Here it is - Motivation and Acceptance Script!

[MyOCD123]

Hope this helps! (The outline is in my previous post)

I have OCD. It is ugly. It is mean. It is a bully. It follows me. It clings to me. But it does not define me. I will no longer give it the power it so desperately desires. I am going to stop assigning meaning to my intrusive thoughts. I am no longer going to google local news stories for the purpose of checking that I did not harm someone. I am going to stop scanning my brain for recovered memories and reviewing past events. I am no longer going to try to figure out if and how I harmed someone. I am not going to let OCD tell me what is true and what is not. I am going to stop avoiding being alone with my friends and family. I will stop isolating myself from the people I care for the most and the people who care the most for me. I am going to stop texting and calling my loved ones to obsessively check in on them. I am going to stop asking my mom for reassurance and confessing my intrusive thoughts to her. I am going to stop searching for OCD stories that are similar to mine in hopes of confirming that I do in fact have OCD. I am going to let go of my feelings of guilt, shame, and embarrassment. I am going to disobey OCD every chance that I get and ignore it when it tells me not live my life to the fullest. I will not only be ok with uncertainty, but I will embrace it. I will not let my OCD take my life away from me.

Because I will be stopping my compulsions there could be consequences. But the key word here is "could" and not "will". I could intentionally hurt someone I love or someone I do not even know. I could be mistaking my intrusive thoughts for memories and neglecting to recognize their importance. I could truly believe that I have harmed someone in the past and turn myself into the authorities. I could be exposing myself to more social interactions that could put others in danger. I could by lying about past events and hiding my true feelings of others. I could live my life never knowing for sure if I am a bad person and go undiagnosed as a psychopath. I could be careless. I could truly be an evil person.

But despite the fear that comes with stopping my compulsions, if I do not make a change then I will continue to be enslaved to OCD. If I keep doing my compulsions then I could no longer be able to function as a normal human being. I could lose my job and become hospitalized for a great length of time. I could completely isolate myself from all of my family and friends and in return destroy every relationship in my life - never being able to develop meaningful relationships ever again. I could become house bound and never experience what it feels like to breathe fresh air again. If I continue to live my life like I am now than I will never truly love and accept myself. I would be spending my days self loathing and in a constant state of fear and anxiety. I could disappoint not only myself, but also my family. But most importantly, if I continue to obey my OCD I will still NOT have the certainty that I am so desperately seeking.

Regardless of what my OCD tells me, I have a life that is worth living. I so deeply value my relationships with my friends and family, as well as my career and ambition. I want to help others worldwide who are struggling with OCD and advocate for a disorder that is so widely misunderstood but so commonly shared. I want to travel and see waterfalls, and mountains, and the northern lights. I want to strengthen my relationship with God and feel his presence in my life again. I want to live a life that is so full it is practically bursting at the seams. But most of all, I just want to enjoy the little things again. A sunny day. The laughter of my friends. The way my dog greets me everyday when I walk in the door (like he hasn't seen me in ages). Warm summer evening walks. Watching terrible reality TV with Mom. Taking a bubble bath. The feeling of complete and utter peace when I stand on the beach and sink my toes into the sand. Sunday dinners with my very large and very loud family. The way me and my sister make each other laugh until our stomachs hurt. Everything. It is all worth the fight. I am worth the fight. I am going to fight.

-C

[Hidden]

Hi 123 - Thank you so much for sharing this with us. I love the last paragraph that shows what you are fighting for.

[MyOCD123 in reply to Hidden]

Glad you liked it! 💖

[Hidden]

This is so helpful, I had to screenshot it. Thank you so much. I truly needed this. My worst fear is that I've ruined my relationships with my family because of things that I think that I could have done/tried to do to them. I know I haven't though, and I know that they'll love me no matter what.

[MyOCD123 in reply to Hidden]

Your family knows you better than OCD does — keep that in mind and don’t listen to the lies it tells you. You got this!

[LuvSun]

What a wonderful and inspiring post! Thanks for sharing

[ISTY]

Fight and never stop be so relentless that the OCD gives up from exhaustion!! You can do it and you so deserve to be free!!

[Tcba]

This is beautiful. I can really identify. Thanks for sharing.

[Selesnya]

Thanks a lot. I'm working on my own version, and I'm just dumping everything from all themes into one script. Maybe I'm going overboard as I think that I'm going to end up at twice the length of yours when I'm done. I'll post what I have when I'm done.

One change that I'm making is that I'm taking my therapist's advice to not list dead man goals (i.e. something that a dead person adequately do, such as not seeking reassurance). This makes me think what I will do in a given situation and have something in mind as an action that I can take reliably try to do or at least work toward.

It's a very inspiring list, so I can see why you re-read it for encouragement.

[MyOCD123 in reply to Selesnya]

I’m looking forward to reading yours!

[88steeze]

This is awesome, and so true. We have to stop letting this bully call the shots in our lives. Tricky deceptive bastard. Thank you for this, totally inspiring!!! We can be so helpful for others who suffer from this. I have a Masters in counseling and work in the field of addiction. Don’t know how I can specialize in helping Pure O sufferers down the road, but I’m going to find a way

[MyOCD123 in reply to 88steeze]

Absolutely OCD is such a bully!! I think it’s amazing you have your masters in counseling and I really do hope you branch into helping others with Pure O one day. Who better to understand than someone who actually has it?

[Strongest123]

Thank you so much for writing what you wrote. I’ve struggled with OCD all my life, and what you have written helps people like myself and others find strength. Samson

[MyOCD123 in reply to Strongest123]

Keep fighting! We are so much more than our OCD. Glad you liked the post. 💖

[Strongest123 in reply to MyOCD123]

Have you ever struggled with excessive worrying, along with the OCD? SAMSON

[Selesnya in reply to Strongest123]

I think that excessive worry is often a mental compulsion to try to figure things out. I deal with this as one of my main compulsions and I find it the hardest one to disengage from.

[MyOCD123 in reply to Strongest123]

I would agree with Selesnya on this one. Excessive worrying and rumination is one of my most prominent mental compulsions and harder to resist because I usually don’t notice I’m doing it right away. Where as with a physical compulsion I have to make the decision before I act. As soon as I catch myself obsessing I usually either observe the thought and move past it or I do something to distract my mind like counting backwards or recalling lyrics to a song. Your brain can not do both at once and the worry will disappear, even if it is only momentarily. But yes, in short I have been worrying since the day I was born and it also ties in with my OCD. Hope this helps!

[disneyandme in reply to MyOCD123]

Would counting backwards/recalling lyrics be considered a compulsion?? Just curious because I’ve thought of this before but wasn’t sure if it would be considered compulsive! Maybe just if it becomes a routine every time?

[MyOCD123 in reply to disneyandme]

Hi Disney, I see what you are getting at because some people do have compulsions similar to these but the way in which my therapist taught me to use them is not a compulsion. If I were using these things to stop the thoughts than that would be a compulsion and as we know, thought stopping does not work. I use these techniques when I find myself arguing with OCD and trying to figure things out (which can be seen as excessive worry). When I stop myself from engaging with the OCD I am no longer feeding it and that is a good thing. If I were to get an intrusive thought and feel anxious I would observe the thought and sit with the anxiety - and not try to distract my mind. Basically what I am trying to say is I only do this to stop myself from doing mental compulsions like reviewing my day or trying to recovery some kind of memory that does not even exist. Hope this makes sense!

[Ctillou]

This is so beautiful..and amazingly how I feel. So very grateful to read your words and reconfirm my exact thoughts! I too hope to continue to help people...and find the best way to do that! OCD will not define me, either xoxo