I Have Ocd Quotes

Oh, I'm crazy all right. I do have plenty of psychoses. Multiple personality, delusional dementia, OCD. I've got them all, but most of all, I'm crazy about you.

I do not have OCD OCD OCD.

It (trying to keep the law) grants you the power to judge others and feel superior to them. You believe you are living to a higher standard than those you judge. Enforcing rules, especially in its more subtle expressions like responsibility and expectation, is a vain attempt to create certainty out of uncertainty. And contrary to what you might think, I have a great fondness for uncertainty. Rules cannot bring freedom; they only have the power to accuse.

Some people think mental illness is a matter of mood, a matter of personality. They think depression is simply a form of being sad, that OCD is a form of being uptight. They think the soul is sick, not the body. It is, they believe, something that you have some choice over. I know how wrong this is. When I was a child, I didn't understand. I would wake up in a new body and wouldn't comprehend why things felt muted, dimmer. Or the opposite--I'd be supercharged, unfocused, like a radio at top volume flipping quickly from station to station. Since I didn't have access to the body's emotions, I assumed the ones I was feeling were my own. Eventually, though, I realized these inclinations, these compulsions, were as much a part of the body as its eye color or its voice. Yes, the feelings themselves were intangible, amorphous, but the cause of the feelings was a matter of chemistry, biology. It is a hard cycle to conquer. The body is working against you. And because of this, you feel even more despair. Which only amplifies the imbalance. It takes uncommon strength to live with these things. But I have seen that strength over and over again.

My drawers are neat. I must have OCD. I toss around the socks and underwear to see if I can piss myself off.

I have seen many cases like N. during the five years I've been in practice. I sometimes picture these unfortunates as men and women being pecked to death by predatory birds. The birds are invisible - at least until a psychiatrist who is good, or lucky, or both, sprays them with his version of Luminol and shines the right light on them - but they are nevertheless very real. The wonder is that so many OCDs manage to live productive lives, just the same. They work, they eat (often not enough or too much, it's true), they go to movies, they make love to their girlfriends and boyfriends, their wives and husbands . . . and all the time those birds are there, clinging to them and pecking away little bits of flesh.

To be honest, it’s probably better if I don’t talk. Cute guys make me nervous. Like tongued-tied total-brain-malfunction nervous. All my filters shut off and suddenly I’m telling them about the time I peed my pants in the third grade during a field trip to the maple syrup factory, or how I’m scared of puppets and have mild OCD that could possibly drive me to tidy up your room the moment you turn your head.

Have you realized" MacRyrie asked her, "that you're just like Novikov but with more charm and no OCD?" "The direct thing?" "Yeah," both bear and wolf said at the same time. "I like being direct. Then no one can hold shit over your head. Like when I got pregnant in high school. I ran around telling everybody. The nuns were horrified. But no one could shame me because I'd already put it all out there. For everybody!

Think like a middle-aged man with OCD, a dead wife, and a teenage daughter. Think like a woman with three teenage sons who once ran a golf cart into the side of their granddad's house." "Cameron and Sean shouldn't have let me drive," Adam said in his own defense. "I was seven." "You shouldn't have ASKED to drive. You were seven.

It feels like giving up. It feels like falling into bed after an all-night rave. It feels that right. It's surrender. It's that thing I have been searching for.

Perfection I've lived with the pretense of perfection for seventeen years. Give my room a cursory inspection, you'd think I have OCD. But it's only habit and not obsession that keeps it all orderly. Of course, I don't want to give the impression that it's all up to me.

Statistics say that a range of mental disorders affects more than one in four Americans in any given year. That means millions of Americans are totally batshit. but having perused the various tests available that they use to determine whether you're manic depressive. OCD, schizo-affective, schizophrenic, or whatever, I'm surprised the number is that low. So I have gone through a bunch of the available tests, and I've taken questions from each of them, and assembled my own psychological evaluation screening which I thought I'd share with you. So, here are some of the things that they ask to determine if you're mentally disordered 1. In the last week, have you been feeling irritable? 2. In the last week, have you gained a little weight? 3. In the last week, have you felt like not talking to people? 4. Do you no longer get as much pleasure doing certain things as you used to? 5. In the last week, have you felt fatigued? 6. Do you think about sex a lot? If you don't say yes to any of these questions either you're lying, or you don't speak English, or you're illiterate, in which case, I have the distinct impression that I may have lost you a few chapters ago.

Because there’s nothing more comforting than someone who actually gets it. Really gets it. Because they’ve been to the same hell as you have and can verify you’ve not made it up.

Not me," said Orion cheerily. "I'm just a teenager with hormones running wild. And may I say ,young fairy lady, they're running wild in your direction." Holly lifted her visor and looked the hormonal teenager in the eye. "This had better not be a game, Artemis. If you do not have some serious psychosis, you will be sorry." "Oh, I'm crazy, alright. I do have plenty of psychoses," said Orion Cheerily. "Multiple personality, delusional dementia, OCD. I've got them all, but most of all, I'm crazy about you.

One thing which I can't stress enough is thaft OCD is completely nonsensical and will not listen to reason. This is one of the most frightening things about having it. I knew that t o anyone I told, there are Salvador Dali paintings that make more sense.

Some people think mental illness is a matter of mood, a matter of personality. They think depression is simply a form of being sad, that OCD is a form of being uptight. They think the soul is sick, not the body. It is, they believe, something that you have some choice over. I know how wrong it is.

I close my eyes and make a wish that I'll stop having OCD so that I can be a decent friend again. If I want it badly enough, hopefully it will come true.

Not really. It’s called OCD and—” 'Yes, yes, so my psychiatrist tells me.' 'You have a shrink?' 'Apparently, I have some repressed anger and unresolved abandonment issues after my experiences with God.

And, what's more, this 'precious' body, the very same that is hooted and honked at, demeaned both in daily life as well as in ever existing form of media, harrassed, molested, raped, and, if all that wasn't enough, is forever poked and prodded and weighed and constantly wrong for eating too much, eating too little, a million details which all point to the solitary girl, to EVERY solitary girl, and say: Destroy yourself Oh, and I certainly don't suffer from schizophrenia. I quite enjoy it. And so do I What's the big fucking deal? Lots of amazing people have committed suicide, and they turned out alright He cried when I left, which I find to be standard male behavior I do not have OCD OCD OCD "Simply put, if you are a Wayward Victorian Girl, I'll find you" "We had people fainting during the last tour, but I'm aiming for people to actually drop dead at this one." Hey, look at me! Look at me! Look at me! And...look at me. Will he think I'm sexy enough? Will he find me wholesome enough? Am I fuckable?

I didn't really have any sharable anecdotes. That's the thing about anxiety - it limits your experiences so the only stories you have to tell are the "I went mad" ones.

Don’t tell me you have OCD about this?” “OCD, ADHD—pretty sure if they come up with some new acronym tomorrow I’d have it.

