Imagine living with a little radio in your head, a radio that constantly plays and never stops. This little radio can only produce negative material. It plays songs of death, fear, and rejection. Sometimes it’s only white noise, making the inside of your brain turn to mush. But most of the time, especially at night when you’re alone, it begins to play. But you can’t reach it, you can’t switch the horrific music off. You can’t turn it down, or muffle it. It’s locked away behind the strength of your skull. So you start doing things to distract yourself. Stepping over cracks, inhaling on good things, exhaling on bad, you can’t even breath normally anymore. You say certain words, count to certain numbers, distract yourself using any kind of ritual you can. Then it becomes your behavior, and you can’t stop biting your nails, you can’t stop stepping over cracks, opening doors, locking windows, or even telling people horrible things to ‘keep your loved ones safe’. Intrusive thoughts play over the radio waves and penetrate your core. They rip you to shreds, and you build yourself back up with your distractions. You get so wrapped up in your rituals, in the songs playing over the radio, that you lose yourself to that little radio in your head. Locked in place behind that strong bone. The little radio playing in your head is an illness. It’s OCD.
OCD is misconceived as being a manageable behavioral disorder that causes you to excessively wash your hands, hang your clothes a certain way, align your lipsticks, ext. OCD is not a manageable behavioral disorder, it is a full blown mental illness. It is something that literally tears you apart, and makes you feel like it’s your fault. It is sickness, and it shouldn’t be teased about or used as slang. You don’t walk around saying “oh, I’m such a schizophrenic about these things”. Of course you don’t. That would be offensive. So is saying “I’m so OCD about this.” The fuck you aren’t. OCD is a mental illness like any other, and it should be treated as such. I want people to raise awareness about this issue, because it’s something that needs to be considered. People need to understand what OCD is, so that of they have it, they can identify it correctly and get it taken care of. Please reblog this, to raise awareness about what OCD really is. If you have it, please seek help, we support you. If you don’t have it, please stop pretending you do because it’s “trendy”. Thank you for reading.
— survivor.
