(Image from Pinterest @lightit_up_salty )After a more serious post yesterday, I thought I’d mix it up today for #mentalhealthmonday. During one of my therapy sessions, my therapist taught me that scrupulosity, the form of OCD I deal with, is defined by someone creating his/her own unreasonable set of morals and standards about a particular thing. If not followed perfectly, that person feels like a complete failure. While it’s often connected to religion, it doesn’t have to be. For me, it often is. Before therapy, I believed if I swore I would be an utter disappointment to God. I felt like He would love me less. So, in my exposure therapy this summer, I had to learn how to swear. You can imagine what those sessions were like for me!
On Friday, I asked my TA to do a job for me that required printing a ton of documents. After an hour, I looked at the documents fresh from the printer and realized I forgot to tell her they had to be double sided. A lot of work was wasted. Immediately, the word, “damnit” popped in my head. I stopped in my tracks. I was shocked. I hardly ever think swear words. In that moment, I said to myself, “You’ve become a bad person. You now think swear words when you’re frustrated. You never used to do that. Your therapy made you a bad person.” But my very next thought was, “Do an opposite action.” I knew in that moment I had to say the word out loud to fight the lie my brain was telling me. A word is just a word. My value is not wrapped up in that word. Quietly so no students would hear me, I said, “Damnit” to the printer. I probably should have “leaned in” to the exposure by yelling it, but I wasn’t quite ready for that! But by vocalizing the word I stopped myself from saying out loud before, I told the OCD (albeit quietly) that I wouldn’t let it control my thoughts and actions.
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