The tight ball of muck inside me—I opened it. I opened the shame, and it crumbled next to yours. This connection—the one I didn’t think we were going to have—let some of my muck go. And when it left my body, it evaporated into nothing. It had been living in me, but as soon as it was exposed, it disappeared.

I wasn’t saying it didn’t all happen like that, but all of that was included in the chunks of time that had gone missing from my brain. They dropped out somewhere. And if the chunks were round, they would have rolled away. So I was hoping they were bricks and heavy so they stayed in the same spot. I just needed to retrace my steps, if I only could remember where I’d been.

I suppose I should be thankful that if I have to go mad, at least I get to do it in a fashionable, aristocratic way.

Some people think mental illness is a matter of mood, a matter of personality. They think depression is simply a form of being sad, that OCD is a form of being uptight. They think the soul is sick, not the body. It is, they believe, something that you have some choice over. I know how wrong this is.

I felt as if I were living just above the surface of my life. It was lonely and utterly exhausting trying to make sure that everything was perfect all the time. No truth left unsaid, no hand or surface unwashed. Whoever said that high school was the best time of our lives definitely did not have OCD.

I have this theory that everyone is a little mentally ill,” Letty said. “No such thing as perfectly normal. You’ve got all these branches extending out of some kind of theoretical normalcy. You’ve got the schizophrenic branch, the paranoid branch, the psychopathic branch, the sociopathic branch, the manic-depressive branch, the clinically depressive branch, the OCD branch, and so on. Nobody is dead center. Everybody is out on one of those branches. Or more than one. If you’re too far out, you’re nuts. If you’re just a little way out, you’re fine, but you have a tendency.” “Where

I want to get away from the stigma they all clearly feel just because they have a n illness of the mind as opposed to, say, an illness of the lungs or blood. I want to get away from all the labels, "I'm OCD," "I'm depressed," "I'm a cutter," they say, like these are the things that define them.

Some people think mental illness is a matter of mood, a matter of personality. They think depression is simply a form of being sad, that OCD is a form of being uptight. They think the soul is sick, not the body. It is, they believe, something that you have some choice over. I know how wrong that is.

Some people with OCD are compelled to pick up pieces of broken glass from the street. They worry that, if they don’t, then someone else might cut themselves on the glass. If the person with OCD fails to prevent that happening, they think, well I may as well have walked up to the stranger and deliberately hurt them. So they take

If you have an open wound, someone only needs to flick you for the pain to be excruciating. It doesn’t mean they are stronger than anyone else or they are your one true love. I know this conflicts with a lot of movies and books that glorify pain, but try to trust me. Love doesn’t have to be hard, despite what your societally influenced brain tells you.

I belong to a secret order. We all have OCD, so you’d better believe we have order.

Not that I’m saying you have OCD or anything. You just like things to be organized. Really, really organized.

Why were you scared to tell me? That you think you’re crazy?” “Right, that’s the second thing. I think I might have OCD.” “Your room is too messy,” Theo says.

Oh, I’m crazy, all right. I do have plenty of psychoses,” said Orion cheerily. “Multiple personality, delusional dementia, OCD. I’ve got them all, but most of all, I’m crazy about you.

form of being sad, that OCD is a form of being uptight. They think the soul is sick, not the body. It is, they believe, something that you have some choice over. I know how wrong this is.

I tidy up the loose ends for a couple of minutes and then nod, signalling that I am done. I say done — I’m never really done when I only have two minutes, but I am done enough to attempt to engage in a conversation for a small window of time. Bursting point has been delayed.

I want to get away from the stigma they all clearly feel just because they have an illness of the mind as opposed to, say, an illness of the lungs or blood. I want to get away from all the labels. “I’m OCD,” “I’m depressed,” “I’m a cutter,” they say, like these are the things that define them.

I decide that if I am going to be treated like a mental patient, I might as well act like one, so I pitch a fit. I run down the hall screaming that all I want to do is vacuum my room, that Evan is a smug asshole, and that I most definitely do not have OCD; everyone knows odd numbers are disconcerting and everyone organizes the contents of their closet by color.

Because now mental health disorders have gone “mainstream”. And for all the good it’s brought people like me who have been given therapy and stuff, there’s a lot of bad it’s brought too. Because now people use the phrase OCD to describe minor personality quirks. “Oooh, I like my pens in a line, I’m so OCD.” NO YOU’RE FUCKING NOT. “Oh my God, I was so nervous about that presentation, I literally had a panic attack.” NO YOU FUCKING DIDN’T. “I’m so hormonal today. I just feel totally bipolar.” SHUT UP, YOU IGNORANT BUMFACE. Told you I got angry. These words – words like OCD and bipolar – are not words to use lightly. And yet now they’re everywhere. There are TV programmes that actually pun on them. People smile and use them, proud of themselves for learning them, like they should get a sticker or something. Not realizing that if those words are said to you by a medical health professional, as a diagnosis of something you’ll probably have for ever, they’re words you don’t appreciate being misused every single day by someone who likes to keep their house quite clean. People actually die of bipolar, you know? They jump in front of trains and tip down bottles of paracetamol and leave letters behind to their devastated families because their bullying brains just won’t let them be for five minutes and they can’t bear to live with that any more. People also die of cancer. You don’t hear people going around saying: “Oh my God, my headache is so, like, tumoury today.” Yet it’s apparently okay to make light of the language of people’s internal hell

Since we choose our bodies and the lessons that come with living that life, those with crippling imperfections--a physical handicap, maybe, or a psychiatric struggle related to depression or OCD--have done so to grow their souls in some way. I wish my body were a lot of things it’s not--relaxed instead of anxious, five foot seven and a hundred twenty pounds instead of five foot one and…never mind.

For many of my clients, they know something is off when they meet a person who they genuinely like and can see a future with, but their brain begins sending warning signals as if there is a major threat. They start wondering hundreds of times a day, But do I really like them? Are they really attractive enough to me? This dissonance is a dead giveaway that there could be some anxiety at play. It’s not that you have to like every person who is good for you, but generally a good person doesn’t make a neurotypical brain fire off in quite this way.

Most people say "I'd do anything for my child," but the Harm OCD sufferer has to do more than just show up for the job. You have to show up to this amazing beautiful being even knowing that it aggravates your disorder. You have to do exposure to the darkest, most terrifying corners of the mind. You have to cope with extreme love, often reminding you of extreme fear. You have to tolerate the uncertainty that your child may have a short or painful life in order to maximize the possibility that she has a happy one. To love your children is to be vulnerable to them and to see their vulnerability. You have to risk being harmed and you have to risk harming in order to be close to anyone. OCD can make you think you're too crazy to deserve this closeness with a child. But you're not crazy. You got this.

