There is the truth and then there's the lies we tell ourselves. Mental health and obsession are objects I struggle with--have struggled with--and continue to face. I'm almost glad the stroke happened when it did. Years of self-medicating, alcohol abstinence, talk-therapy, mental-health buzzwords, and still so much was still not okay. 

I went in and out of my daily activities carrying this impossibly, crushing weightless thing that no one could see outright. The "crazies." I mistakenly thought it was ADD. For years, I thought that my popcorn brain was nothing more than evidence of attention deficit disorder. The whole idea of not being able to complete things because of boredom or because my mind wouldn't let me, was this badge I wore up until a few months ago. 

I don't talk openly about it much. I'll share about my son's struggles with OCD and the stroke and family relationships and grief, but when it comes to my own brand of "crazy," I'm quiet. The reason? I want to be taken seriously. 

Typing that sounds gross in my head, so, I sigh out loud to "erase" the discomfort. I find myself sighing a lot lately as I work through the compulsions to "fix" me. I was diagnosed with OCD a few months ago; that, and social anxiety and depression. An interesting mix of the crazies, if I do say so myself. 

I was self-aware-enough to recognize it within myself a while back. My son does NOCD therapy and I attend the sessions with him over video call with his lovely therapist, Emily. I've witnessed the ups and downs and inbetweens and I'm trained in accommodations and Exposure Therapy. I do the steps with him. I'm his advocate. We've made great strides and dude is winning. 

The moment that did it for me, was when my husband started his new job back in June. He had been there a month and he hated it. He hated the long commute and disclosed that to me sometime in July. I was eyeball-deep in a hard summer semester of administrative tasks and worrying about so. many. things. I dropped all my tasks for an entire 24-hr. period of searching for a job for myself so that he could stop working. I poured over hours and hours of Indeed and LinkedIn job postings. I lost sleep over it. I didn't eat. I made myself sick becoming this martyr that had it all figured out and could save him from having one bad day at work. 

We even got it in our heads that we should move! Fear took hold and the homeschooling life/peaceful existence began edging away. All while going through some troubling healthcare scares with the lumpectomy and the tremor that was only getting worse. I told my therapist at the time that it frightened me how quickly and without care I jumped over the proverbial cliff and into the unknown as if I needed to "fix" the problem. 

She blamed it on perimenopause--why is it always to blame first?--but I knew something wasn't right. My need to figure everything out became this obsession and within it I realized with horror what it was I was actually doing. I was feeding the beast. I'd sat and watched and listened to my baby boy for nearly two years explain what he was feeling. The need to know if people were sick or if he was contaminated or could be contaminated. The breakdown when he couldn't discover the answers. The constant reassurance and checking. The erasing. 

I sat in what was both a moment of clarity and confusion, realizing he wasn't the only one in his immediate family to have OCD. I scheduled an appointment in his therapist's office, and weeks later after ADHD testing and heartfelt conversations with a counselor and a psychiatrist, I was diagnosed. 

Oh boy, and I had had it for quite some time. Things make sense now. The need to be right and go to great pain to be perfect in every single thing I produce in my life. The way in which I would quit things when they became too hard because I couldn't fail. I COULD NOT FAIL.

Dressing in the mornings had become this ridiculously tedious task. I needed to look perfect; every outfit perfectly curated. I would spend hours dressing and undressing and adjusting and prepping that I could not get the actual task completed. Most days I would end up sitting in my underwear on the edge of the bed completely worn out by the effort. On some of those days, I just quit. I couldn't get dressed. I couldn't make the appointment. I was done before I even began. 

I love to write and have been writing for decades. I even wrote a series that I began thirteen years ago, but I couldnt' finish it. Not because I didn't want to, but because finishing would mean submitting it and having others read it and judge it thus sending my perfectionism-OCD uncertainty through the roof. I joined a writing group three years ago and even among friends, I broke out in a sweat and had a full-on panic attack while they were reading the first page. 

I'm the googler too. I need to know everything about things. I thought it was a fun learning habit at first. It is not. It is fueled by a compulsion. I need to know. Not, want to know, need to know. I've lost days on internet rabbit trails. 

When I send emails and turn in papers for class, I check and recheck and recheck and recheck for errors. I don't have a specific number of times that I check, but I do it so much that it is definitely not normal. I am so worried I will get something wrong and come across looking dumb. My friends think I'm just this quirky grammar-loving gal, but it isn't that. I lose time and space doing it. I am good at editing, yes, but ten times is nine times too many to check for errors.

There are errors in this blog that I am aware of but I won't change them for the sole purpose of going against Norma. That's her name. Emily, the therapist (and a real person) suggested naming the OCD as a reminder that it is the OCD in our brains and not us, exactly. 

My youngest named his Donald. I'll let you figure that joke out and I went with Norma. Hence the title of this post. Norma is the OCD and the Ghost is my stroke. The stroke looks like a happy little ghost on my MRI scans. 

Why am I writing about this today? Well, another one of those wild realizations happened two days ago and it shook me to my core. 

Just a little background before we continue. My relationship with my mom and sisters has not been good for awhile. We had a huge blowup a little over a year ago. The relationship has not been the same since. 

Norma and her intrusiveness is alerting me to the possibility that if I share this story, I will not be taken seriously anymore, because I'm bonefied cray-cray and it would be a great reason for my mom and sisters to view my issues-the ones that began the disagreement a year ago-to further an anti-Jess campaign. 

Guys, this is an intrusive thought. It isn't real. It could be, but I don't know that it is. I'm assuming the worst case scenario in a benign plot. Back to the point. There's this group text that in the past was a source of hurt. I asked to be removed from it and was after I threatened no contact, but since the Ghost appeared, boundaries have been more lax and I was added back to it. 

I replied to a text only because I could offer a similar note. No one responded for three hours. Norma took it upon herself to spin a web and as Pastor Derwin Grey says, "The scene of the crime, is your mind," and he would'nt be wrong. The intrusive thoughts went something like this: 

• They hate me.

• They are mad at me.

• I messed up.

• I shouldn't have commented.

• Why did I say that?

• Was my tone correct?

• Let me recheck what I wrote until I find the mistake that will explain why no one is responding.

For three hours of quiet uncertainty this was what was happening in my brain. It wasn't real. It was made-up. It was every worse-case scenario squeezed out of one simple text message that wasn't being answered. 

Conciously realizing this while it was happening was terrifying. How many other times had I done this? Made up something based on my own uncertainty and fear? How many other times had Norma shown up and I just leaned right into it and trusted my thoughts and feelings? Guys, HOW MANY OTHER TIMES??

I just sighed out loud to "erase" the discomfort of saying these things out loud. Good grief. Guys, the self-deprecating talk and thoughts; the worst-case scenario thinking; the checking, the reassurrance seeking, the needing to know, the inability to finish things, the perfectionism, the constant made-up assumptions; all of it, OCD. Yikes.

So, where to now? Well, I'm booking a NOCD appointment with an Exposure Response Prevention trained therapist and I'm gonna buckle up and do the work and take a cue from my amazing son and choose better. I am going to finish things and share stories about Norma and the ghost. I'm going to destigmatize mental health issues. We are going to talk about it. 

I'm going to post resources for you and your family. I'm going to keep going and I'm going to be honest and vulnerable and transparent about all of it. OCD doesn't get to define me, nor does any of the other diagnoses of late. 

My name is Jess Hancock. I write for fun and to figure it all out. Life is a funny, hard thing, but worth every breath. As Cardi says, "It's up then it's up; then it's down and it's down." (Bursts into laughter) Seriously, though. We got this. Let's get it.