[LizardL8y]

So, growing up my OCD killed my self esteem. I hated myself so much. I was an honor student, I was in tons of organizations and won tons of awards. I excersized and ate healthy and was slender and muscular and beautiful but I thought I was fat and ugly and stupid. If I didn't get an A I'd cut myself as punishment. I was always stressed and had to be constantly busy. When I'd win an award, instead of enjoying it I felt guilty because others didn't get it and I didn't feel I deserved it. It didn't help I had a friend who constantly compared her pain to mine and told me how much worse her life was than mine and cried all the time whenever I won an award and she didn't.

Anyway, my OCD kept me obsessed with all these things. I also had prayer rituals that would keep me up for hours at night, shower rituals that were incredibly frustrating, superstitions about cutting my hair, violent intrusive thoughts, sexual obsessions, counting, needle phobia, germaphobia, and symetry issues (the only one which I still regularily deal with). When I graduated high school I got help. Meds and therapy helped a lot and the OCD got better, but without all of the obsessions, I was no longer as good a student or an over-achiever. I have gained weight (partly because of the meds and partly the lack of excercise and eating obsessions). I'm not pretty anymore and even though I'm now doing well in school, I had to learn all over again how to do well. I failed a lot when I started treatment. Sometimes I wish I still had just a little of that OCD, and yet when I did I couldn't enjoy any of my successes. It is hard, however, to accept now that I can finally enjoy those successes, but they don't happen as often. Anyone ever miss some of their OCD?