OCD graduated with me yesterday

OCD likes to latch on to anything important to me. Yesterday, it tried to take away my graduation day. It tried to ruin my accomplishments. It tried to contaminate my future and attach ‘bad thoughts’ to these past two years.

Yesterday, OCD tried to stop me from living in the moment. I’ve been waiting six years to become an SLP, and OCD loved that. It forced me to repeatedly take off and put back on my master’s hood, privately and publicly. During the public times, I had wondered what others were thinking if they saw. OCD forced me to obsessively move back and forth the tassel on my cap. Again, what did people think? OCD forced me to repeat words and phrases to myself, under my breath.

When looking back at the video of me receiving my diploma, I can distinctly point out when I had the OCD thought. You’ll notice that I walk up the steps and stop abruptly before turning. The moment I stopped is the moment the OCD thought entered my brain.

From then, I walked across the stage successfully living in the moment with no OCD thoughts. But, what about the OCD thought I had as I stepped onto the stage? Wouldn’t that thought then contaminate the degree I was about to receive? Yeah, that was the initial concern. And it was agonizing and frustrating that I had the particular intrusive thought as I stepped onto the stage.

But let’s consider some reframes.

Reframe 1: The moment I had the intrusive thought on stage before I walked to receive my diploma was the moment I left those OCD thoughts behind. Walking across the stage and living in the moment without any OCD thoughts was a representation of me moving on.

Now, this particular reframe can be seen as a safety compulsion in itself. Why? Because I’m still giving meaning to the OCD event. However, this thought process is a little bit healthier than the aforementioned.

Reframe 2: I can recognize that I experienced an OCD thought when stepping on the stage. And that’s just it, I experienced a THOUGHT. Because thoughts are just… thoughts. And likewise, I experienced non-OCD thoughts as I walked across the stage. The only difference between the thoughts are the qualifiers. And qualifiers are used to help the person recognize when a thought is OCD driven vs not. So, all that happened during the ceremony is that I was consciously and subconsciously thinking, as human beings do. The only power these thoughts hold are on our emotional and bodily reactions. Thoughts can cause US to feel or act certain ways, but they do not have the power to supernaturally determine or curse our future and past. Therefore, how we respond to such thoughts is our prerogative. Some will ritualize or engage in compulsions. Some will ruminate on the situation. Some will obsess. Others will feel nothing. Others will not read into these thoughts. Others will not attach meaning.

I’m choosing to be the ‘others.’ I’m choosing to recognize the thoughts as they are; just thoughts that appear and float by naturally. Some of my thoughts are scarier than others. I will not allow these scary thoughts to ruin my accomplishments. Because frankly, that would just be silly! Why would having a specific thought mean that my life is ruined or that something bad will happen to me? After all, and say it with me, it’s JUST A THOUGHT.

And as always, congrats grads.