The Monsters Mask
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Health and Wellness

The Monster's Mask

A real live story in honor of OCD awareness week

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The Monster's Mask
Laura Zerla

The summer before my senior year of school, I started experiencing unwanted thoughts that would randomly pop up in my head.

These thoughts would usually consist of me hurting myself or people that I loved. They were never things that I wished for or dwelled on willingly, they were things that would quickly, randomly, and sporadically pop into my head without any triggers or warnings. As the thoughts would randomly appear to haunt my mind, I would try to shake them off, try to make them go away, but I could not do it. The ideas and images stuck in my head would make a home in my brain and no matter how hard I tried to think of other things or to distract myself, the thoughts remained and made themselves known. The longest a thought has ever stayed in my mind is a week and a half. After a while, I started to question why I was even thinking about these things. Guilt would wash over me and consume me as if I was being swallowed whole. I started to think that because these thoughts were coming to mind, I must have wanted them. I started to believe that these thoughts were my own unfiltered ideas. How could I be such a terrible person? How could I even think these terrible things?

The guilt started to control my life.

In order to try to get rid of the pit in my stomach, I would go to confession almost every day or every other day. Even after confessing the same sins (these thoughts that I had no control over) over and over again, my guilt stuck. I used to feel so much guilt that my favorite part of the day was going to bed and falling asleep, because when I was asleep all of the awful thoughts and feelings went away and I was finally safe from the monster that my brain had become. But then again, I would wake up the next morning and the process would start all over again and once again I was a slave to my own mind.

As school started, I had high hopes that things would get better for me. Unfortunately, the exact opposite occurred.

With the stress of school adding pressure, my thoughts got worse and more frequent. I was still going to confession regularly and still, there was no relief at all. I kept wondering what was wrong with me? Why was I like this? With these questions in mind, I approached my dad. While I was terrified of the possible outcome of our conversation, I knew that my dad was my supporter and best friend. I knew that because of those reasons he would be the best person to talk to. I told him about the excessive guilt I had been feeling. "I always feel guilty. No matter what I do or how sorry I feel I just can't stop thinking about how guilty I am", I told him.

"You know God is all-loving and all-forgiving. He forgives you for things you've done wrong. You don't need to feel guilty", He told me.

As we discussed my overwhelming guilt further, He told me that excessive guilt is sometimes apart of depression. After that conversation I started taking anti-depressants, thinking that that was the root of the problem. As time went on, I still was struggling with the same things and the medication had no effect at all other than the fact that it helped me deal with my anxiety.

I didn't understand. The thoughts seemed to taunt me and laugh in my face. Why weren't they going away? Why was this happening to me? What was wrong with me? Could I ever get fixed? Was I going to think like this forever?

Desperate for some answers, I searched on the internet for symptoms of depression in the hopes of finding the slightest answer to my problem. When I searched it up, some of the symptoms matched mine but it was very vague. Nothing seemed to jump out at me. Looking for an answer to my months of misery, I began to just search my symptoms directly in order to see what would pop up.

Time stopped when I saw the results of my google search.

My stomach felt as if it had been turned upside and I felt as if someone had used my head as a rattle. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. This was the first result to pop up on my screen. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I read it several times over again, thinking I had made some sort of mistake. I was confused, there was no way that this could have been accurate. I laughed at the google search's ridiculousness. There was no way I had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: I was the messiest and most unorganized person the world has ever known. As far as I knew, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder was just something that made you want to be obsessively clean or organized which was the antithesis of who I was. To humor myself, even more, I clicked on the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder symptoms and information page in order to really give myself a good laugh and to assure myself that this was not my problem. As I clicked on the page, my heart nearly stopped as I read the information listed. Reading the symptoms, I felt like I was reading a page about myself. Repeating prayers and praying excessively, extreme guilt, avoiding objects or people that remind one of their thoughts, these are just a few examples of the symptoms that were on that page that I could identify with. Most of, if not all of the symptoms matched the things that I had been dealing with.

After I stumbled upon this page, I decided it was time to see a therapist and to finally address the problem at hand.

While I had this realization that maybe I had finally found the answer to my prayers, I was still afraid of what lay ahead of me. I told my therapist about my suspected OCD, scared that that wasn't the answer. I described my symptoms to her, fearing that she would respond telling me that I didn't have this disorder but instead I was some sick, evil person. When I expressed to her my symptoms, she responded gratefully telling me that from what I described I was, in fact, dealing with OCD. From there on I took the proper steps needed in order to help my mental health by continuously seeing a therapist, psychiatrist, and taking my prescribed medication.

My OCD diagnosis and struggle has taught me a lot not only about myself but of the world around me as well.

When I was really struggling, almost no one would have guessed that was going on. When my brother saw me crying, he would just laugh assuming it was just some stupid high school drama involving boys or friends. When my friends noticed that I seemed to be upset, they would believe me when I would give them a half smile and let them know that I was just tired, even though sleep was pretty much the only thing I enjoyed doing anymore. When my family saw me struggling, they just assumed that I was struggling with the beginning of the transition from my high school life to my college life. The only person who knew about my struggle was my dad, and all he really knew was the fact that I was struggling with guilt let alone the obsessive, intrusive thoughts. I hid it behind fake smiles and laughter and every time I even brought it up to someone they would act so surprised. Some people would even laugh, assuming that I was joking based on the pre-conceived notion they had about my life.

After just reflecting on the fact that I had these symptoms for this mental illness for so long without realizing, it made me really think about the world around me.

How many people in the world were struggling with a mental illness who were so uneducated about it that they weren't getting the help that they needed? How many people believed so much in a stigma of a mental illness that they were blind to the fact that they were dealing with a mental illness? Luckily, I was able to have a reliable support network but how many people are struggling with the fact that they may have a mental illness but they have no support? My parents were the people that openly talked to me about my mental health and they were extremely understanding when I told them about my diagnosis and what I had been struggling with. I know for a lot of people; this is not the case they have at home. A lot of people have family members or friends that don't understand mental illness and think that it's just something that can easily be fixed by altering the way someone thinks or that it is something someone is making up for attention.

The thought of the fact that people were dealing with the same things that I did broke my heart.

I had experienced pure hell in my everyday life in those few months. Meanwhile, some of these people had possibly been struggling with my same symptoms for years. My OCD had dictated every aspect of my life, even for those couple of months. I could never imagine what it would feel like to experience that for years on end, afraid and uneducated about the possible help that was out there for me.

Coming to this realization was what really motivated me and pushed me to really consider studying psychology and possibly becoming a therapist.

I know that I can help people who are struggling because I truly understand what they are experiencing. I can be the example that life does get better. I can show them that I can truly relate to them, that they are not alone. Here at Purdue, I will be able to learn about mental health and how the human brain works in general in order to help me to past my basic knowledge of these topics. Studying these things will allow me to really have that scientific and informational background needed to help people in therapy.

I want to be able to help people who are not educated about mental health and mental illness.

I want them to realize that mental illness is something very real, something that we need to acknowledge. I want to be able to help people who were in the same place that I was, people who wonder if things are ever going to get any better for themselves. I want to be able to diminish the stigma of mental illness so that people who experience it can live freely and get the help they need without worries. I want to be able to create a world that accepts people with mental illness and one where people can feel comfortable and unashamed getting help for their mental illnesses.

While becoming a therapist may seem like a small step for this to happen, it's a small step in the right direction. I hope that one day people will be able to take their masks down and that they will be accepted even with their mental illness.

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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