Anti-Hero

I had an entirely different post planned for today but, it's a long weekend, there haven't been support groups for days, and I need to get some things out of my head.  Taylor Swift said, "it must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero." Actually, the whole song Anti-Hero resonates like a theme song that should follow me around.  It is very disorienting being 48 years old and learning that your entire existence is probably not the reality that you lived.  People in my support groups have referenced the movie Truman Show more than once and, today while I was driving, I think I finally get it.  I have lived my life up until now with an incredibly skewed sense of pretty much everything. 

I never have felt comfortable in my own skin. Never.  I never understood why.  I feel like I carry a knapsack around with me holding on to every single shitty thing that someone has said to me like it's a prized possession.  I have never been able to separate myself from the opinion of others; I hold on to it like a prize as proof that they are all right and I am a worthless piece of shit.  It started early and I have just carried these labels around allowing myself to feel more and more worthless. I have never understood why I have never been able to release the bad and hold on to the good.  Instead, I release the good and hold on to the bad.  I am a "Debbie Downer", a martyr, a woe is me-er.  Is this the attention I really want? I have worked tirelessly trying to prove to people that I am worth having around.  I have never felt like someone would want me around just for me.  I must give of myself like some kind of currency in exchange for their time. It's brutal. I have suffered from imposter syndrome forever not feeling worthy. As a result, I have chipped away at the foundation of relationship after relationship with my insecurities. Cat asked me the other day why I am so afraid of being alone and I had never considered that I was.  Maybe I have been looking for someone to rescue me from myself and this damn knapsack.  I know Cat would tell me to rescue myself and dump the knapsack off at the Goodwill. 

A friend of a friend once said I am like a stray cat; kick me out and I won't wonder off the property. I can't even be mad about it, because it's true.  I don't have the self-worth or the confidence to leave when I am not wanted.  I know exactly the reason why I behave like this.  I have just never been able to move past it as much as I tried to ignore it; I just add it to the knapsack as a precious possession.  I am a hoarder of abuse and unkindness that has been directed towards me since childhood. I know now this is a result of the OCD; the voice in my head telling me I'm an unworthy and an untrustworthy character in my own life. 

When my husband died, I met a man 20 days later and we started a relationship. I had this whole distorted reality around the meeting as fate orchestrated by my dead husband and that he had handpicked this guy to be the one because I got goosebumps when I met him. I was probably standing in a draft. I stayed longer than I should and even got engaged because I was in the false reality that somehow my deceased husband wanted this from beyond the grave. I never allowed myself to grieve or even process the years of illness and stress that lead to up to his death.  That, among other things, leaves me with a lot of guilt.  Guilt for not respecting my husband enough and guilt for not respecting myself.  I should have realized that my reaction to his surprise proposal said it all... but I didn't.  I convinced myself that I was where I was supposed to be. I was inauthentic to myself.  I add this to the knapsack and carry it around. 

I remember being a child in elementary school in remedial reading classes because I was really struggling to learn to read.  It was like trying to move past a giant obstacle in my brain.  I knew it was right on the other side, but I couldn't navigate around it.  I feel like that again now.  This whole OCD thing is a complete mind fuck. I feel like my whole reality is a like a fun house with the mirrors distorting everything.  I feel I am drowning in a rip current and I just want someone to reach in and pull me out and reassure me.  The reassurance is a drug that feels impossible to quit. 

The brain is a wonderful organ, it can convince you of all kinds of false realities, but I feel like I have been thrown into an ice plunge and awoken from a dream.  I do not want to have OCD; I don't.  I don't want to have a mental condition.  I want to go back to the safety of my false reality. I want everything to be ok and for all the fucked up things I have done or said over the years to be forgiven. I want a pass which I know will never come. Today, I as I sat at a red light ruminating over my latest stressful situation, I felt myself jonesing for someone to call to tell about why I was feeling anxiety. I understood in that moment what it feels like to be a drug addict looking for a fix. I sat on the hill.  I listened to music.  I tried to distract myself while simultaneously talking myself out of calling someone to dump my bucket on.  The reality is that there really isn't anyone to call anymore. Have I really been this person?  The person who inundates everyone I know with my bullshit anxiety "fever dream". "Hi, it's me.  I'm the problem; it's me."

Cat begins each one of our sessions asking if there has been a change in risk.  I get it now. These existential questions have me looking at my life and my experiences with a different lens.  Did this really happen like I remember it happening or was I in some kind of denial? I have blamed a lot of people for not understanding when I was most likely the one who didn't understand. I feel like a pawn to the OCD. In a gallant attempt to protect me from harm my brain has systematically turned me into Don Quixote. 

I am grieving my life and my lost relationships.  When I was in my late 20's I had a boyfriend tell me that I was like a beautiful rose that only gave thorns. I remember telling my father this and he said it was an "abusive thing to say." I love my dad; he always sees the best in me. But that guy wasn't wrong.  Cat would tell me right now to give myself grace and to be kind to myself. It's really hard to give myself kindness when I realize how unkind I have been to people in my life.   I feel more alone than ever because I am in a fortress of my own creation. I have pushed away people who truly and deeply loved me because I didn't trust that they were true.  I have cried too many times because people always leave, but in reality, I shut them out. I think about all the times I have felt pity for the people I have known with mental illness, and I am embarrassed by my distorted reality.  The exhaustion that people must feel having to deal with me. I attended an advocacy workshop with NOCD.com the other day and it inspired me to put a post on Facebook about OCD.  My mom texted me the next morning advising me to take it down so that "I didn't cause myself problems".  Is this condition something that should make me ashamed?  I don't even know how to respond anymore. Everything so dark that I don't know which direction to swim to reach the surface and I am searching for a hand that I know will likely never come.

-Alice