Addiction, OCD, and mood disorders like depression and anxiety share a central feature: a narrow self-focus and intrusive rumination. For addiction, that rumination is cyclical, quieted only temporarily by the object of the given addiction—whether it is a substance or a behavior—and then it is set in motion again as soon as the object fades from focus. For OCD and eating disorders, that rumination manifests in uncontrollable compulsive behavior. For depression, it manifests as a sense of failing, catastrophization, and guilt. Hendricks sees this short-circuiting of rumination as the most significant potential benefit of psychedelics. “You think of somebody who’s addicted to a drug, and they’re almost spinning their wheels, thinking about how am I going to get it next? And if you can have an experience in which you’re suddenly thinking outside of yourself, you break from these self-nagging thoughts. Suddenly, you’re not even thinking about your desire, your craving, for that

At the same time, the deeper I get with my OCD and treatment, the more I realize that it is also a part of me. It is the part of me I try so hard to repress, the part of me I don't believe is worthy of love, the part of me I judge in other people. It has to be fought, but to some extent, it also has to be placated. I also have to say, I'm not as smart as I thought I was, I'm not as in control, I better not judge these people because whoo-ee look at me. It can't simply be exorcised. It illuminates the brittleness and arrogance of my own precious assumptions about myself: that I am smart, that I am in control because I am smart, that I can do everything just so, that I can do it better. But it also attacks the parts of myself I want to keep: the gritty traveler, the artist who bucks conventions, the bold experimenter. Fine, it says, my thoughts are random, my thoughts are constructed, my thoughts are only thoughts, but then so are yours: all of it is a fantasy, dark and light.

When Elon was nearly ten years old, he saw a computer for the first time, at the Sandton City Mall in Johannesburg. “There was an electronics store that mostly did hi-fi-type stuff, but then, in one corner, they started stocking a few computers,” Musk said. He felt awed right away—“It was like, ‘Whoa. Holy shit!’”—by this machine that could be programmed to do a person’s bidding. “I had to have that and then hounded my father to get the computer,” Musk said. Soon he owned a Commodore VIC-20, a popular home machine that went on sale in 1980. Elon’s computer arrived with five kilobytes of memory and a workbook on the BASIC programming language. “It was supposed to take like six months to get through all the lessons,” Elon said. “I just got super OCD on it and stayed up for three days with no sleep and did the entire thing. It seemed like the most super-compelling thing I had ever seen.” Despite being an engineer, Musk’s father was something of a Luddite and dismissive of the machine. Elon recounted that “he said it was just for games and that you’d never be able to do real engineering on it. I just said, ‘Whatever.’” While

They were both even numbers--which was good, because if they weren't I'd have an OCD meltdown right then and there.

Well, I have severe OCD and social anxiety disorder. I was diagnosed when I was fifteen and every year I get worse. I don’t like people, I don’t like outdoors, and I don’t like trying new things. I have a routine and when my routine is interrupted, like you seem to enjoy doing, I get extremely stressed and it becomes difficult for me to focus for hours afterwards.

-§ But just because we grew up in that kind of a culture does not mean we need to keep creating it in our present relationship. I recommend we ask different questions, like, “How could I make your life more wonderful?” and “Would you like to know how you could make my life more wonderful?” and “What are your needs right now?” and “Would you like to know what I need right now?” Now if none of this appeals to you because you prefer a relation-dinghy to a relationship, here are some suggestion to help you prevent your relation-dinghy from growing into a relationship: 1. Keep your attention focused at all times on who is right or wrong in a discussion, fair or unfair in a negotiation, selfish or unselfish in giving (it helps to keep a list of who has done what for whom), kind or cruel in their tone of voice, rude or polite in their mannerisms, sloppy or neat in their dress, and so on. Be careful not to realize that your attempt to be right is really an attempt to protect yourself from thinking you are wrong and then feeling shame. 2. If you need some support for this I recommend certain selfhelp groups who can give you the latest scoops on the most powerful, politically correct labels with which to overpower and confuse your partner. Members of these groups will collude with you in validating that your partner really is a man or woman who is commitment-phobic, emotionally unavailable, counterdependant, needy, spiritually unevolved, dysfunctional, immature, judgmental, sinful, bi-polar, OCD, clinically depressed, or adult-onset ADD. It is important to keep your consciousness filled with such terminology to prevent any fondness from developing. This also helps in keeping you caught in the “paralysis of analysis” and clueless about what you or your partner are needing from each other. 3. Adopt this test for love: If your partner really loves you, he or she will always know what you want even before you know—and then give it to you without your having to go through the humiliation of actually asking for it. And your partner will do this regardless of the sacrifice it requires. If your partner does not give you what you want, choose to believe it means he or she does not love you. 4. Ask for what you do not want instead of what you do want. I heard of a man who asked his wife to stop spending so much money shopping. She took up gambling on the internet. 5. In case your relationdinghy starts to grow, here are a few torpedoes guaranteed to sink it again: “It hurts me when you say that.” “I feel sad because you…fill in the blank (won’t say ‘I love you,’ or ‘I’m sorry,’ or won’t have sex, or won’t marry me, etc.)” If you really want to choke the life out of any relationship meditate on “I need you.” Then you will know how I felt for about thirtyfive years of my life. I felt like a drowning swimmer and I would grab hold of anyone who came near me and try to use them as a life raft. Now I want relationships to be flowers for my table instead of air for my lungs. When I Come Gently To You by Ruth Bebermeyer When I come gently to you I want you to see It’s not to get myself from you, it’s just to give you me. I know that you can’t give me me, no matter what you do. All I ever want from you is you. I know your fear of fences, your pain from prisons past. I’m not the first to sense it and I’m plainly not the last. The hawk within your heart’s not bound to earth by fence of mine, Unless you aren’t aware that you can fly. When I come gently to you I’d like you to know I come not to trespass your space, I want to touch and grow. When your space and my space meet, each is not less but more. We make our space that wasn’t space before. Chapter HEALING THE BLAME THAT BLINDS

a celebration of the president’s bravery during the campaign, rendered in shiny black and white, like a giant Victorian steel engraving executed by OCD fairies. The president stood smiling, her arms outstretched to America. Her opponent loomed behind her, as he once actually had, Verity herself having watched this debate live. Seeing this now, she recalled her own sickened disbelief at his body language, the shadowing, his deliberate violation of his opponent’s personal space. “I don’t think anyone I know believes there was ever any real chance of him winning,” she said to Eunice. “I don’t know whether I did myself, but I was still scared shitless of it.” She was looking at how the artist had rendered his hands. Grabby.

I have existed for 21 years. I didn't live them all, but from now on I am hoping to.

Having OCD has made me a more intense, sensitive, and compassionate human being. I have been humbled by my disorder. It has built character even while tearing at my soul, my heart, and my self-esteem. It has enabled me to fight harder, to strive for the good and the truth inside me. It has made me less critical and judgmental of others who suffer in their lives.

