It is harsh to attempt to UnDeRstaNd that particular level of.. anxiety. A level so very mind-destroying that your brain literally is being starved of oxygen and CANNOT come up for air. That in itself is an agony best left to horror writers of the highest order to describe. The outright pummelling nature of it all goes nowhere near explaining or portraying the actual complete a) brain-lock a sufferer has to live with, and b) the UTTER hellish pace of the ruminations. The ruminations own you, in truth. They interrupt your brain so very lividly and expressively that, sometimes, even if you know you are in there somewhere- the part of you minus the ruminations(imbalance), etc, just sometimes.. you want to disappear. But you don’t get to disappear. The ocd, whatever the imbalance chooses to do to any particular sufferer’s brain, will not let its grip go. And you walk and talk and smile and laugh through it all, every single day, whilst simultaneously wishing to Christ that you can get to a place wherein you eventually can do the routine and normal stuff. A job, nights out, pay bills, think your budgets through, etc. Ocd, hand on my heart… is the most unruly disorder quite possibly ever imaginable. There are words for it, as I’ve obviously shown with my explanations, but, all in all, it’s a misfiring of the brain which just… will not seem to locate its other part of the wire and reconnect. It’s sad but I also made a deal never to give up the ghost until such time as the right doctor, right whatever manages to prescribe the right medication. That’s not quite resilience. That is plain outright a MAD level of desperation to singlehandedly survive and thrive. And mixed with an astoundingly succinct and caring brain which can in fact walk through any such problem with utter sensible rationality. Of course I get to do whatever I like with words. To bend them, to eventually imprint my name in Irish literature. I EARN it every single day, about a thousand times over. I honestly could not be prouder of any one person than myself, in truth. And that has zero, ZILCH to do with any scribbles