First of all, I want to apologize for the title of this website. I know that you are a person who has many facets and a specific identity, and so am I. So, let’s always remember this: we may have OCD but we are not OCD. We are not a disorder. We are people who are dealing with a disorder.

Believe me, I haven’t always felt like that. I felt like I WAS my OCD. I felt like it defined me. It was literally who I was or who I had become. I could only compare the OCD to an abusive relationship: I felt like without it, maybe I didn’t have my own identity. I had lost myself as I tried to appease the obsessions with compulsions. I worried that if I tried to fight it, it would fight back and destroy me. I was almost convinced that in a battle over who I was and could become, the OCD would win. So what was the point even trying?

Frankly, I was scared. Scared? No, I was terrified. I didn’t even want to see who was left there, huddling under all the anxiety and worrying. What if she was worse than the person I had become? What if she wasn’t anyone at all? What if I really was only OCD?

But I couldn’t live like that, not for myself and not for my family. And you know what? After getting help and actually fighting back, I realized that I was still a person. Still me. I started to remember things I used to enjoy. I realized that I could achieve goals I had forgotten about, do things that I had stopped doing out of fear and worry, and actually be myself again.

And so can you.