I built an idea in my head of the hero I wanted to be, a grab bag of traits from heroes, villains, and side characters. I did not have book role models, I had book blueprints. But there remained a huge gap between the person I wanted to be and the person who I was. This was because no matter how many book blueprints I had, as much as I wanted to make myself the hero of my own life, it didn’t matter as long as I kept telling the story wrong. Nowadays, as a storyteller, I know what the problem was. I had all the elements I needed to tell a good story. But I was telling it the wrong way, so I could never get to the ending I wanted. If you tell yourself you’re a winner, you know what kind of story you’re telling, and you will march toward that... Likewise, if you tell yourself you’re a loser, you’ve made that your story, and you will march toward that instead. The same setbacks could happen in the loser’s story as in the winner’s story, but the self-defined loser would let them be proof that they were never going to be anything. Here’s the story I was telling myself back when I was little edible child waiting to be carried away by hawks and making OCD rituals for herself: once upon a time, there was a girl who was afraid of everything. When I was 16, I realized that I knew what this story looked like and how it ended, and it wasn’t the life I wanted for myself. If I wanted my ending to look different, I needed to change the kind of story I was telling about myself. I needed to shape my events into a different genre: once upon a time, there was a woman who was afraid of nothing. At age 16, I legally changed my name from my birthname — Heidi — to one I thought sounded like the hero I wanted to be: Maggie. And I vowed that I would never be afraid of anything ever again. Did it work? No, of course not. Not right away. But it became a mission statement, my hero’s journey.

When I am fully immersed in my work of nourishing humanity, it fills my head with all kinds of feel-good chemicals, such as endorphins, serotonin and dopamine. Problems occur during the brief intervals between the finishing of one work and the beginning of another. During these intervals, my biology starts to get filled with stress hormones cortisol and adrenalin, that worsens my OCD. That is why, I can’t sit still even a day after I finish writing a book. Because if I do, my OCD begins to suffocate me inside my head. Hence, as soon as I deliver a work, I have to start working on my next scientific literature.

Picking up the empty cans, I brought them over to the trashcan Aiden was placing a fresh bag in. “Cleaning up?” he asked, fitting the bag to the can. “This is unexpected.” “I’m a new girl.” I dumped the cans. “Are you okay?” Aiden hooked a finger into the belt of my jeans and led me over to the sink. Then he rolled up my sleeves, turned on the tap and picked up the hand soap. I rolled my eyes, but shoved my hands under the warm water. “Aiden?” “What? You’re going to have sticky hands and be touching everything.” He squirted the apple-scented soap on my hands. “You’ll leave little fingerprints all over the place.” I watched my hands disappear under his larger ones and sort of forgot about what I was asking. Who knew washing hands could be so… distracting? “Are you concerned about CSI visiting the place?” “You never know.” I let him finish, because who was I to stop his OCD at the moment, then I dried my hands.

I can actually follow the plot of TV programs now, and I no longer use books as masks—I read them like a normal person, just like you have read this. Which assumes you are normal; maybe you’re not. Maybe none of us are. Maybe none of us would want to be anyway. But, for the sake of argument, let’s call me normal now. I am better. I don’t know whether it’s for good, or if one day something might make me abnormal again. But that’s the funny thing about living. If you do it properly, you don’t know how the next sentence will begin.

Two of us sat side by side in my head, woven together, inseparable. She didn't even have a name; she was just She. Really, it was hard to say where She ended and I began. But food was not shared with her. She did not play tag and never required a seat. She was, by her very essence, nothing like these imaginary friends. She was just there. One was not proud of her, in the same way as one is not proud of a liver, and there was no need to show her off, nor tell anyone She existed.

(Home) ‘This land is beautiful, but the people are horrible.’ The people took this beautiful land and raped it, and put up a bunch of ugly boxes, however, my home is in the Victorian-style and it is old and has a handcrafted personality. There is an ancient oak tree outside my window, sometimes I step out my window then onto the roof of the porch, and sit in the tree branch that hangs over, and watches all the stars as they appear to turn on and off. Yes, I have wished upon a shooting star, that things will change, and that the towers will be no more. Looking straight ahead, I can see all the lights that go on the horizon, some days the sunsets are blazing before the lights turn on. Then there are some days that the window is shut because it is cold windy while everything is chilled with the color of blue. (Frame of mind) My mood can change just like this and that it seems. Yes, just like all the summer turns into winter, and the winters turn into spring, and all of these thoughts running in my mind fall like the leaves through my brain, and they most likely do not mean a thing. I guess you could blame it on my ADD, ADHD, dyslexia, bipolar disorder, or OCD. I do not have any of these… I do not have anything wrong with me. But, if you are like one of the sisters or someone from my school, you would say my mood changes are because of my- STD’s, HIV, or being as they say GAY or BI, and LEZ-BO. They have also said, I am a pedophile and a child stocker, and I get moody if I do not get some from them. That is why I am so sober at times, or so they say. Whatever…! They also have said that I am a schizophrenic- psycho and that I could not even buy love. I would not try that anyways. I think that having money does not give you happiness; I am okay being a humble farm- girl, the guy that finds me… needs to be happy with that also. I am sure there are more things they say. However, those are just some of them that I can dredge up as of now, off the top of my head. They have murdered me and my life, in so many ways. So now, do you wonder as to why I am afraid of talking to people or even looking at them? You know you and they can try to destroy me, and my life. However, I do not have any of those listed either; none of these random arrangements of letters defines me as the person I truly am. (Sight) Looking out the windows, I can see the golden hayfields of ecstasy, I see the windmills that twist and tumble. I can see the abandoned railroad track that lies not far from my home. I can hear the cries of the swing as the wind gusts in spurts. But yet I am still in my room, but that is just okay with me. Because I know that there will someday soon be someone there for me. (Household) My room is a land of peace and tranquility without all the gloom, with a bed and a canopy overhead but still, I am not truly happy? There is nothing- like the sounds of the crickets speaking up often in the cool August night breeze. It is relaxing to me, however; it is a reminder to me of how the last glimmers of summer are ending. Besides the sounds slowly fade away, yes- I can hear this music from my bedroom window. It is just like in the spring the birds sing in the morning and leave in the cool gusts to come. It is just like the hummingbirds that flutter by, and then before I know it, all has changed; so, it seems by the time I walk out my bedroom door, to start my day. ‘Life goes in cycles of tunes it seems, and nature is its synchronization in its symphony you just have to listen.

People often use the word 'despite' in the context of mental illness. So-and-so did such-and-such despite having depression/anxiety/OCD/agoraphobia/whatever. But sometimes that 'despite' should be a 'because'. For instance, I write because of depression. I was not a writer before. The intensity needed - to explore things with relentless curiosity and energy - simply wasn't there.

Basically what I learned is that if you're willing to take the hit of unwanted anxiety, you can continue to move in the direction that you value.

