There’s Little Focus on the Recovery

I think I’ve come to a point of self-understanding. Bear with me on this.

How much do I really talk about the OCD on here? Genuine question. I mean, I know I’ve written a few posts about it, the saga one and the angry one. (two daily prompts)

But in-depth? In all of the OCD land that there is?

I, at least, don’t think that I have.

I think I’ve uncovered what makes me so mad, so wanting to shout at the computer screen “Recover faster!” when it comes to reading other people’s OCD stories:

There’s SUCH a focus on the struggle. On what it’s like ‘living’ with it (more often under the OCD) and identity and knowing one’s self and basically, the STRUGGLE, the shit. All of the shit.

AND There’s very little focus on the RECOVERY.

I think that’s what bugs me.

Where’s the recovery piece? Where’s the point where you realize you CAN recover from this condition? When you take back your fucking life and get a hold of your shit? (Get your shit together clip) Where is that piece?! Where did it GO? Why is it MISSING?

‘Cause I wait to read the part where people begin recovery, where they start taking back their life, they gain some perspective, they forge meaning, they make their lives MATTER because THEY DO, and they punch that fucking OCD right in the FACE as it DESERVES TO BE.

 

But…. that part just doesn’t come.

 

Not anymore it doesn’t. If I’ve got to make it my mission to bring recovery to the forefront of people’s brains, you can bet your ass I’m gonna do it!!!

Going through my therapy notes was helpful (and triggering, so I didn’t read through them all lol), and I want to share my experiences and the things I’ve learned in the coming months. Of course, it’s all tailored to me, but with some generalizations it can be applied to other issues and conditions. It works like that.

Here are some sneak peeks into what I want to discuss:

1. DBT techniques
2. Mindfulness
3. Cognitive distortions and a list of how you can manage these
4. Coping strategies (general and my own)
5. Mental health Youtubers I’d recommend
6. Grounding techniques
7. Mini ‘lectures’ of sorts
8. Examples of my own recovery progress
9. More specific posts dedicated to particular topics of exploration
10. What it means to me to recover and live with the OCD.

This is what this blog is all about. Recovery & Wellness. Let’s get our brains geared towards focusing more on recovery and glorifying life than the multi-named bullshit that is everything else.

And book reviews. Because not everything can be about mental health XD And art.

 

Lastly, I will end with a quote from a book I’m still in midst of reading and whose message I think fits this post well and with what I’m saying:

“It has not occurred to most people that they may already be the role model they

seek.” – p 106 Kitchen Table Wisdom Rene Remen

To Live with Purpose + Gift #2

June 2nd Prompt | Purpose

It is now nearly 5 in the afternoon. Today, I have overpowered the day.

I made a new scrapbook page last night, which is fun, and my room is looking more barren, which is a good thing (I tend to keep a lot of clutter on the floor).

I made a post this morning on here, tackling my issues coming to light and a daily prompt from…a few days ago. Tehe!

I’ve been caught up with my messages here since yesterday, although I have many comments left to write. I think the writing block is dissipating, which is lovely. I’m planning on making some comments tonight. I’ve taken a few naps today, got out my summer clothes from up in the attic (or, more so, my Mom did) and I have to do the dishes later, but that’s not so bad. I think I’d like to read some tonight, so I’ll have to carve out an hour for that. I’ve made my second gift art for Shouting from the Mountain Top which I’ll be showcasing at the very end of this post. 🙂 I did that as I listened to a bunch of Trisha Paytas’ haul videos and other Youtube chatter.

I’m almost playing around with the idea of doing some photography tonight… I need to shower, too. And maybe, if I can, I will spend some time doing creative writing…. I feel the need to create, but create what I’m not sure.

I also need to practice through my IOOV presentation for tomorrow. Actually, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned but this month I’m doing IOOV presentations at Samaritans (tomorrow) and Carney Hospital in Dorchester onnnnnn the 13th. On Monday I’m going up to school for non-work study application stuff and a meeting and therapy. Then Tuesday is finally the OCD support group night. I bet I’ll be able to read a lot while I’m there, too. 🙂

The officially unofficial idea for the summer involves me having a 12 hour job up at school, for a couple to three days a week. Also attending therapy. And waiting for the partial hospitalization at the OCD-Institute for some time in July. And, more likely, also taking a summer psychology statistics course beginning July 18th. I would like to email the professor who’s teaching it just like I’d like to email professors about a directed study, but I keep pushing it off, annoyingly so. -_-

I get to see dogs tomorrow though!! 😀 That is exciting.

