Lost to time...

As I mentioned in my last post, things have been better thanks to regular exercise and also making an effort to eat healthily. Unfortunately, healthy sleep habits haven’t found me yet. A couple of months ago, I realised my OCD also has a moral aspect to it that seems to work together with real event OCD to make my life hell at times.

I really struggle to sleep. I stay up for hours and hours assessing everything I’ve done to figure out if I’m a bad person, if the mistakes I’ve made are going to come back to bite me or if I’ve caused someone harm that I’m unaware of. I’ve frequently confessed these mistakes to my husband, but I try to hold back because it seems to make him sad that I unnecessarily punish myself.

I’m starting to recognise the intrusive thoughts causing this problem and deal with them in the right way. It’s just so hard to stop because when the thoughts hit, I really feel like I deserve the punishment I inflict on myself.

Hoping you all can get the restful night you deserve. I’m going to try and get a couple hours too.

I haven't posted in a long time, but I have been lurking and liking motivational posts almost daily. Sometimes Tumblr is all that gets me through the day! 

So since my last post, I have taken a lot more control over the boundaries my mum and grandparents are intent on crossing, and it's slowly and surely paying off. A lot of it has to do with my self-assurance, which has been greatly helped with regular exercise. I know everyone says it, but I honestly cannot stress enough how important exercise is to mental health. There is an unbelievable difference, and I was very skeptical about how much it would actually improve things. It's not a magic, instant fix, and I still do struggle with my OCD, but I do feel more in control of intrusive thoughts, and more positive about handling them.

My family visit is finally over and I am so so tired, but also relieved. They are coming back in October, but I managed to set firm boundaries and my gran will be staying with my Mum.

The boundary setting was hard, but I did it for the first time ever!

Here's to putting yourself first for once! And my husband and kids too in my case.

So I haven’t posted here in a while. There has just been so many ups and downs that I didn’t even know what to write about.

What’s set me back recently is the ridiculous expectations from my family. As well as caring for my two young children, I’m doing a law degree, working from home and dealing with mental health issues,  I’m still expected to have both my grandparents stay with us - at different times because they’re separated - multiple times a year. The count is up to 5 visits between them so far, and I’m trying to talk my Gran out of number 6. I don’t even have a spare room, they have to sleep in the living room.

In comparison, my golden child sister is expected to cook them dinner ONCE per visit. She has to cook for them literally 5 times a year, and she still whinges about it. The worst part is my family acknowledges the amount of work I do but still expect me to bend over backwards for them all the time. They wouldn’t do it for me, and they certainly weren’t there for me growing up.

I’m back - I seem to be using this space to complain when I have tough days, which is actually helping. I used to think writing things down mainly for myself was pointless. The community of OCD related blogs helps the most though.

So I had a good couple of days after I managed to save Father’s day from OCD ruin. Today, nothing particularly bad has happened but thoughts about past mistakes and embarrassing situations hit me full force. I wish I had a better understanding of why or when this is going to happen. I try really hard at everything I do and I’m so so so sick of feeling like a bad person. It’s like OCD takes these past mistakes/events and beats me with them. It makes me really tired suddenly like I've just taken very strong sleeping pills. I then have very vivid trauma-related dreams but on the upside, I feel much better when I wake up.