Five Years of Exposing OCD

Dream by Nutmeg Designs

The other night I had a dream that I was filling out a survey and the man across the table said he couldn't do it, that he was overwhelmed with deciding what to answer.  I leaned over and suggested that he guess.  Immediately, I realized that this would sound "easier said than done," and I made the decision to tell him that I knew it was difficult when obsessing to guess.  

I felt both anxious that I was telling him I knew what it was like to have OCD, and relieved.  I woke up with still imbued with both feelings.

When I started this blog in 2010, it was an exposure to the anxiety that I would write the wrong thing. I guessed what to say.  It sounds odd to say I guessed, but that's what it felt like, because anything less than perfection felt incredibly unmoored and tentative.  The community of readers, and other bloggers was sustaining when I struggled with pervasiveness of my OCD.  There is power in being able to articulate an experience, and strength in finding others who resonate with that experience.

I wrote this blog anonymously, because I couldn't imagine writing it any other way.  Lately, I haven't been writing the blog at all.  I am not sure where this blog is headed, but I know that the archives continue to speak to readers, and I am glad to be able to offer those as a trail marker.

I have been percolating about how my blog connects with the rest of my life, without the urgency of obsessive figuring out.  This feels both odd and good.