I will be on a time crunch for the IOOV presentation, so I’m hoping finding the location isn’t too tricky!!!!

 

Additional Fancy News:

1. Including today, it’s been 6 days so far on my third recovery stint from self-harm.
2. I’m hoping to bring more of my experiences and teachable moments to Recovery to Wellness, as well as more book reviews, which I have out like 9 books from the library at the moment, 😀
3. Oh! I was nominated by B.E for the Liebster award, I’ll probably fill that out tonight. 🙂
4. I’ve made it to 50 followers! I’m hoping to do a little art piece about this too, that you’ll see later in the week! 😀

 

Now for Gift Art!

This gift art is for my friend, Shouting from the Mountain Top, whose blog link is highlighted up above! She is a wicked soldier, battling her demons (of which there are sadly many) and kicking ass as she continues surviving each day, each minute, each second. She is a wonderful, caring human being, whose been knocked around by life a lot, but who I know can make it through recovery and to a life she is happy to live for. ❤ Send her some love!! ❤ ❤ ❤

Here it is!!!! Full, complete version, close ups to follow! =] I do enjoy doing these two page spreads. 🙂

 

So, for this piece, I was definitely thinking of doing something involving a mountain top, and at first was going to do that mountain a bit brown-ish in the middle, until I thought, why not just do it to the side going up? So, I did! I used watercolor and a Stabilo fine point black pen in this piece. I did a darker green then a lighter green overlay for the mountain, and a darker blue then lighter blue overlay for the sky.

There’s a cool little person who’s technically not wearing a shirt but kind of is (they definitely have a skirt though!) looking out into the light/sky and yes, that cup looking thing is their hands 😉

I was trying to find some good quotes to include but didn’t like too many of the ones that popped up on Google, or didn’t feel they fit with SFTMT, so I made this one up! I hope you enjoy the quote and the drawing!! ❤

The cloud has a strip of pearlescent white and gray! And there’s a sun shining through 🙂

I titled this piece: “A Soul’s Teaching”

 

Here is a picture of what it looked like as a WIP:

I had fun with the font, too! I don’t usually explore too many styles of fonts but I wanted something different and snazzy for you, hun! ❤

 

Okay, that’s enough from my mouth for this post! I have a couple more posts I want to knock on out before the end of tonight ❤

We all have a purpose here, in this life. Yours, too, can be found with some self-discovery and love. ❤

 

xxxxxx

P.S.: B.E, you’re next! 😀

Angry Snippets

June 1st Daily Prompt: Angry

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been waking up extraordinarily early, going to bed between 9p and 11p (on the nights it was difficult to fall asleep) and waking from 4a, to 5a, to 6a, 7, 8a. -_- Often it’s early awakening to just check messages on WP and my email and I often fall back asleep for an hour or two, but still, it’s annoying as all hell.

Today I’ve woken up around 6am.

I still feel quite tired. And I feel bored, disinterested, uninspired and just plain bleh. I’ve been struggling with wanting to do the daily prompts lately, but not being inspired by them, getting sidetracked, or just not having any words to say about them. So here I am, a few days off, going to run through some of the past daily prompts, because I did have ideas for them, just lacked the output to do so (not that I’ve really gained it this time, either).

So this prompt will involve a little snippet of sorts. Carry on, now. ❤

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Angry 1:

Did you know the first most longstanding reaction from loved ones who have lost someone they care about to suicide is anger/betrayal? Apparently, it is. After a long while, then comes sadness and other emotions. But the first reaction, is anger.

It makes sense.

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Angry 2:

I remember my therapist telling me about a story from another patient she had years ago. The man’s daughter needed some type of organ transplant, and the man became so angry about his daughter waiting so long on the waiting list, that he used his anger and passion to call up the current White House President at the time. He requested incessantly to speak with the President, but the people working there were like ‘Sir, no, you can’t, Mr. President is very busy’ but he was so determined that he KEPT ringing them until FINALLY they let him through, and he was able to speak to the President and get his daughter the organ she needed.

Being angry can lead to a passionate stance and output some positivity!

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Angry 3:

There’s a nice quote from the book ‘The Piper’ in my book review post about anger, that you should totes head over and check out 😉

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Angry 4:

It was through the anger and triggered reaction from hearing about mental illness stigma that led my Mom to telling me to, instead of being angry and triggered and unable to see further than those reactions, to use that emotion to create a positive output. That’s how I started writing for the Mass Media, our school newspaper, about mental health and my experiences with it. =]

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Angry 5:

Because I’m not triggered by anything OCD related lately, and because I’m perpetually bored and disinterested with life at the moment, I’d like to list some of the things about OCD that really just piss me off.

