When I was 19 years old, I remember finishing work and coming home and putting the television on. 24 hours in A&E came on and it was about a lady killing herself. All of a sudden I felt this wave of panic come over me and my heart started racing. I looked to my left and saw a pair of scissors and the thought of me using these to harm myself popped up. I felt sick and sweaty and I just didn’t know what was happening as I had never had a thought like that before. I guess you could call this Harm OCD.

Then I couldn’t sleep or be alone so I was always trying to find excuses for someone to stay with me during the night. This theme has always been around but I quickly noticed more intrusive thoughts, thoughts that really didn’t make sense at all. I feared that I would become a drug addict and would become an outcast. I’m not sure how these themes calmed down as I had no idea about OCD at this stage, just thought I was strange and felt hopeless. I didn’t know what was happening.

Somehow these thoughts and feelings did disappear into the background for some time, and I started living again. I have a picture that I took of myself and I always look at it and remember that was the day the heaviness was lifting.

Fast forward 6 years, I remember walking through the new forest with my dog and I thought to myself, “Oh this is amazing! I remember the days when I had those strange thoughts…” then just like that, boom! I couldn’t stop thinking. I had false memory thoughts and a fear of going crazy. The worst was thinking that you could hurt someone you love. I constantly tried to figure out the past skimming over every detail. I even started thinking, “I remember actually doing this!”

I lost 2 stone. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t talk to anyone about this because who even was I? Waking up every day with physical anxiety, crying nearly every minute. I just wanted it gone and was fighting it so much.

I bought tons of books and listened to tons of podcasts. Finally, I found something called OCD. This is what I have! I am not a monster and I haven’t done anything! Just knowing I had OCD helped a lot.

Of course, I was googling and that is when I found Rob’s page OCD Recovery. I started to listen to his videos and read his posts and I just knew I needed to speak to him. So I decided to have some sessions with Rob and was added to the WhatsApp group. But what was acceptance? What is this? I can’t accept these thoughts. I started reading the books on the reading list and stopped compulsions (which for me was going over and over the past for every little detail), and little by little lightbulb moments happened.

This happened in October 2020. Now forward a year, October 2021, I no longer have heavy eyes, I no longer cry every day, I no longer feel weak. I feel like me and I actually live a life I love. Don’t get me wrong I am still on my journey and I still have hiccups, but the chronic anxiety is never there anymore. Your brain isn’t broke, you can recover, and you will recover. Put the work in and accept (acceptance isn’t agreement) the worst case, because when you accept, there is no chronic anxiety anymore.