WORDS Liv West
I am drowning helplessly in the sea of destruction.
Of depression.
The waves with their quick pace and violent ways start to become possessive and I start to
sink.
It is exhausting to keep trying to swim.
My arms become heavy
My mind is worn.
Even after the storm and the strength of the tide subsides, When all is calm again.
I never seem to get to the shore.
And what shatters me is the thought that I never will.
The thought to keep progressing, to keep swimming, to keep on striving for recovery seems impossible.
Loved ones attempt to dart and dive over the rolling breaks trying to reach me. Some of them persist further than others, close enough to see my features, others give up.
But I still find myself drifting with my thoughts away from them, from this.
It’s difficult to breathe with the thoughts that suffocate me.
Every time I open my mouth to call for help, I am engulfed.
So it’s easier to stay quiet,
So I do.
The thought that no matter how many days it’s been since the storm, or how well the moon is positioned for the tide. I seem to only ever find rest in sinking.
Maybe I will be able to feel the freedom of the sand between my toes
Maybe by sinking to the bottom.
I dream of walking on the sand again, touching and soothing each granule between my fingertips.
No matter what happens, it seems I will always be paddling in the sea of OCD.
Slowly
Sinking
May 2012
***
917 days ago I decided I wanted to feel again. After 3,730 days of surviving, I was curious about indulging in the chaos of truly living. For 10 years, 2 months and 17 days, I had existed between wanting to be and not knowing how to be alive. The day that drove the decade ahead of me was 16th April 2012. I was 16 years old, sitting in front of the same family doctor who used to prescribe me amoxicillin for my recurring tonsillitis as a child. I sat with my head hanging, twisting my peeling hands in my lap as my mum, sat to my left, spoke for me.
I didn’t want to be there, it felt like some sort of intervention. If anything, my parents overstepped with their concern for me. I was only washing my hands – or so I thought. I remember that I didn’t speak, I shared my thoughts in tears as they rolled down my face. She described my hand washing and overall behaviour as “worrying’ to the doctor, and as I stared down at my hands, there was a part of me that didn’t want to admit that I could understand why.
She went on to explain that it was not only an observation of hers, but of my father’s too, as he had noticed in the time we shared bi-weekly that I was washing my hands at various times throughout the day for seemingly no reason. I was mortified that my new habit had not only been detected by my parents, but it felt like it was being shared to the world.
I felt betrayed despite the tears resting on my mother’s waterline. I was 16, the world was already out to get me like it is for every other teenager.
I felt betrayed despite the tears resting on my mother’s waterline. I was 16, the world was already out to get me like it is for every other teenager. Everything was happening to me, not for me, and life was just unfair – this intervention was exactly that. ‘Olivia is displaying acute symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. In this instance I would prescribe 50mg of Sertraline to take the edge off,” explained the doctor. I stayed on that same medication (plus 50mg) for the next 10 years, 2 months and 17 days.
At that point, I had not expressed to my family that I was behaving this way because of the thoughts in my head that were telling me that if I didn’t, I would become seriously ill. If I became ill, then there was a chance that someone I loved could contract whatever I have and also become unwell. This thought alone had me in a toxic relationship with a bottle of bleach as my hand soap. I was terrified of contracting a disease, selfishly because I didn’t want to become unwell, but the loudest intrusive thought was that I would be responsible for a family member’s life being ruined by an illness.
The irony that I didn’t want to die alone so would harm myself mentally by ruminating on a thought and physically, by using something as toxic as bleach on my skin only isolated myself further from the people I wanted to protect. I used to observe my hands a lot – I hated them so much – but simultaneously I had a fascination with them. The bleach had caused my hands to crack and bleed constantly, as if I was being torn apart at the seams. The hands that I used to create art with as a mindful activity were now my own source of torture.
When I was anxious, I would sweat, and I could see the sweat coming out of the pores in my palms where I had damaged them so severely. They were a constant reminder of the turmoil in my mind, and the outcome of allowing my OCD to control me.
When I was anxious, I would sweat, and I could see the sweat coming out of the pores in my palms where I had damaged them so severely. They were a constant reminder of the turmoil in my mind, and the outcome of allowing my OCD to control me.
Anyone who has been diagnosed with a mental disorder will understand how indescribable the feeling is. It is a concoction of enormous relief and intense grief. I remember researching OCD all evening, and crying as I read sentences that I saw myself in. For the first time, I not only felt seen, but could actually see myself for who I was. The acceptance felt like hysteria, but within a day I was drowning again.
Despite understanding and labelling this voice in my mind, I couldn’t understand my OCD. For many years I used to ask myself “why me?”. Being plagued with intrusive, persistent and terrifying thoughts is not only distressing, but debilitating. I wouldn’t say I was ever a confident child, but I was always intuitive. It felt as if that guiding light within me had been stubbed out – I couldn’t trust my thoughts, I didn’t know if they were mine, and I wasn’t sure how to stop them.
