lostlo

I’ve seen a virtual army of therapists/counselors/psychologists/psychiatrists since I was a child. I’ve known for a long time that something was “wrong” with me, but no one ever managed to really help me, or even figure out what was wrong beyond superficial crap. Frustration with the situation led to a drinking problem at the age of 21 that nearly killed me. Since I quit drinking on my 23rd birthday, I’ve been desperately trying to work things out, but was blind to the real problem.

I was finally diagnosed with OCPD about a month ago, and it’s been such a relief to finally be able to see the problem and do something about it. I worked with Dr. Phillipson of the excellent ocdonline.com site. Surprisingly, it turns out that I have made a lot of progress already, but it was much harder not knowing what specific tendencies (rule-based thinking) to avoid, and how to handle the bouts of intense anger and anxiety.

I know that thinking I will “beat” this or “fix” myself is just a manifestation of the problem (lol!), but I am looking forward to learning to live with it, to being more in control of my own decisions, and not letting “my rules” (which are really rules that came from other people in my life in most cases!) dictate everything I do and how I live.

Honestly, I feel hopeful about the future for the first time in a long time, maybe in my entire life. It’s great!

Right before I left college, 8 years ago, I dated a guy for a short time who completely rocked my world to the foundations. Before I started spending a lot of time with him, I had planned to kill myself, but he distracted me from that. I probably owe him my life. It was his first relationship, and I had a huge drinking problem & was dropping out of school, so of course it didn’t work out.

After I got sober I really looked forward to apologizing, but never thought I’d get another chance with him. I didn’t dare to hope. It turned out I couldn’t even make amends, as he refused to speak to me at all.

For a long time my goal was “forget about the one who got away,” not win him back. I tried very hard to do that for over seven solid years. It took about five years to stop thinking of him every day, but finally I did and thought “I’m over him.”

Last fall he friended me on Facebook out of the blue. I was so overwhelmed, I realized that I wasn’t over him at all. My long-term relationship with my best friend was already shaky, and once I realized how much I still loved this guy, I finally left my relationship.

Now we’ve been talking, and I’m trying to take things very, very slowly. But I’m so excited, and for the first time in a long time, I feel hopeful about the future. I will wait for him, or stay single, which is also a first for me. I couldn’t be happier.

I was already in pretty good shape, I guess, but thought it would be really hard. I decided to do Couch-to-5k (highly recommended). About three weeks in I found a running partner (also highly recommended!), and he just made me run a mile. I said “but it’s not on the plan,” but was amazed when I did it! I run very slowly, but after several weeks I can run five miles. Right now I try to do an hour and add a minute every day.

I moved away from my run buddy, which set me back. Taking breaks definitely slows progress, if I don’t run for a week I get cut back to about 45-50 minutes. Trying to find new running partners now :)