On Battling the Devil Himself

That’s what it feels like. I know the phrase gets thrown around a lot, but OCD pushes your buttons like that. It feels like a void – an endless, visceral – but also blank, void of nothingness, but everythingness – obsession. Not the kind that Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan have – maybe a little sprinkle – but the kind that takes you down, down, down, and makes you feel as though you’re going up up up. Only the devil can play that trick so smoothly I feel like.

I’ve been holding off on writing for a while because quite frankly, I haven’t known what I’m supposed to say. Am I just obsessing? Or am I actually writing from the heart? Some days its too hard to tell – most days actually. You have to feeeeeel it. Not think it. Another fun trick the devil plays. Combining the two to make it feel as though you’re high on life, when you’re really just sitting still.

I’ve come to slowly accept – and still accepting – that I am suffering. But it’s seemed as though suffering without reason. Without hope. Without the knowledge of what’s happening. One thing that has come up though lately is how to have a cause with OCD. How to make any form of meaning out of it, even a shred. Not to identify with it, but to own it.

One thing my therapist has said is that its very, very misunderstood, and lacks research and intimate knowledge. With that, she said you’re not going to be able to win everyone over, or make everyone empathize with your exact situation. But what you CAN do, is bring awareness. Ahh awareness. The buzzword. Cliche. Hyberbole. I felt like its been thrown around so much the past 5 or so years that who really fucking knows what awareness is in our over stimulated world? Information is literally at every turn. Or disinformation. Or misinformation. Or conspiracy. Where are we anyways and how did I get here?

Anyhow, when you drill down though, and truly think about awareness – advocation – it does work, and it does have a purpose. Take my friend from my gym – he posted about his struggle recently, and it made me think to post, and it made me feel at least a shred of OK’ness to get through the day, heck maybe even the next day. Thats awareness. You don’t often see the tangible results – it hides in the shadows, the darkness, the transitions, the in between moments – kind of like the devil himself. But what it does do is give hope and understanding when you’re with the devil. Some type of “where did you come from but Im so glad you’re here” grace and faith that you need in the day to day, minute to minute, second to second life that OCD makes you live through.

So that is where I’m starting. Just in the KNOWING that its there. And that it may be there for others, even if its not OCD. And knowing that you don’t have to solve it all, even ever, but just know that its OK to not thrive day in and day out. To not conquer. Tackle. Hustle. BE something. As NF would say, the devil makes your thoughts dangerous, but knowing that theres respite can make them just a little less dangerous.