I always wonder why birds stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on the earth. Then I ask myself the same question. –HARUN YAHYA

just couldn't seem to step into the next right moment. I was in total hate with myself and couldn't find my way out.

First formula: Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been [time] since my last confession. I have scrupulosity and OCD. I am filled with fear and anxiety about sin, and I do not trust God. I love God, but I struggle to believe God loves me. Since my last confession, I have tried to do good, but I am aware that I have often failed. I am sorry for all of my sins, especially for the sin of [name], which I am confident I have committed. I ask for your absolution and for your penance. Second formula: Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I am a sinner, and I have OCD and scrupulosity. I am filled with anxiety about sin, and I struggle to trust God. I love God, but I do not easily believe God loves me. Since my last confession, I have tried to do good, but I have often failed. I am sorry for all of my sins as God sees me guilty.

I feel so terrible.” “Why?” “For not noticing.” “You couldn’t have. I live my life trying to come across as normal. All my energy seems to go into making sure no one does notice anything at all. If you knew, that would have meant I’d failed.

Dr Finch has explained ‘cognitive dissonance’: where a person holds two contrary beliefs, such as ‘I know I have not taken out my needles’ and ‘My needles might be in with the clothes.

When my first child was born, I thought it quite hilarious that within seconds of her arrival, she was placed before me on a tray and a doctor put a sharp pair of scissors in my hand. It was to cut the umbilical cord. I had an advantage over potential Harm OCD with my children, which is that I always knew full well that I would have intrusive violent thoughts about them. Because I always assumed I'd have thoughts of cutting, smothering, strangling, microwaving them, and so on, I never responded to any individual thought of that nature like it was particularly interesting. If anything, I welcomed such thoughts as useful reminders of why I became a therapist.

You're not crazy. I'm going to remind you of this throughout the book. "Crazy" is a nonsense word we use to put ourselves down when we don't like what we see in the mind. You have a common, diagnosable, treatable disorder.

When you have Harm OCD, it can often feel like you're repeatedly being accused of a terrible crime. OCD is your accuser, but it also acts like a high-powered defense attorney who says, "Look, I can get you a not-guilty plea, guaranteed. I'm going to get all the witnesses and all the evidence and bring it all up in your trial and if you stick with me, the jury will acquit you. 100%." You hear this and think, Great, let's do this. I know I'm not guilty. Let's make sure it's official. Then the OCD says, "Sure thing. By the way, I cost $1000/hour, I bill 24 hours a day, and the case will take a few years, maybe more. In the end, you'll get your not-guilty verdict, probably, but I should tell you, the long trial will decimate you and the verdict might not make that much of a difference. But never mind that, let's get to that evidence of your innocence." An OCD therapist like me is no high-powered attorney. I'm more like a public defender and my advice is simple: Plead the fifth. In an American court, when you plead the fifth amendment to the U.S. constitution, you are saying that you will not answer a question that could incriminate you. In other words, no matter what OCD asks, just don't answer. You're probably thinking, "No, that makes me look really guilty." Then I explain, "If you don't take the bait and answer OCD's questions, this thing will go to mistrial in a week. No one will remember it. It might as well have been just a forgettable fluke." This approach is what it means to accept uncertainty, and it is indeed scary. It doesn't come with that shiny promise of complete vindication. But it also doesn't cost you a lifetime of obsessing. Accepting uncertainty about your violent thoughts means allowing the possibility that they could be true by not trying to prove otherwise.

riding thoughts out.” - If an intrusive thought comes up, I will observe it, acknowledge it, and let it be. - I will allow the anxiety to be there until it dissipates naturally. -          If Sophia notices that I am uncomfortable, I will simply tell her that I am riding out my OCD, and will not provide more details even if she asks, as detailing it will only increase the importance that we both assign to the intrusive thought. This will also allow Sophia to treat her own OCD, as she will have to deal with the anxiety of not knowing what my intrusive thoughts are.

a few words on something that I believe affects both Obsessional Jealousy sufferers and ROCD sufferers alike--the fear of losing the marriage. Often, what hides behind the intrusive thoughts is a deep-seated fear of the relationship not working out. In my case, I saw my parents go through a painful and messy divorce after twenty-five years of marriage. In Hugh’s case, his self esteem had taken a heavy blow a few years before meeting me, when his girlfriend at the time left him for another guy. He began having ROCD thoughts shortly after that relationship ended. The fear of commitment that ROCD sufferers experience might stem from trauma, and the wish to avoid feeling vulnerable again. Commitment to a relationship means trust and trust means vulnerability. The fear of being vulnerable is at the heart of OCD.

You’re not insane,” he says again. “Then what’s wrong with me?” I ask. “Why do I have these . . . these thoughts?” The word doesn’t feel like enough; it’s too airy, and implies I am capable of telling them apart from reality. “Is it fear?” Felicity asks. “Though I suppose fear is elicited by an immediate threat, and it sounds as though often there isn’t one. Except those created inside your mind. So it’s fear looking for a source? Does that sound right?” I press my fists against my forehead. “It feels like someone is shouting at me all the time, all these lies that I know are lies but I’m so terrified of what will happen if I don’t listen, and then it just gets louder and louder so that I can’t hear anything else over it all and I can’t make them stop.” I look up at Monty. “Does everyone feel this way?

It’s worth mentioning that obsessions often take the form of questions (OCD used to be known as the “doubting disease”), typically “what if” questions. Some examples include: ● “What if my partner loves me more than I love him/her?” ● “What if this is not the right person for me?” ● “What if I am stuck in the wrong relationship?” ● “What if I made a mistake in getting together with my partner?” ● “What if there’s some with whom I would be more compatible?” ● “What if I’m attracted to someone else?” ● “What if I am leading my partner on?” ● “What if I am secretly a cheater?” ● “What if I hurt my partner by staying together?” ● “What if my partner is not as smart as I am?” ● “What if that other person is more attractive than my partner?” ● “What if I am deluding myself and/or my partner?

For all of you who might be experiencing this, or something similar, I want you to know that it doesn’t go on forever and that ROCD has in fact a very good prognosis. Treatment with CBT and ERP is very favorable and has shown to produce effective results within a short period of time. In our case, after Hugh began practicing ERP with the help of his therapist (to whom I am eternally grateful), his attitude changed overnight. It was a revelation. He had been cold and distant and I had in turn reacted defensively. But then he made an effort to do ERP and in a matter of days he was completely different around me. He treated me with more kindness and he didn’t shy away from showing affection. Of course, there were still moments when he would be afraid and engage in his OCD. But those were nothing compared to the barrage of intrusive thoughts that harassed him and the compulsions he was giving into before. I felt like we might make it through to the other side. Now I understand that there isn’t really another side. We have needed to learn to keep going with the intrusive thoughts, but doing our best to ditch the compulsions. You might wonder that I speak in the plural here. Well, we both interact with Hugh’s OCD. I make the mistake of offering him reassurance more often than I would like to admit, and I sometimes ask him about the thoughts, both things I should never do. But even though OCD is incredibly tough, one can learn to live with it. And that has been one of the greatest lessons we have learned so far. We live with the OCD not as our companion, but as a condition, like so many others, in our lives (don’t forget that I also have OCD, although it doesn’t manifest as ROCD).

