FULL ESSAY FOR @withalma LINKED IN MY BIO 🩷🧠 - Here’s what OCD does: it takes the things we most value in this world and attacks them. Want to be a parent? Brain tells you you’re a pedophile. Want to live a long and happy life? Brain tells you you’re dying imminently. Love your pet? Brain tells you you’re going to pick up a kitchen knife and kill it. Want meaningful friendships? Brain creates false memories of things you did to sabotage your relationship. Love your partner? Brain makes you question whether or not they’re the one. Come out as gay? Brain tells you you’re secretly straight and lying to everyone. These are not fleeting thoughts. These are incessant, cruel, unending ruminations or visual images that torture you for hours on end. These are not thoughts we can cast aside, they are obsessions. And these obsessions corkscrew the body, induce tremendous physical panic and pain, make us live in a state of perpetual fight or flight. They are urgent, demanding, and so intolerable that our bodies try to do anything to make them stop. So we engage in compulsions – seeking constant reassurance and answers from those around us, the internet, the media. — PS: POSTING THIS IS EXPOSURE THERAPY! PLS ALERT MY THERAPIST! AND SAY SOMETHING NICE TO ME!