I would accept/allow
myself to treat another – not in and from an emotional reactive state, but from
and as that point of self-regard, self-consideration, self-value and
self-worth.
To take the
first step in supporting YOURSELF, you can check out the following links that
led me to take the first steps toward healing, and continue to support me to
this day:
SOUL –
The School of Ultimate Living is an online community of people
interested in
discovering and developing their utmost potential
eqafe.com – Invest in a wide range of Interviews and Support yourself to Self Perfection
Journey To Life Blogs – Read the blogs from those walking the 7 year journey to life.
Self and Living – Practical Living Support To Live to Your Utmost Potential
DIP Lite – Free Online Course to get you started with learning the Tools of Self Support
DIP PRO -A Desteni Course for those Ready to Walk the Journey of a Lifetime
discovering and developing their utmost potential
eqafe.com – Invest in a wide range of Interviews and Support yourself to Self Perfection
Journey To Life Blogs – Read the blogs from those walking the 7 year journey to life.
Self and Living – Practical Living Support To Live to Your Utmost Potential
DIP Lite – Free Online Course to get you started with learning the Tools of Self Support
DIP PRO -A Desteni Course for those Ready to Walk the Journey of a Lifetime
Image source:
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