Thanks for sharing Benjamin, it takes a lot to do on an open forum and I appreciate that you have opened up with an account based upon first hand experience. I'm really sorry to hear about your mum, that must have been a really hard thing for you and your family to go through
You're definitely right about it feeling like a grieving process. I can't really explain the turmoil in my mind from the second I wake until the second I go to sleep. I have heard so many different stories detailing the various successes of medication, and also lots that say that it wasn't so good. I'm terrified of losing what I am, without my OCD. I'm an extremely loving person and I know that Prozac effectively numbs down the emotions, so that you stop feeling the extremes; you stop feeling those extremes of emotion which make you burst into tears through frustration, wondering how and why, and the extremes that make your whole body glow with warmth just for a second, remembering something so special with the person you care most about, something nobody should lose for a second in their life. You just feel a numbness - you stop feeling. I guess in a way we're trapped, trapped in a place that means we can stay as we are and learn to deal with what we have been dealt or use the various medications and therapies available to us in an effort to stop this demonic hateful creature inside our heads from taking over.
I dont know how I can begin to explain my OCD anymore, It's so much of who I am, so much of the ways I live my life, so much of my time and so much of my thought process that without it I feel like I'd shut down, without having the pattern of thoughts which OCD brings (constant, you never really get away from it for any waking second) I dont know how I'd think, I dont know how I'd do things, differently, without a doubt.
I have a job now and I've been there for nearly 2 weeks and it's going well, I've had 4 in the last year and I always end up quitting from a depression which holds me back, makes me feel as though I'm worthless, that I have everything I need and that anything is just wrong, ultimately going to work like everybody else in the world will just take these things away from me. At work my OCD has delved into my ways already, I just work on the checkouts at a local Asda at the moment, but my entire routine is effected by my OCD. I force myself to ask customers certain things which are often completely outrageous, through a fear of something happening to Simon, knowing that they'll never be in that spot again and that opportunity will never come again... I need to do it now, it's irrelevant, maybe I've already asked them... but it has to be said. I can't give out certain carrier bags, I've packed them and asked for bags back through an overwhelming fear that something bad will happen, a feeling that if i ignore I don't care... that makes me a terrible person, even though all I want is for everything to be Okay. I can't give out certain coins, and this makes a shift particularly hard when I'm short on change and should really just give them out without a second thought, I can't, it's 'wrong'. So far it's gone unnoticed, and I guess that's the problem with OCD. People will think you're strange, it can be 95% of your mind a particular day, and yet... it goes unnoticed, you become a master of hiding it, through embarrassment, through shame.
I could have been so much more than I am at this moment in my life, all I've done for my whole life is give up, through protecting people that I care about, through valuing love more than anything else. I did badly at school, I seperated myself, I didn't want friends so much their, just here on TMF, people I felt were 'worth it' to me. People that felt 'right'.
I hope that I can one day move on in my life, I still want to have Simon, I want him to never go away, but I hope that I can become something, I hope my passion for motorsport can someday count for something, whilst Simon studies Motorsport Engineering at University and I work in a dead end job for years because I'm unable to just live.
Thanks again for sharing, I hope you start to feel better soon. Feel free to PM me, whenever you like
I don't think OCD is a disorder. I think it's a personality, it's who you are, it's the way you feel, your priorities and your morals, it's your life.
What a lovely reply, thank you 
I agree with everything you say. It's almost like a ritual, its like you have to behave a certain way/feel a certain way to cope with the things around you. Prozac doesn't have to make you feel like that, it all depends on dosage. One pill a day/every other day I find just takes the edge off things, and allows me to cope better with the things around me. Some people on higher doses (e.g. 3 pills/day) are the people that become zombies, but on lower doses you get the benefits of it without losing what makes you yourself. Give it a shot and see what you think? I also find I tend to latch onto things, and they become the centre of my life, meaning that other things suffer as a consequence.
As you say, its so very hard to describe and its great to know that someone else understands it, and how detrimental it is to everyday life. People say you shouldn't be afraid of change, but this condition means that change feels absolutely terrifying, because you are not in control and things could go wrong.
You are also more than welcome to PM me at any time, if you're ever feeling down I may be able to help
Edited by fattail95, 05 August 2013 - 11:12 PM.