These are my own experiences and my own projections often onto other people. Through blogging, I’ve come to realize how MUCH I actually project, oops. 😀

So, here we go:

• I hate reading people describe their OCD as “MY OCD”. In my mind, I’m always correcting it, saying THE OCD, because it just screws with my head a bit. Recently when I was organizing I found a bunch of notes where I was writing ‘my OCD’ and it just made me cringe. It leaves a taste of disgust in my mouth. >> Why?: My issues with Identity and ownership of an illness.
• I’m getting annoyed by reading about and interacting with the ‘OCD’ and/vs ‘Pure O’ (‘pure’ obsessional (the compulsions are mental rather than physical)) categories of the illness. Like, no, OCD is OCD. Stop categorizing shit into a bunch of indecipherable categories. >> Why?: My issues with making things more complicated than necessary. Again, OCD is OCD. If you want to call it the pink elephant, fine, go ahead, it doesn’t change the fact that OCD is still OCD. It’s a spectrum disorder. There are a LOT of things on that spectrum and OCD can be about ANYTHING. >> Why? My issues with having to further explain what Pure O is to people rather than just saying I deal with OCD and explaining from there. *sigh*
• The feeling of misunderstanding. I’ll get this feeling either when people can relate to my issues with genuine self-harm/suicide and feel misunderstood for the OCD portions of my experience or the opposite. >> Why? My issues with not being completely heard. Sure, there’s the depressive side of self-harm/suicide, but the more PROMINENT issue is the OCD side of self-harm/suicide. It’s like I can’t win either way. *sigh*
• People owning their identity as OCD. >> Why? My own obvious issues with identifying as OCD and why I can’t do that anymore. And if I do, how I run into trouble VERY fast. Also, you are MORE than a diagnosis. Don’t let the OCD win so fast.
• The terms “not that bad”, “it’s no big deal”, “just”, “only”. Trust me, when it DOES get “that bad” it’ll be so BAD that you won’t even have the judgment to understand or comprehend how BAD it is. OCD is serious. Regardless of its depth. Also, ‘just’ and ‘only’ can go fuck themselves. >> Why? My issues with saying, “Oh it’s JUST OCD, it’s no big deal….translating to… Oh I’m JUST going to kill myself, it’s really no big deal…. It’s just X amount of pills, no biggie! … I’m ONLY trying to kill myself, it’s really not that important… Oh it’s not that bad (when really it’s fucking BAD)” etc. >> Why? My issues with experiencing OCD and secondary depression and the contorted thought process that comes with. No ability to judge situations whatsoever. *shakes head*
• “Mild” OCD vs “Severe” OCD. >> Why? My issues with people’s potentially ‘mild’ OCD triggering off my ‘severe’ OCD or more accurately, people’s potentially ‘mild’ obsessive/compulsive TENDENCIES triggering off my ‘severe’ OCD… >> Why? My issues with identity, not seeing or recognizing my experiences as, lmao, “not that bad” and things along that line. >> Why? My issues with, what does ‘severe’ even mean? Pain is pain. Stop trying to categorize that shit.
• Whether or not something is “serious”. >> Why? My issues with trying to label depression vs label OCD and trying to decipher was was ‘serious’ vs ‘not serious’. >> Why? Clue: It was all serious. It was an emergency.
• Labeling. >> Why? It’s just another compulsion.
• Fixation on self-harm/suicide. >> Why? It’s a fucking compulsion.
• People who can write about creatively or blogging style about their OCD/struggles. >> Why? My issues with identity and fixating on self-harm, suicide, depression, OCD can be a compulsion. So, me no allowed to write about it. (I’m often better at telling whether something is me based or OCD based, so that helps now.)
•  Other people’s predominantly anxiety/anxious response to OCD. >> Why? Although I do still get anxious at times from the OCD, it’s not my most prominent reaction. I find getting depression helped clear out a LOT of that anxiety. rofl.
• Stop assuming we ALL have the same experience. That goes for me, too. >> Why? ‘You’ generalizing statements. ‘Nough said. (using ‘I’ statements is better!)

And anything else is either not as important or I’ve just forgotten what the point of this list was.

 

Both are highly possible.

I guess another thing that angers me or annoys me is where other people are at in their recovery journey. There are so many hidden rules and boundaries that I don’t know where to begin on that issue. Maybe, for another time.

Anywho, time to blog more and find out the next few prompts!

And remember:

Fuck the OCD.