The Price of Silence

 

I know you are there. I’ve been there too. Silent in the corner, looking for answers.

Your mind is screaming with intrusive thoughts:

Did that happen?

Did I do it?

I cannot tell anybody.

It scares me to death.

I need to escape.

I need to run.

I have to go to the police, they need to lock me up.

Should I be hospitalized?

Am I dangerous?

All those thoughts are part of a difficult fight that you should not go through alone.

I know all the feelings. I know the disappointment and the frustration. I was silent for years, but when I finally started to speak about it, the relief slowly came with it. It took me years to step up and share.

I know how hard it is to pretend everything is fine while your mind is falling apart in silence. I was terrified to share my thoughts. I did not want to disappoint my family by not being “perfect”. I truly believed there was something deeply wrong with me. In certain ways, I was rejected by some of them.

I still have thoughts so scary that only my therapist knows about them — and even then, not exactly the way they exist inside my mind.

"Really? I couldn’t tell."

From my own experience, I can say that most people do not understand it. They don’t understand how a thought can follow you for hours, days, even weeks. How your mind can replay the same fear over over until you no longer trust yourself.

A lot of people are surprised when they find out about my OCD. They usually say, “Really? I couldn’t tell.” I am never sure what they expect OCD to look like.

I might smile at you while fighting for my life inside my own mind.

A lot of people with OCD are not silent because they have nothing to say. They are silent because they are terrified of what will happen if they do. And sometimes, that is the heaviest part of all.

Maybe you are still silent. Maybe you are not ready yet. And that is okay too.

This might help too:

• "Did I hit him?": Surviving the horror of Hit-and-Run OCD thoughts
• Harm OCD
• The moments when you stop recognizing yourself