OCD & a dream

 I had a dream last night. It was a tragedy that I’ve been through that clearly still haunts me. Trauma is funny like that. The biggest thing we want to let go and move on from is one of the hardest things to forget, and for obvious reasons. Though the dream didn’t play out a hundred percent factual, the deep-rooted feelings sure did. It’s nice that dreamland allowed me to manipulate the course and to fully express myself to have my voice heard and understood. Trying to find a better outcome, providing comfort to my heart and the inner voice, I was doing all I could to change the ending. However, in this dream it didn’t matter how hard I tried to have my voice heard, how hard I tried various things in various ways, the outcome was the same as real life. 

OCD fools me into thinking that I could have prevented trauma if I had only acted differently, blaming myself for others’ actions. After years of experience pivoting my way through OCD, you’d think I would outsmart the cyclical troll and move right past him, but not so much in the face of this trauma. “This is different,” he tells me. I’m easily manipulated into believing him “because the feeling is so raw and so real, let me show you” he convinces.  

At this moment I revisit the trauma, the primitive brain takes over. I lose all sense of reality and find myself in an alternate universe reliving not only that moment of trauma, but everything related, involved from that point thereafter. Together. Blended. This cohesion of the parallel universe and reality takes over my automatic communication between the frontal lobe and deeper structures of the brain causing fresh trauma to my moment in time, compounding the original trauma into a festering obsession. Fight or flight sets in. My brain starts to present alternate paths to solving this present problem, after all, OCD’s favorite thing to do is solve unsolvable problems. To create certainty no matter how far I have to wander off the path of reality. Oxymoron you might say. Yet the thought of rituals provides an immediate answer. The compulsions give momentary relief of the nagging, doom-induced, cyclical obsession and its army of anxiety. With this redirection of attention, I start to gain more consciousness of my senses and whereabouts. Reality moving faster than I can currently keep up with, I’m tied to it, being dragged like a dog owner being pulled on a leash, eventually, I’m moving as fast as the dog and I’m back in sync with reality. I’m snapped back into a raced metacognitive state. 

I realize I just experienced a PTSD-OCD episode, logically it was just a theoretical sensation with insignificant meaning. However, for my mind, body, and emotions it’s quite the opposite. My body is still responding as if I had really just lived through the threatening experience and I’m wanting to know the significant meaning of its presence. Is my subconscious trying to tell me something? Could there have been a different outcome? Anxiety still being high, a new slew of obsessions invades my mind severing the connection between my mind and my heart and its communication. The PTSD sensations fade while the OCD episode is still on a rampage. I’m aware that I am fine. I’m aware there is no present danger. Not physical, not psychological, not emotional. Yet my mind plays like a broken record. The automatic communication and processing halt and I’m stuck in gear. Not even my heart has a connection to my mind to pivot my way out of this. Living through this cycle on repeat in my heart as my brain replays the cycle over and over. OCD wanting to solve this puzzle without success, goes back to the immediate answer: compulsions. Compulsions lead to rituals. Rituals lead to temporary relief only to start the cycle over again. I’m grateful for the moment of relief, gaining my lost breath only to lose it again.

At this point, going through all I’ve been through, I’m exhausted. Gathering my footings, I come to realize the only way out of this is working through four steps. Four steps that are not a check box and not to be used as a compulsion, but to be used thoughtfully. This provides a manual shift in the gears that won’t budge. The question is, do I have enough energy to carry out these four steps?

I start by relabeling what I’m experiencing. Stating that this episode-these thoughts-intrusive images and feelings are not of me and my desires, I relabel what it actually is. I externalize it, this troll within me is not of me. It’s not a part of me. It’s not my true feelings, true desires, nor my subconscious surfacing. It’s not factual in the slightest. In fact, it’s the exact opposite, false signals, yet the troll wants me to believe that I am corrupt. A demon child who doesn’t deserve better, who doesn’t have worth or value. Though one statement can begin the externalizing process: it’s not me, it’s OCD. 

Reattributing comes next. Understanding why this troll lives within me and where it comes from gives me an upper hand in recovering from an episode. I am suffering because I’m experiencing Brain Lock, a chemical imbalance in my brain that can manually be manipulated and properly bring homeostasis again.

Next is the redirecting step. This is where I redirect my focus from the troll and his convincing lies and beliefs to something that keeps my attention. This is the hardest step of them all. While my mind is trying to occupy itself with engaging tasks and absorbing intel, the troll is screaming in my head. My body listens to the troll causing my body to react. Exhausted as I might be up to this point, I must find the inner strength to manually push this troll to the side otherwise he wins and all my hard work is for nothing as I relapse into another cycle of the OCD episode. From here I repeat steps one and two to ensure a sturdier foundation, to provide more strength to my mission. With success, I’m led to the fourth step. Revalue. 

I confirm in my mind and heart that the first 2 steps are truths. That the cycles in the episode (obsessions-intrusive thoughts-images-feelings) and the episodes themselves have little to no meaning because they are not me or who I am. This step is the step that takes the longest. Often times working on this step puts me back at step one, step two, or even step three. This is one of the most valuable steps because it reattributes how much worth is behind the troll’s accusations, the obsessions I’m experiencing. Successfully completing this step the troll and obsessions are inconsequential. For the first time, my body shows signs of relief. Still sitting on the edge of my seat with my overstimulated brain and heightened senses, I am aware of any potential triggers that I can defend myself against only to allow more obsessions to intrude my mind. A second cycle is initiated and the four steps are carried out again and again until recovery takes place.

Going back to my dream where no matter what I did to change the course, the outcome was the same. A part of me interprets this aspect of the dream as it wouldn’t have mattered what I said or did. People are people with their own free agency. To choose which they want. I want to give the benefit of the doubt, believe that they are better people than they portray, but the fact is… sometimes no matter the way a situation presents itself, they want a specific outcome and will fight for it. When this is combined with other variables… they win. They win despite my righteous desires.

But then I wonder if they truly won. If demoralizing one’s soul is worth the cost of material possessions then I don’t want to win. If material possessions replace love and humility then I don’t want to win. If my heart grows cold and vengeful from winning then I don’t want to win. If winning means that I’m benefiting from someone else’s cost I don’t want to win. My intuition refuses to turn a blind eye to such behavior. It saddens me that others’ pride prevents them from acknowledging the truth. To them I may not have won, I may not be in control, the ball might not be in my court. To them, I was defeated, tossed to the side for victory. However, I know the truth. I have a clear conscience. I have worth, value, and light. Their psychological game doesn’t use me like a pon like the inner troll thinks they do. I have risen above the immaturity tactics of the world, shedding the form of the natural man and evolving into love and light. Love.heals.everything.