OCD Stole The Small Moments From Me

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Hey everybody, it's Kelly and today I want to talk about OCD and missed opportunities. So many many moons ago in other videos, I've talked about how I feel like I am very fortunate that despite how bad my OCD has been um through different points in my journey, I feel like I didn't let it hold me back from a lot of those big events in my life or those big things that I had going on. And that can be anything from moving to a different country, which I did, you know, now 10 years ago, um which seems really crazy.

[00:00:37]And it could be moving into the house that I live in now even though I knew my OCD was probably going to act up in the change of uh environment and all that stuff, which it did and here I am, I survived. Or it could be, you know, going to grad school, which I was so afraid that I wouldn't be able to finish or the pressure of all these things happening would somehow make me crack and lose my mind, etc. and so on. You know how it goes when you have OCD and you have all these things that you're worried about.

[00:01:11]But yeah, these are all big life things that I just was adamant that I was going to do regardless of how I felt or my OCD or what my status was at that point. But then I've also talked about some of the things that I feel like I did kind of let OCD take from me and that can be anything like, you know, hangouts with my friends or delicious meals that I didn't get to eat because the thought of sitting in a restaurant, I just couldn't fathom it or the thought of eating with people that weren't in my very small OCD approved group of people to eat with, the thought of that was nauseating. You know how it goes. And I can think of other opportunities that I was too caught up in my obsessions and my compulsions to kind of take advantage of. Like for example, maybe artistic projects or artistic pursuits or whatever that at one point I, you know, thought were a good idea or I was, you know, really excited about. But then I felt completely just tapped out when it came to my creativity. And it also had this weird mix of feelings. I'm going to try to explain, but I don't know if I can accurately get this across, but when I was feeling so low, being excited about something or doing something that I wanted to do felt disingenuous or it felt, I don't know, performative in a way. It felt like I was putting on a show and it was a very strange feeling.

[00:02:45]Like I said, maybe if you've had that experience, you'll know what I mean, but it's neither here nor there. But really my brain was just always working overtime. I guess dreaming up these OCD scenarios and at the end of the day, it just didn't have enough gas left to get me to where I wanted to be. It didn't have, you know, I I just couldn't get to where I wanted to go. And truthfully, when I started to think about it this way, um I realized that yeah, sure, I didn't let OCD take those big things, but it did take lots and lots of smaller chunks every day and those chunks add up because where do you live the majority of your life? You know, where do you spend the majority of your time? It's in those little things. It's in those day-to-day things. It's in those meals that you have that you really enjoy.

[00:03:39]It's in those hangouts with your friends. It's in those hobbies that you like to do that bring you some kind of joy. Right? So, I was missing out on all of those little things and I I didn't really think about how much that added up at the time. So while [clears throat] yes, your friend might be really excited to hear about your adventures abroad on this trip that you decided to go on, even though you've not been feeling well or whatever, but if you don't have the energy to put into nurturing that relationship with said friend, aren't you still losing? And then if that friend asks you, you know, what you what have you been up to lately or like what are you spending your time on? What are you doing? And you're sitting there and it's just crickets chirping and you're saying, wait a minute, what have I been doing? And you realize, wait a minute, I've not been present, I've just been sitting here obsessing and compulsing in a loop over and over and over and I can't tell you about my day because I've been on autopilot, then are you really doing as well as you thought you were doing? And even for those big things that I'm really proud and happy and whatever that OCD didn't steal for me, can I really say that I was totally present for all of those experiences?

[00:04:58]I'm going to have to say no, I wasn't.

[00:05:00]There's a lot of stuff that I don't remember because I feel like a lot of it I was just gritting my teeth and saying, I got to get through this. I got to do this. I I I committed to this. I'm going to do this. And I wasn't allowing myself to even feel a lot of what was going on or truly experience those experiences.

[00:05:18]And when I made these realizations and I started to think about it this way, I started to feel a little bit sad because it's like a new spin on my own perception of what I feel like OCD really did to me. And if you relate to this, then you might also feel the way that I feel about it and that's it's kind of a hard pill to swallow because sometimes I feel like I'm in mourning or I'm grieving this person that I could have been or the experiences I could have had or the life that I could have lived. And this is by no means to say that I'm unhappy now with my life or that I'm unhappy with who I am or whatever. I'm not saying that at all. Um but I think about the relationships that I kind of let suffer or the dreams I had that I just kind of let fizzle and and die and um there's a whole mix of emotions there that a lot of us I think with OCD are familiar with and that's, you know, maybe guilt shame or hesitation, you know, going forward or or whatever it is, you know, all of those fun human emotions that we are so fortunate to get to feel in, you know, the giant range of what is being human. So, what makes me feel better when I start to think about all of that stuff that way? Choice. Let me explain. So, just like I chose to for years kind of let OCD yank me around by the hair and go in [laughter] any which direction that it wanted, I can also consciously make the choice to acknowledge those experiences for what they were kind of learn from them and then more importantly, I can make the choice to change that from this point on and make the choice to put in the work and get help and change my situation. And that whole idea may feel very strange if you're used to feeling like OCD gives you no choice, but at the end of the day, of course, we all have a choice. And a lot of the therapy that we use for OCD, which if you've been around for any amount of time, you'll know, is exposure and response prevention therapy, or ERP, really kind of hones in and focuses on that element of choice. So, while yes, you definitely cannot choose the thoughts that pop into your head throughout the day, what you can choose is how you're going to react to them.

[00:08:10]And so, from that point forward, once you realize that, you can start making all of those little choices count and kind of add up to something really big, so that the OCD that was just this like incessant sound that was just driving you to just feel like you had to do whatever it made you feel like you had to do, just kind of becomes this annoying little mosquito, just like buzzing and droning in your ear about some annoying thing, and you just tell it to go away and go about your day. Of course, if you feel this way, it's really important to understand and believe that you're definitely not alone. There's a lot of people that feel this way right now, or have felt this way in the past, and have started to kind of make those choices count for something. And if that's something that you're ready to do, you can start doing that today through NOCD. NOCD therapists specialize in this kind of treatment, and they are there to help you navigate all the ups and downs of going through ERP. And I think what's really great about the way that they do things is they specialize your treatment to you specifically, so that you can start making those good choices that kind of are going to add up towards conquering your OCD. You'll also get access to a whole community of people that are all different stages in their own OCD journeys, which is something that I personally always really appreciated because it was so nice to read about other people's experiences and be able to talk to them and just know that I really wasn't alone and that's something that was just so invaluable to me. If you're ready to check that all out, you can go to nocd.com or treatmyocd.com today to get started. And on that note, I'm going to get going and I'll see you guys next time. Bye.