It feels silly writing something like this as if it should be groundbreaking or earth-shattering in any way, but I pride myself on being private and I'm afraid of what you might think of me if you read this. Â I understand if it makes you feel weird or if it actually makes you feel nothing at all, but I would die a little if it made you think any less of me.
Sometimes I just need you to know why the light goes out of my eyes, why sometimes I seem withdrawn and unable to carry a conversation. Â I need you to understand why there are times when I have to abruptly stop talking because I might burst into tears in public or because I need to take a deep breath and count to 4. Â I need you to feel what it's like to be inside my brain.
Let me paint you this imaginary scenario in your head. Â Bear with me. Â Imagine you've been diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder.
Before you say, wait - Â "but you're the messiest/dirtiest/filthiest person I know" or "you're wildly irresponsible" or "but you don't seem crazy at all," I need you to know what OCD actually means and I need you to forget the mildly humorous scenarios you may have seen on that TV sitcom you watched once. Â It's not a disease for nit-picky neat freaks with peculiar quirks and tics, it's a disease for people like me who stay awake at night debating whether or not the door is locked because there's a pretty good chance your mutilated and raped body will be found lifeless in the morning and your poor shattered mother will have to read about your murder in the newspaper and instead of becoming someone all you ever amounted to was a faceless name someone glances over while reading the Wikipedia entry about your serial killer. Â It's a disease for people like me who feel constant guilt because I can't shake the curiosity of what breaking someone's neck feels like, the sharp crack of bone between my palms, the satisfying denouement of slamming a rushed ending on someone else's life. Â The images, the images, they cackle and they scream and they drown you in morbidly awful things that could happen to you or awful ways you could happen to other people.
And with the images come the self-doubt and the self-hatred, wait, do I really have a disease or am I just a sociopathic, attention-seeking, needy, worthless, poisonous person who thinks deliciously terrible fucking things are about to happen (but probably won't)? Â You often think, maybe it's better to distance yourself, isolate, isolate, isolate. Â It would be safer for them if you went it alone. Â Because what if, what if by knowing you or caring for you or being there for you, the people you love and care about the most will get trampled under the weight of your so-called mental illness? Â Don't they know that everything and everyone you touch will fall to ashes?
Let's be real though, you're not ACTUALLY crazy, you know that doing A 4 times or in multiples of 4 will not lead to B, you know that checking the locks 4 times will not make them any more locked, you know in your heart and down to your little pinky that you would never in a million years ever be capable of causing someone else physical pain, you know that isolating yourself will not stop the suffering that goes on in this world. Â Â You know in your heart that you are fine, you are safe and you are loved, so why do you feel so compelled to do all these things that won't solve the issue at hand because you know it's not going to make it stop, make it stop, MAKE IT STOP.
Breathe in order to ignore the gnawing worm that burrows in your ear to tell you that despite knowing all your images are illusions, that despite knowing that at your core, you are a deeply compassionate and loving person, that despite knowing that everyone around you would do anything to help save you from yourself,
there's still a small dark shadow in the back of your head that scares the shit out of you because it's the part of you that wants nothing more than to watch the world burn.