To this day, OCD is deeply misunderstood and trivialised. My OCD wasn’t even recognised by my peers until its severity reached extreme levels during school. During this time, I wouldn’t eat anything unless I could prepare it with plastic sandwich bags that I would use as makeshift gloves, so nothing other than liquids touched my lips between the start and end of my school day. Toilets were especially triggering, so I would not only restrict myself from eating, but I also would not allow myself to go to the bathroom for the full eight-hour school day.
To this day, OCD is deeply misunderstood and trivialised. My OCD wasn’t even recognised by my peers until its severity reached extreme levels during school.
Some compulsions, however, didn’t feel so obvious. I would walk with my arms folded with my hands resting in the armpits of my blazer to ensure I wouldn’t accidentally touch something and sanitise my hands in my pockets so my friends wouldn’t notice.
Within months of my diagnosis, everything went downhill – fast. Before I knew it, I wasn’t only fighting my OCD, but I was in a battle with the beast of depression. My compulsions got worse, the bleach use increased to multiple times a day, and my family’s dynamic was affected – all because of me. It was a weight I felt I couldn’t bear and wasn’t worthy of holding onto by continuing to live.
My medication saved me – alongside my family’s support and my access to child psychiatrists and therapy. I was severely unwell for many years, grappling with chronic depression. I have a lot of memory blanks from 16 to 18, but one thing I do remember is this feeling I had one day in my 17th year, maybe it was my resilience muscle finally ready for use, or maybe it was sheer desperation for this to end, but maybe, not the way I originally thought. Maybe I could feel the sand between my toes by walking along the shore, rather than sinking to the bottom. I just wanted to live again. I didn’t know how that would manifest, but I knew I wanted to – I had to. It took a while to kick into gear, and meeting my first love probably helped with that just before I turned 18. His kindness no doubt fed the resilience in me, that there was a life for me where I could be loved, despite my OCD and my depression.
Without my medication, I would have never known that there was another side of depression.
Without my medication, I would have never known that there was another side of depression. My early twenties were some of my best years experientially – although emotionally I was capped with my medication. However, I still experienced my first love, I studied in the United States, I got my first internship within my industry, I had my own radio show, I graduated, I made some new friends, and I felt like I was living a semi-normal life. I learnt to mask extremely well, and – although this may seem negative – it helped my delusion that maybe one day I could be “normal”.
I’ve soon learnt that ‘normal’ is actually everything my OCD and depression had had me avoiding. Normality is uncertainty. Normality is experiencing the sheer highs and raw lows of living life – including love, grief, anger, hope, pain, fear, and joy. Normality is knowing that the storm may come, but we have resources to protect ourselves from it.
Writing has always been cathartic for me. I wrote the poem above at my lowest point, and now – 917 days later – writing once again, after experiencing the full spectrum of life and the anxiety that comes with it, is deeply affirmative. I wouldn’t say healing, because we are all constantly on that journey, but I am in a transitional period of my life right now – my Saturn Return (if you know, you know) at an age that I didn’t think I would reach and working in an industry little Olivia could have only dreamed of herself.
I might be intimidated by the voices becoming louder in my mind, but I have cultivated a beautiful relationship with myself where I enjoy my alone time. Travelling solo has become a hobby, I love adventure and indulging in my curiosity for life. My OCD has become louder as I have seemingly controlled it without medical support for two years, it gets what I describe as ‘riled’ and attacks other parts of my life. In these moments, however, I acknowledge it, talk it out with my support network, and take the risk anyway – despite the voice.
My OCD is there, it now shows up differently both with physical compulsion and internal discourse, but now my support network is richer than ever and my understanding of myself and my OCD is secure.
My OCD is there, it now shows up differently both with physical compulsion and internal discourse, but now my support network is richer than ever and my understanding of myself and my OCD is secure. Plus, my own experiences are enough to hold the hope that whatever does happen, I will be able to cope with it – and better yet – I will be able to overcome it.
I might not ever overcome my OCD or my depression, but I know I can survive it. That is, the other side of depression. Living life at 100 per cent knowing that it can rear its head will be hard and testing, but it isn’t anything I haven’t dealt with before. If I can handle my discourse for as long as I have, I can handle a relapse. If I have to go back on medication, I will welcome my access to support, but I am deeply proud knowing that I am able to cope for now without it. I am my OCD, and my OCD is me. I live with the fear of my depression coming back, but I also live with the excitement that I choose to continue to enjoy any glimmer of joy I can get.
I wish I could tell the girl who wrote the poem that she doesn’t have to sink to touch the sand, to feel peace. She touches the sand every single day, enjoying it between her toes as she lives life to the fullest. She chooses to swim now, rather than it feeling like a burden.
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