Life and Death

I wonder does anyone out there share my fears. I wonder if this is part of my OCD.

I fear death but not my own, actually I welcome my own quite often, I go to bed at night and pray that I die in my sleep, because this life is so painful. But I hopefully will not take my own life. I cannot do so. I know the hurt that would cause. My OCD and depression started to flare up again last September, and nearly killed me during the winter months. I did not take my life as I want so much to get better, and enjoy life again. Also my mother got me help.

It is the death of my family members that I fear. I sometimes obsess about it but not in a normal way. I sometimes think I may have caused a death already, and I am in a coma, and this life I am living is not real. I have not told many people about that, as it comes and goes, but I will say it to the therapist, when I get my appointment. I have been waiting months for an appointment. The mental health service in Ireland is terrible.

Also, my depression get worse each day, as I know each day we get older, all of us. I have been sick on and off for 30 years, since the age of 9 when I suffered child abuse. I only managed to speak to my mam, 4 years ago, and to my dad, a few months ago. My dad’s reaction was not what I expected at all. I said nothing all those years as it was a 2nd cousin on my mother’s side of the family that did it, and I feared if I spoke up my dad would blame my mother and there would be a divorce. I was wrong; there was no blame, and no divorce. I suppose as the years went by, I had good years, where I almost let the memory go, when it did not bother me, and the OCD and depression were in remission. So I guess I thought I could cope on my own. But how wrong I was.

I fell ill again last year, and after 7 months of being on the wrong medication, I got the meds changed, and am awaiting an appointment with the therapist. CBT therapy, which I have never had.

But as I got sick, I looked back at my life and all those wasted years. Years of depression and OCD, that could have been prevented if I only had the courage to speak up. So I am left with 30 years of regret, I do not know how to cope with.

My regret concerns my family, and what could have been, if the abuse did not take place and I lived a normal life. I isolated myself from my family, and drank far too much, did not get a college degree all of which has led to mistake after mistake, and to working in a job I hate. I fear I will not get promoted without a miracle, which I pray for every day. I hope my fear is unfounded.

But my main regret, missed opportunities with my family. My parents are in the 60s so where in their 30s when I started to get sick. My younger brothers and sister grew up, and many times I was no use to them. 30 years of illness and arguments, when it could have been 30 years of happiness. My doctor told me that I tortured myself for no reason for 30 years. My dad says I suffered because of my abusers sin. So that is the reason for my fear.

I fear more years of OCD and depression, more wasted years. I would love to turn back time, and start again, doing the right thing. I have moved back in with my family because I want to be with them. I am afraid to leave home now.

I want to have good times with my family, but having OCD and depression makes that so difficult. I have contamination issues, so going out is difficult for me. Going to work is very difficult. I play golf with my dad but getting ready to go out is stressful, and makes my dad angry with me. He understands, but still gets annoyed with my behaviour. I stress a lot about work, and at the weekends I worry about going to work, so playing golf I worry about work, and lots of other issues, so I cannot concentrate, and mess up, which annoys my dad and the other people playing.

I have not really been able to go out much with my mam, we did some work on an allotment I leased last year, but now regret doing so, because of the OCD. My mam is so understanding and good to me, so I want to be good to her, but when I am with her I usually talk about the regrets in my life and that annoys her. I know I need to stop, but I have no friends so have no one else that I can talk to. My brothers have all moved out, so I do not get to talk to them much, although I am trying to change that.

So I guess I have gone into too much detail maybe. But I wanted to explain where I am at. Maybe some people feel the same way as I do. I am not sure if I should write this on a blog or forum so I am putting it on both.

My fear is that I will not be able to spend quality time with my family because of the OCD and depression, which has been a plague on my life. I am fed up with each day being ruined. So I wonder has anyone gone through this, and is now recovered, is now not living with the fear. I know, everyone has to die, but that is a concept I am not coping to well with. I know it is normal to fear death, and not want loved ones to die. But it is not normal to obsess about it. So how to I stop?

The shrink says I have another few months of this and then I will be fine. But I am sure if 30 years of pain can be cured that easy.

What do you think?