abcd ocd, will you still love me?

September 4, 2026

i am a miserable woman.

i don’t like using the word “hate” anymore, but sometimes i hate how casually people use the word ocd. they throw it around as a joke when they want to describe being particular, organized, or annoyed by something being out of place. and maybe they don’t mean anything by it. maybe they don’t know what it actually feels like.

but i do.

i know what it feels like to live inside a mind that won’t let you rest.

somewhere between adolescence and adulthood, i developed it. i was clinically diagnosed with ocd and major depressive disorder. i stay consistent with my medication and therapy, and i am grateful that i have the help that i do. but some days still get me.

some days, i am tired of managing myself.

ironically, i am a phenomenal employee because of it.

i am a perfectionist. my therapist once told me that this might be one of the reasons i somehow made it through the corporate ladder without connections. i notice everything. details most people don't see. mistakes before they happen. problems before they become problems.

sometimes it feels like i was trained my entire life to look for what is wrong.

and that skill has served me well.

until it didn't.

i became the boss who needed things done a certain way. my way. i became demanding. difficult. controlling. toxic, even.

because when your brain is constantly searching for what could go wrong, sometimes you start believing that controlling everything around you is the only way to feel safe.

but you cannot control everything.

especially yourself.

then there is the hyperfixation.

in my case, sometimes it is my body.

i have done so many things trying to become happy with it. i have changed things, fixed things, examined things, criticized things. i have looked at myself so closely that sometimes i no longer know what i actually look like.

i only know what i think is wrong.

and no matter how much i change, it never feels like enough.

that is the cruelest part.

i don't feel enough.

i feel like a loser.

and when someone tells me i'm beautiful, when someone tells me they love me, when someone looks at me with genuine admiration, there is a part of me that doesn't know how to receive it.

i don't believe them.

sometimes i think they must be mistaken.

sometimes i think they're only saying it because they haven't seen the things i've seen.

so i push them away.

i do it all the time.

and afterward, i wonder why i'm alone.

i wonder if people will eventually get tired of me. tired of reassuring me. tired of watching me question things that seem so obvious to them. tired of loving someone who sometimes cannot believe she is worthy of being loved.

and that is the part i don't know how to explain.

i don't want to be difficult.

i don't want to need so much reassurance.

i don't want to be the person who turns love into a test that nobody can pass.

i just want my mind to stop making me afraid of losing everything good that comes near me.

sometimes i want to disappear into nothingness.

not because i want to hurt anyone.

i just want the noise to stop.

i don't feel like i belong anywhere. my head is always somewhere beneath my feet, dragging me through thoughts i don't know how to escape.

and still, somewhere underneath all of it, i am crying for salvation.

not for someone to save me from myself.

just for someone to stay long enough to remind me that i am still here.

that i am more than my diagnosis.