Living with chronic anxiety and OCD is tough. Like, really, properly, totally hard. Discovering this morning I have Covid isn’t doing much for my state of mind. But that’s another story.
As the years have passed, so my insight into my illnesses has grown. I know more about anxiety and OCD now than I did even five years ago. I know thoughts are just thoughts; they do not reflect me as a person, and there is no chance I would ever act on an intrusive thought. Yet at this time of year, my mental health takes a dive with the temperatures, and my thoughts have been catching me out.
They just seem so real sometimes. It’s hard to step back and acknowledge the difference between the thought being OCD (which it is) and it being in some way accurate. And the more I try and ‘delve into’ the thought, the more I try and rationalise it, the more stuck I become in the OCD spiral.
So what thoughts have I been experiencing recently? Well, this is doubtless going to make me sound a bit weird or ‘clingy’ but it’s a part of my illness, and if we don’t talk about these things, then the stigma surrounding mental ill-health won’t go away. If I’m having a conversation with a female (cue Friday Night Dinner jokes) and she refers to me as ‘mate’ or ‘dude’, I automatically think I have been friend-zoned. Now, context here is everything. If I’m flirting with a girl in a club, then this may well be the situation. If, however, I am talking to an actual female friend about an ordinary subject, it may be a term of endearment. Why does this matter, anyway? I mean, I’m happily single and am not ready in the slightest to start dating again, so I’d much rather be friends with a girl anyway. But I think it goes to the heart of my self-esteem, or rather lack thereof. I suppose I’ve grown up with the belief that I’m so unattractive that nobody could possibly ever love me.
This is a thought that has been prominent recently, as I say, and it’s been difficult to distinguish whether the thought is real or just an ‘undesirable’ thought. Chances are, it’s the latter. And even if it was the former (to play devil's advocate), who cares anyway?
My anxiety has been manifesting itself in different ways. Despite a haircut a few weeks ago, I feel as though I have lost some interest in my physical appearance. I often interpret things in a negative way; waiting for someone to text back, and if they don’t, thinking I’ve bored or upset them. I could have a good night out and make lots of memories, but if something bad happens - someone says something upsetting to me - then that is my abiding memory of that night out. Dismissing all the good stuff for one bad thing. Clouded vision indeed.
Anyway, the point of writing this is not just to get these things off my chest - I sincerely hope that anybody going through similar sh*t can maybe relate to this and realise they are not alone. Gonna leave it there for this post, but I’ll be discussing some more symptoms soon.
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