For the partner of that ROCD sufferer, we have a few practical tips, advice that I’ve come to rely on myself over time, from us both. First and foremost, remember that your partner has OCD. Before getting upset at them for confessing an intrusive thought, urge, feeling, or sensation, try to remember that OCD is a disorder and that your partner is genuinely suffering at that moment. Approach them with empathy, listening and then dismissing the thought as just that; laughter also helps. If you laugh at the intrusions, the OCD loses some of its power.

She spoke wearily, her eyes rimmed a permanent shade of red. “They say we need to take him off of life support. That his body is deteriorating.” The wail of Brandon’s mom came down the hallway. It had become a sound we knew all too well. She broke down at random. Everyone did. Well, everyone except for me. I was void of emotion while my predator and I shared space. Instead of feeling pain at Sloan’s suffering, I spiraled further into my OCD. I slept less. I moved more. I dove deeper into my rituals. And nothing helped. Sloan didn’t react to the sound of grief down the hall. “His brain isn’t making hormones anymore or controlling any of his bodily functions. The medications he’s on to maintain his blood pressure and body temperature are damaging his organs. They said if we want to donate them, we have to do it soon.” “Okay,” I said, pulling tissues from a box and shoving them into her hands. “When are they doing it?” She spoke to the room, to someplace behind me. She didn’t look at me. “They’re not.” I stared at her. “What do you mean they’re not?” She blinked, her eyelids closing mechanically. “His parents don’t want to take him off life support. They’re praying for a miracle. They’re really religious. They think he rebounded once and he’ll rebound again.” Her eyes focused on me, tears welled, threatening to fall. “It’s going to all be for nothing, Kristen. He’s an organ donor. He’d want that. He’s going to rot in that room and he’s going to die for nothing and I have no say in any of it.” The tears spilled down her face, but she didn’t sob. They just streamed, like water from a leaky hose. I gaped at her. “But…but why? Didn’t he have a will? What the fuck?” She shook her head. “We talked about it, but the wedding was so close we just decided to wait. I have no say. At all.” The reality suddenly rolled out before me. It wouldn’t just be this. It would be everything. His life insurance policy, his benefits, his portion of the house, his belongings—not hers. She would get nothing. Not even a vote. She went on in her daze. “I don’t know how to convince them. The insurance won’t cover his stay much longer, so they’ll be forced to make a decision at some point. But it will cover it long enough for his organs to fail.” My brain grasped at a solution. “Claudia. She might be able to convince them.” She hadn’t been able to make the meeting. And she would side with Sloan—I knew she would. She had influence on her parents. “Maybe Josh too,” I continued. “They like him. They might listen to him.” I stood. She looked up at me, a tear dripping off her chin and landing on her thigh. “Where are you going?” “To find Josh.

She looked down at her burger. “Josh, I’m just a little run-down, okay? I’m sleeping with Sloan in the hospital every night. I’m living off of black coffee and whatever I can shove in my mouth. My OCD is manic—” “You have OCD?” It didn’t really surprise me. I’d seen a touch of it in her since I’d known her. One of my sisters had it. I knew it when I saw it. “Usually it’s not this bad, but it gets worse when I’m under stress.” She finished the burger and balled up the paper like it was an effort to even do that. Then she lay back against the headrest and closed her eyes. She was falling apart. She was deteriorating physically and mentally trying to keep Sloan together. And where the fuck was I in all this? Failing her. She wouldn’t ask for my help. I knew her well enough to know this, and I hadn’t even been to the hospital in three days to check in on her. I’d left her on her own with Sloan and Brandon’s family and all the rest of it. I should have been there. Maybe I could have gotten ahead of this life-support thing. Taken a spot on the overnight shift to be with Sloan so Kristen could get some sleep. Made sure she ate. Talking to me or not, Kristen never turned down food. I blamed myself for this. But I blamed her too. Because if she had let me, I would have taken care of her. We could have taken care of each other, and neither of us would be in such bad shape. I reached over and threaded my fingers through hers. She didn’t pull away. She looked too tired to fight me. She squeezed my hand, and the warmth of her touch coursed through me. “I’ll go to the hospital,” I said. “I’ll talk to his parents, and I’ll stay with Sloan today. I need you to go home and sleep. And tomorrow I want you to go to the doctor. Call to make the appointment tonight because you might have to fast before they do bloodwork.” She just looked at me, her beautiful face hollow and weary. She was always so strong. It was scary seeing her declining like this. Love did this to her. Her love of Sloan. And probably her love of me too. I knew it wasn’t easy on her. I knew she thought she was doing the right thing. But fuck, if she would just stop. If she would stop, we could both be okay.

Ihung up with Josh, and the switch flipped in my head. Sloan called it my velociraptor brain because it made me fierce and sharp. Something big had to trigger it, and when it did, my compulsive, laser-focused, primal side activated. The one that got me a near perfect score on my SATs and got me through college finals and Mom. The one that made me clean when I was stressed and threatened to launch into full-scale manic OCD if left unchecked—that kicked in. Emotion drained away, the tiredness from staying up all night crying dissipated, and I became my purpose. I didn’t do hysterics. Never had. When in crisis, I became systematic and efficient. And the transition was now complete. I weighed only for a second whether to call Sloan and tell her or go pick her up. I decided to pick her up. She would be too upset to drive properly, but knowing her, she would try anyway. From Josh’s explanation of the situation, Brandon wouldn’t be out of the hospital anytime soon. Sloan wouldn’t leave Brandon, and I wouldn’t leave her. She would need things for the stay. People would need to be called. Arrangements made. I began to compile a list in my head of things to do and things to pack as I quickly but methodically drove to Sloan’s. Phone charger, headphones, blanket, change of clothes for Sloan, toiletries, and her laptop. It took me twenty minutes to get to her house, and I got out of my car ready for a surgical extraction. I stood there, surrounded by the earthy smell of Sloan’s just-watered potted porch flowers. The door opened, and I took in her blissfully ignorant face one more time. “Kristen?” It wasn’t unusual for me to stop by. But she knew me well enough to instantly know something was wrong. “Sloan, Brandon has been in an accident,” I said calmly. “He’s alive, but I need you to get your purse and come with me.” I knew immediately that I’d been right to come get her instead of calling. One look at her and I knew she wouldn’t have been able to put a foot in front of the other. While I mobilized and became strong under stress, she froze and weakened. “What?  ” she breathed. “We have to hurry. Come on.” I pushed past her and systematically executed my checklist. I gave myself a two-minute window to grab what was needed. Her gym bag would be in the laundry room, already filled with toiletries and her headphones. I grabbed that, pulled a sweater from her closet, selected a change of clothes for her, and stuffed her laptop inside the bag. When I came out of the room, she had managed to grab her purse as instructed. She stood by the sofa looking shaken, her eyes moving back and forth like she was trying to figure out what was happening. Her cell phone sat by her easel and I snatched it, pulling the charger from the wall. I grabbed her favorite throw blanket from the sofa and stuffed that in the bag and zipped it. List complete. Then I took her by the elbow, locked her front door, and dragged her to the car. “Wha…what happened? What happened!” she screamed, finally coming out of her shock. I opened up the passenger door and put her in. “Buckle yourself up. I’ll tell you what I know on the way.” When I got around to the driver’s side, she had her phone to her ear. “He’s not answering. He’s not answering! What happened, Kristen?!” I grabbed her face in my hands. “Listen to me. Look at me. He is alive. He was hit on his bike. Josh went on the call. He was unconscious. It was clear he had some broken bones and a possible head injury. He’s at the ER, and I need to get you to the hospital to be with him. But I need you to be calm.” Her brown eyes were terrified, but she nodded. “Right now your job is to call Brandon’s family,” I said firmly. “Relay what I just said to you, calmly. Can you do that for Brandon?” She nodded again. “Yes.” Her hands shook, but she dialed.

