i dont really know why i am about to type this whole long thing, maybe just because reflecting once in a while helps me to put things in prespective, even if nobody reads it.

my first ocd memory was at the age of 4 or five, i dropped my barbie doll off of the porch and said ‘shit’ under my breath. i felt guilty for days. i was walking in the living room and my dads old camcorder was laying on the floor. i walked by it and didnt touch it, but some little voice in my head said ‘you kicked it, you broke it, you are going to be in so much trouble’ that is how i remember it started. when i was 7 my father passed away most likely due to a string of events involving his father being some big shot drug lord. appearently my family was involved in some less than flattering activites when i was very young. after my father died, my mom ran to arizona with a new boyfriend to ‘protect us’  no suprise, he was a loser. my mom then met and married my adoptive father. thats when i really remember struggling. i would feel guilty for EVERYTHING, and i would confess confess confess. and alot of times i would get in trouble. i remember once i got got in trouble for telling my dad that i called him a jerk under my breath in the shower. i was grounded constantly, and he would even pull my underwear down and spank me, and i was like 10 years old, it was so embarrassing, i was mortified. i hated him. this is when the rituals started. i washed my hands constantly, prayed over and over and over again, and i used to have to line up my stuffed animals around me on my bed to protect me.

i got diagnosed when i was 12 due to handwashing, my hands were cracked pretty bad, i remember my couselors telling me to do loads of stupid shit, like snap a rubber band on my wrist or punch a pillow. i was also diagnosed with add and in the process of being dianosed with bi-polar disorder when my parents pulled me out. i had been through a plethora of medications, none worked. i would have these terrible fits and rages, so full of anger and resentment, i became my family’s scape-goat. i started bting myself, scratching and hitting myself. my parents turned the lock on my door so they could lock me in my room when i would get like this. i remember my parents stting on top of me trying to ‘calm me down’. i was dragged up the stairs by my hair. my little sister had to witness all of this, she would try to help me unlck my door sometimes.

i was struggling in school, i was put into a special needs program, i would have fits and rages even at school. i wasnt anywhere close to being slow or anything like that, but the regular teachers couldnt handle my rage. i was tortured in school by the other children, i was strange and out spoken. i remember in middle school a cheerleader and her friends decided i was a lesbian, so she jumped me in the locker room, she never even got in trouble, nobody believed me. that was around the time i was landed in the hospital because i ‘attempted suicide’ really, i just wanted to get out of the room i was locked in. it worked. shortly after that, things got so bad my parents tried to put me in a group home for troubled girls, the sad thing is, is that these were girls running away doing drugs, having sex. i wasnt. the even sadder thing is i wanted to go. anywhere would have been better then home. i’m not saying that my parents were these horrible abusive monsters, everything they did they did it because they thought it was the best thing for all of us.

we found out that my mother was an alcoholic. a terrible string of events occured after that. my mom and dad got a divorce. she moved out but always tried to get back in. she would show up to family gatherings univited and drunk and she would start fighting with my dads side. she would come ring the door bell a million times in the middle of the night. one time she got in and crawled into my little sisters bed. my dad called the cops. once she came to the skate park while i was hanging out with a guy i liked and tried to get me in her car. she was trashed. she took off the shoes i was wearing and then dragged me out of the park by my bra strap. i would come home from school to find her on the couch passed out. she wouldnt move or wake up so i would call 911 and watch her go out on a stretcher.

at this point i had gotten a little more used to my constant racing thoughts, i had given up on the praying, and god, and everything and everyone else. my life events had proved to me that i was really truly on my own. i wasnt allowed to date until i was 16, and when i did, it seemed like no matter who i dated, there was something wrong with them. i would get this terrible feeling of gloom when i thought of them so the relationships never lasted more than a week or two, sometimes less. i had finally found a group of friends that excepted me for who i was, and things strated to look up. alot of them did drugs and drank, i didnt, for a while. i still felt like i had to confess everything i did at that point. and my mother was in and out of rehabs in florida, so i had to tell everything to my dad. things got beter for us for awhile, then worse, he was very controlling, i wasnt allowed to have a life, he didnt trust me with anything even though i was a good kid. thats when i decided i wasnt going to be a good kid anymore. i mean, i was gonna be in trouble no matter what i did right? why not say screw it ? why not see what it is like to be what my friends said was a normal teenager? i strated ditching school and doing drugs and drinking. and i dont mean smoking pot. i was trying meth, cocaine, snorting oxy contin, doing anything i could get my hands on. i was living with a friend at the time and still in high school. i remember we would sneak out at night and hang out with these wretched guys we met around town, get completely wrecked, and sneak back into her house while her parents were getting ready for work the next morning. at this point i remember having any syptoms of ocd, but i was having horrible panic attacks. my body was shutting down, in one year, i had managed to turn into a completely different person, i just didnt care anymore. i was renting a room from a friend and i would just lay in bed at night and sob and cut myself, if i wasnt getting loaded. it got to the point where i would wake up and have no idea what happened the night before, only little flashes, i was blacking out. my mom visited once and gave me a load of ativan, i took them for days straight, i was a zombie. it had to end. the thing is, is that i wasnt even addicted to anything besides numbing myself out. it got to the point where i could barely hold a job, i stopped paying rent, completley screwing my friend over, and the only place i had left to go was to my mother. i lived with her in florida for a summer and i really cleaned my act up. i held a job and hung out with really nice people, but i missed my friends at home, i wanted to come back, but i knew i couldnt go back to phoenix, so i moved to tucson and started a whole new chapter of ocd.

3 Comments
  1. ZackP 15 years ago

    Your story is unbelievable. If I wanted to tell mine, I would, but I haven’t yet. I may never. But, it’s incredible what you have done, and then come out of. It’s great to know you. Not just good after all.

     

     

       Sincerely,

       Zack.

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  2. StephenLeaver 15 years ago

     Wow, quite a story. I remember the hardest days for me because of ocd. They were during my senior year in high school. It was pure hell on earth. I absolutely hated it! But I didn’t have to go through it alone, because during that time we found out that ocd was the one doing it. So, at least I didn’t have to hide what I was going through as much as I did before I found out what it was. 

     

    I could easily see myself turning to drugs or beer to "escape" from ocd when it was at its worse. Luckily I had a good support system in my family. When I read that your parents had gotten divorced, my heart really went out to you. I don’t see how you can deal with ocd without your parents being together. 

     

    Hang in there.

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  3. pseudonym 15 years ago

    Wow.  I admire your strength and determination for turning your life around.  And now you have your whole life in front of you.  Thank you for having the courage to share this – it helped me.

    Be well.

     

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