OCD & Cutting

I decided I wanted to make my thoughts public, since I have so many of them. Yes, as you can tell by my title, I do suffer from OCD. Yes, I do mean "suffer." You can also tell from my title that I'm at least going to type about cutting. I am a cutter. I tried to stop before, but it came back, like a demon, working it's way from the inside out then back in again.

I'm 24 years of age and I started experiencing OCD at a young age, but never put thought into it until I became the age of 20, when I began experiencing major anxiety. I remember the day it started. I was sitting in nutrition class when all of a sudden I felt "off." I went outside for some fresh air. I began to shake and vomit. I remember riding in the ambulance, someone on campus had called for help, I remember the IV being hooked up to me and blood being drawn while the paramedic with the mustache and blue baseball cap asked me questions I couldn't respond to. I was shaking so badly that I couldn't voluntarily move myself. After a couple hours in the hospital the shaking stopped, and a doctor came to interrogate me.

After the investigation the doctor suggested I see a counselor for help as they thought I might be experiencing PTSD. While I have suffered from many traumatic events in my personal life involving abuse in many forms as well as assault, I didn't feel like PTSD fit the bill. Nevertheless, I began seeing a counselor.

A couple years later I moved, and that's when the cutting began. Now let me set you straight, during the time I began seeing the first counselor my life was in a very difficult financial and religious state, and when I moved it was due to the previous problems, which got worse before they got better. During the times when it was the worst is when I began cutting. I started seeing a new counselor, I was diagnosed with BPD. It wasn't until another year and a half later that I was finally diagnosed with OCD.

OCD is it put in the public eye as a person who counts to twenty or twitches. I never thought of it as an actual issue because it didn't correlate with the issues I was having, not directly, and when it reached the point to where it became direct, I was too far gone to care.

Cutting is a coping mechanism. I don't know where it came from, I don't know people who cut. It just started one day. I took a razor blade apart, and used the blade to cut deep into my arm. I didn't understand it, and when I went to see a counselor they told me not to worry about it, just try to resist it next time and go for a run or something. at this point I felt no one cared, and my thoughts got worse.

Today, I am completely consumed by OCD in my thoughts, and it is a reach to keep going each day. I lack a stable support system though I do have professional help in my life, and I am also in an unworthy financial situation, No, my life is in no way stable. OCD is something that can destroy your life if you do not catch it in time. It is a disease, though unlike diseases of the body, it will not kill you quickly, and it will not be easy or relevant to cope with. It will, instead, torture you for the rest of your life.