I'll Be There For You These words are etched on our hearts. but they're so much more than just words, they're a complete emotion. But it's all just an illusion, a utopia, for which we long. we trade in drinking coffee on a couch, with drinking at a bar. we utter more words to Alexa and Siri, than to people face to face. we can never have six people in one room without anyone looking at their phones. we trade in memories with pictures. we actively look for reasons to not be around people. a Chandler is considered too mean and sarcastic, Ross has too much baggage, who has the energy to deal with that. Phoebe is too quirky to handle. Rachel, that spoilt and entitled bitch. no way. Joey is the fuck boy that will cause you nothing but pain, and Monica with her OCD, that's way too high maintenance. no, we don't say these things when we watch the show, we say these about people around us who bear similar characteristics. we adore these characters, we envy their friendship, their bond, their love. we long for nothing else, yet when confronted with them in real life, we belittle, avoid, cut-off, ignore. we don't want to disturb the utopia, are terrified of bursting the bubble, because if we start recognizing the flaws in our fantasies, we'll be forced to recognize our own. we love to live an à la carte life, wherein we pick and choose the qualities and personalities of a person that we wish to see, and the ones that may simply be brushed away. Generation after generation, will watch that show and call it their utopia, and each will give up hope of ever attaining that, alas! It was a different time! what we long for doesn't require a time machine to achieve, it doesn't need for mobile phones to not exist, or for less bars to exist, or to live away from your parents. it's only as complicated as we try to make it, when it can be as simple as, "I'll be there for you, 'cause you're there for me too

I'll Be There For You" These words are etched on our hearts. but they're so much more than just words, they're a complete emotion. But it's all just an illusion, a utopia, for which we long. we trade in drinking coffee on a couch, with drinking at a bar. we utter more words to Alexa and Siri, than to people face to face. we can never have six people in one room without anyone looking at their phones. we trade in memories with pictures. we actively look for reasons to not be around people. a Chandler is considered too mean and sarcastic, Ross has too much baggage, who has the energy to deal with that. Phoebe is too quirky to handle. Rachel, that spoilt and entitled bitch. no way. Joey is the fuck boy that will cause you nothing but pain, and Monica with her OCD, that's way too high maintenance. no, we don't say these things when we watch the show, we say these about people around us who bear similar characteristics. we adore these characters, we envy their friendship, their bond, their love. we long for nothing else, yet when confronted with them in real life, we belittle, avoid, cut-off, ignore. we don't want to disturb the utopia, are terrified of bursting the bubble, because if we start recognizing the flaws in our fantasies, we'll be forced to recognize our own. we love to live an à la carte life, wherein we pick and choose the qualities and personalities of a person that we wish to see, and the ones that may simply be brushed away. Generation after generation, will watch that show and call it their utopia, and each will give up hope of ever attaining that, alas! It was a different time! what we long for doesn't require a time machine to achieve, it doesn't need for mobile phones to not exist, or for less bars to exist, or to live away from your parents. it's only as complicated as we try to make it, when it can be as simple as, "I'll be there for you, 'cause you're there for me too

I'll Be There For You These words are etched on our hearts. but they're so much more than just words, they're a complete emotion. But it's all just an illusion, a utopia, for which we long. we trade in drinking coffee on a couch, with drinking at a bar. we utter more words to Alexa and Siri, than to people face to face. we can never have six people in one room without anyone looking at their phones. we trade in memories with pictures. we actively look for reasons to not be around people. a Chandler is considered too mean and sarcastic, Ross has too much baggage, who has the energy to deal with that. Phoebe is too quirky to handle. Rachel, that spoilt and entitled bitch. no way. Joey is the fuck boy that will cause you nothing but pain, and Monica with her OCD, that's way too high maintenance. no, we don't say these things when we watch the show, we say these about people around us who bear similar characteristics. we adore these characters, we envy their friendship, their bond, their love. we long for nothing else, yet when confronted with them in real life, we belittle, avoid, cut-off, ignore. we don't want to disturb the utopia, are terrified of bursting the bubble, because if we start recognizing the flaws in our fantasies, we'll be forced to recognize our own. we love to live an à la carte life, wherein we pick and choose the qualities and personalities of a person that we wish to see, and the ones that may simply be brushed away. Generation after generation, will watch that show and call it their utopia, and each will give up hope of ever attaining that, alas! It was a different time! what we long for doesn't require a time machine to achieve, it doesn't need for mobile phones to not exist, or for less bars to exist, or to live away from your parents. it's only as complicated as we try to make it, when it can be as simple as, I'll be there for you, 'cause you're there for me too

I have a confession. I'm a little OCD when I post on social media – I tend to edit more than I should. But then I started thinking, maybe we should all edit a little more - our posts, our thoughts, our words.

worshiped in front of a simple picture. Lord, what beauty! Where did I lose that part of myself, the part that was mesmerized by algae and bubbles? How many times have I missed out on glory because I turned away in fear? How dare I replace this beauty with three-word phrases and meaningless compulsions?

