Confessions of an Obsessive-Compulsive

Ya know what really grinds my metaphorical gears?

The idea that if you just make your mental illness work for you instead of against you, you’re as good as cured.

This is something that people have legitimately told me when they find out that I have OCD. I hear these fantastic things like, “If you could put that obsessive tendency towards school/work/music, you’d be incredible!”

Wow. Did you know that A. it don’t work like that and B. if I could change my obsession, I would have a long, long time ago. But we don’t get to pick and choose our obsessions. We’re stuck with our lot. And if if any of you can think of a way for me to turn a debilitating fear of being touched by children into a marketable skill, please tell me.

And the other thing that this kind of mindset doesn’t understand is that every person with OCD wishes they had a different obsession. I know I do. Our obsessions are, by definition, the worst thing we can think of. They are egodystonic, meaning that they go against our true understanding of ourselves. So that lucky person who is obsessed with school and does in fact become valedictorian? They suffered every moment for it, in the exact same way a compulsive washer suffers their fear of spreading disease to their family or a harm obsessive has to check the news constantly to make sure they didn’t black out and murder anyone.

People with OCD don’t do things because they feel like it. We hate every moment of it, we resent it. Sometimes, there just isn’t a silver lining or way of sublimating obsessive or compulsive tendencies into something useful. Believe me, if we could, a lot more shit would get done.