In a restaurant, I can’t sit with my back to the door. Not sure if I’m OCD, but I excel at organizational skills. Slightly claustrophobic, not crazy about heights. Love martinis but one is enough. Tend to be opinionated at times but good at reigning it in. Love long-legged women, clueless about cars, love trucks. I read several dozen books a year, cook every night, and am uncomfortable if music isn’t playing. Don’t like scat singing or modulation, jazz is my preferred music, and my favorite colors are black and dark blue. Have no problem eating on my own in a restaurant, have to have a dog, and hate clowns and circuses. I’d never heard a Pink Floyd album until 2015, Penderecki’s “Polish Requiem” can make me cry, love trains, and am a confirmed sushi snob. I’ve never wanted to be anyone else, but if I had to choose I’d be Michael Caine.

OCD is a shape-shifter, and as one of our favorite authors, Katie d’Ath, has said it has a way of convincing you that it’s not really OCD. So, often, when dealing with an intrusive thought, one might be tempted to treat it as if it wasn’t just that--an obsession, a thought, but instead as something of paramount importance. When the intrusive thought is of a new character or content, it’s easy for the OCD to disguise itself and one of its many disguises is the question, What if I don’t actually have OCD and I’m just lying to myself?

Then I got on the OCD Center of Los Angeles website, almost by accident--I had been googling a description of this behavior and it was one of the top results--, and there I read for the first time about Relationship Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. I have to admit, I felt somewhat relieved. This meant, to me, in my love-addled mind, that there was a chance he truly loved me.

Our brokenness is our greatest strength. I've been broken all my life, for my life is one on the spectrum with OCD to make things worse. But have you ever heard me whine about my brokenness - no – never! For no matter how broken you are, till you give in to your brokenness, it can never break you.

I think we can all agree that romantic relationships are challenging for everyone. But when you throw anxiety, OCD, and/or depression into the mix, the idea of “happily ever after” might feel more like a propaganda campaign than something actually achievable.

Q. How can I be certain that what I fear will happen will never really happen? A. Sadly, the answer is you can't be certain! If you suffer from OCD you probably want a 100 percent guarantee that you will never do anything dangerous or that no harm will ever come to you or your family members. Unfortunately, life does not work like this. If I think about it, I know that there is no guarantee that I won't be hit by a car coming home from work today - but somehow my brain automatically accepts the very small chance of this happening and so permits me to go on living my life. More than two thousand years ago the Buddha (a great psychologist besides being a religious teacher) warned that one of the key things that makes us suffer is that we always want more than we will actually get - whether what we want is material like gold and jewels, or (my addition) in the case of OCD, more certainty than you will ever achieve. Thus the solution the Buddha might have offered you in northern India those thousands of years ago might have been something like this: "To stop suffering you must learn to accept that you will never achieve as much certainty as you want, no matter how much you pursue it; so it is up to you to choose: Either accept this truth and live your life happily, or fight against this truth and continue to suffer." Let me say it again for emphasis: you will never be certain that you won't act on the urges you have, or that the terrible things you fear will happen will not actually happen - but I can assure you that the odds of these things actually happening are small enough that it is not worth wasting your life trying (in vain) to get 100 percent certainty. Better to trust in yourself, your religious beliefs, or in evolution having prepared us well for surviving in this world. If evidence from brain studies better helps to convince you this is true, brain imaging studies of OCD sufferers now suggest that there really is something wrong with their "certainty system"; whatever automatically lets someone without OCD feel that things are OK does not function correctly in the OCD sufferer's brain (who then tries to convince himself that everything is OK, eventually becoming tired and frustrated when he cannot use other brain functions to achieve 100 percent certainty).

We don’t have the same worldview anymore. We don’t have the same emotional life. That’s why I don’t romanticize people from my past—chances are we aren’t even compatible anymore, if we ever were! Try to let the fact that you’ve grown be the closure you need from your past relationships.

I cannot stress how much I love the idea of kindness being lubrication for tough situations. Whenever you’re struggling, in or out of the bedroom, reach for some lube, baby!

If my personal schema says I’m unlovable or unworthy of happiness, I will see everyone’s behavior through that lens. It won’t matter if someone actually does love me because my brain won’t allow me to process their affection correctly. That’s why self-awareness is so important.

I completely understand where our instilled belief that “true” love should be hard comes from. You don’t need to look any further than whatever program is currently on your TV. It makes for a better narrative when someone has to jump through fiery hoops and disown their family in order to be with their one and only. The problem is that these stories are always framed as romantic instead of unhealthy and/or traumatizing.

As a writer, I get that it’s hard to make a compelling movie about two people who meet at a house party, share similar interests, get married, live another fifty years in harmony, and then die. But real life doesn’t need to be dramatic to be enjoyable.

DO YOU THINK I WANT TO LIVE LIKE THIS? Do you think that I wake up in the morning and say, ‘You know what would be really fun, let’s spend hours and hours locked in my head, let’s not leave my room, and hey, while we’re at it, let’s cut out all the people who care, because there really is nothing better, no, I cannot think of anything I would like to do more, than to reject the perfect, happy life I could have, and choose instead to live stuck on repeat in my own private hell’?

What I experience is so unlike the OCD people have on TV. Have they got it right?

I have CDO. It's like OCD but with the letters in alphabetical order as they should be.

I want the floor to open up and swallow me whole. Feeling as I have a spotlight on me, I forget how to speak and look down at my shoes. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s being the center of attention.

Kara gives me a thumbs up, and I feel my hardened face melt into a smile. I’m so grateful to have her, someone to sympathize with me, who knows I’m not right but loves me anyway.

The fact that willful refocusing of attention caused brain changes in patients with OCD had exciting implications for the physics of mind-brain. “Ideas that I had long been working on, but which seemed to have no practical application, tied in very well with Jeff’s discovery of the power of mental effort to keep attention focused,” Stapp recalled. “That gave me the impetus to pursue this.” In his own JCS paper, Stapp argued that neither scientists nor philosophers who adhered to the ideas of classical Newtonian physics would ever resolve the mind-brain mystery until they acknowledged that their underlying model of the physical world was fundamentally flawed. For three centuries classical physics has proved incapable of resolving the mind-body problem, Stapp noted. And although quantum physics supplanted classical physics a century ago, the implications of the quantum revolution have yet to penetrate biology and, in particular, neuroscience. And that’s a problem, for the key difference between classical and quantum physics is the connection they make between physical states and consciousness.

I propose, then, that “mental force” is a force of nature generated by volitional effort, such as the effort required to refocus attention away from the obsessions of OCD and onto an actively chosen healthy behavior. Directed mental force, I suggest, accounts for the observed changes in brain function that accompany clinical improvement among OCD patients who have been successfully treated with the Four Steps. The volitional effort required for Refocusing can, through the generation of mental force, amplify and strengthen alternative circuitry that is just beginning to develop in the patient’s brain. The results are a quieting of the OCD circuit and an activation of healthy circuits. Through directed mental force, what begin as fragile, undependable processes—shifting attention away from the OCD obsessions and onto less pathological behaviors—gradually become stronger. This is precisely the goal of the therapy: to make the once-frail circuits prevail in the struggle against the OCD intruder.