If there’s one thing I’ve realized in the past few months, it’s that wanting to die, or being suicidal, is not the same as being afraid that I was going to kill myself. When I was suicidal, I wanted to die more than anything in the world. When I’m afraid I’d kill myself, scissors become something to slit my wrists with; batteries become something I could swallow and poison me, or choke on; shoelaces become materials for a noose. If I saw, thought about,or someone mentioned pills, I’d become worried that I might have overdosed. That “might have” is what wrecks people’s lives. Even though my life was being ruined, I still wanted to live more than anything in the world. The “wanting to die” part would come later, after my depression worsened.

I specifically remember the first time I had a suicide-related intrusive thought, or obsession. I was walking home from school. I was in seventh grade, and was just crossing the crosswalk. Suddenly, I had a thought that said, “I want to kill myself,”. Naturally, I freaked out, and told my mom, who told my therapist. My medication was adjusted.

The next time it happened I was lying on my bed on the bottom bunk. I had a headband hanging from the bars, and I had a thought that said, “You’re going to kill yourself with this,”. Again, I panicked. I told my older sister that I had thought about killing myself, who told my mom. I didn’t want to kill myself. More than anything, I wanted to live.

Now, whenever I showered, I’d look up at the towel rack and the OCD would say, “You’re going to hang yourself with this,”. I told my mom, who told me it was just the WorryBug, or the OCD.

When my OCD was at its worst, last fall, I was debilitated. Some days, I had to leave school, it was so bad. One of my obsessions was the obsessive fear that I would commit suicide. I didn’t want to--that would come later, when my depression worsened--but I was still terrified of it. I wasn’t in the proper treatment, and my medication wasn’t working. Because I was terrified I would kill myself, every day tasks became unconquerable. I couldn’t take my pills alone, I couldn’t even look at pills. Looking at pills, or thinking about them, would trigger me so much that I couldn’t function. I couldn’t drink any liquid without the thought that I may have crushed pills up and mixed it in, and I had to ritualize before and after I drank it. I ritualized by reassuring myself that I didn’t. Sometimes I had to ask other people for reassurance--namely my mom and dad. Everyday objects posed a threat: batteries, belts, marbles, thread.

The day I first went to the ER started out as any other: I was depressed because my OCD was so bad, which, in turn, made my OCD worse. It was a school day, and so I went to my classes, still filled with hope that it would get better, hope that was quickly covered by the OCD. During third hour, Social Studies, we were studying Israel and Palestine for our UN discussion. The topic was suicide bombers, something that triggered me so much that I had to leave class. The teacher walked outside with me.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

I explained the situation--I had OCD, I was going through a rough patch, this triggered me. She wrote me a pass to my social worker’s office. As I walked across the hallway, the thoughts grew louder, drowning out any normal thoughts.

If you were going to kill yourself, you’d hang yourself. The OCD said, and I froze in my tracks, terrified. I went down to my social worker’s office, explained the situation, and she took me to my guidance counselor’s office. They explained the situation: they were mandated by law to call my mom, and suggest she take me to the ER of St. John’s hospital. So they called my mom. Once it hit me that I would be going to the psych ward, I started crying. I wasn’t crazy, I didn’t want to be crazy.

My mom came to pick me up, and we stopped at home. I gathered a bag of clothes,and we were on our way to the ER. I was still crying. My dad was on his way to Arkansas, and my mom called him. He turned around, and drove back home.

“Why are you here?” The nurse at the front desk asked.

“I’m really depressed and anxious,”I said, still crying.

They took me into a room on the side, where they asked the procedural questions. I was no longer crying.

“Being suicidal isn’t where you want to die. It’s where you don’t want to die, but feel like you’re going to,” I said, incorrectly, to my mom. She called my psychiatrist, who I’d never seen before, asking if I could get on the cancellation list.

A social worker came in to interview me. She was wearing a Cardinal’s shirt, which had characters holding lightsabers. She asked me more questions, and then joined my mom in the hallway. They came back in fifteen minutes later.

“We’re not going to admit you,” she said, and I was shocked and confused, but relieved.

Instead, I was to start outpatient. It was a Wednesday. I would start that next Monday or Tuesday. I checked the time--I had missed my favorite club, Improv Club.

We drove home, and I sent an email to all of my teachers and club sponsors, explaining the situation. Mr. Drew, the Improv club sponsor, wrote me back, explaining that I would get over this hurdle. It turns out that one of my club sponsors also had OCD, and so he understood what I was going through. I missed school Thursday and Friday. I spent those days curled up on the sofa with my mom, terrified of my mind.
I saw my psychiatrist that Monday. She started me on 10mg of Prozac.

“You may hear the words IOP,” she said. IOP stood for Intensive Outpatient Program.

I started Outpatient the next day. My mom took me, and we got lost going there. After the tour, I started my day in Education Hour, led by a retired teacher. She worked with the teachers at our schools to make sure that we were keeping up with our assignments.

After Education Hour was first group. I couldn’t sit still, one of the therapists would later describe me as “absolutely riddled with anxiety.” So I stood up and paced during the group. I asked if they had any fidget toys, and they gave me a stress ball.

“I’m glad we figured that out before we started asking you questions,” a therapist said.

During second group, they interrogated me. How old are you. Why you were here. Have you ever self harmed. What did you do. What do you do. Do you do any drugs. Do you drink.

“Hi” I said. “I’m fifteen. I’m here for OCD, anxiety, and depression. Yes. I pinch my fingers. No. No,” I said.

One day, I was so anxious that I told a therapist, and she led me into a room on the side where I chucked my ball back and forth against the wall.

When I was in outpatient, I made several friends. There was a fellow Doctor Who fan there, there was a girl who shared her colored pencils, there was a boy who I talked to during Education Hour and sat next to during breaks. His name was Nick, and on my last day, he wrote a poem for me entitled “Nick’s Poem,”. The day before my grandmother died, I wrote a story. The story was called, “Calm,” and it followed the experience of a person who developed OCD in their childhood and didn’t get treated until adulthood.

My grandma died the next day, and I had to leave outpatient early. I got triggered so much during her funeral that I had to leave.
On the way back, the OCD struck again. I had some Zoloft in the bottom of my computer bag,and I got it into my head that I had taken them to overdose on it. I started to shake and cry, reiterating over and over again that I didn’t want to die, leaving my parents confused and unsure of what to do.

I went to the ER three more times, and on the third time, I was admitted. In between the second and third time, my social worker gave me the card to the youth helpline. I became a frequent caller.

I went to an OCD support group for the first time the week before Thanksgiving. The next week, I ended up in the psych ward. My OCD was awful the entire time I was in the hospital, because they were enabling its every wish.

At Support Group, the leader, Gregg, talked about exposures. It was the first time I’d been surrounded by my kind, people who had the same thoughts, if not crazier.

Gregg, the group leader, loved to talk about exposures. Exposures, part of Exposure and Response Prevention, a type of cognitive behavioral therapy. In ERP, you are directly confronted with triggering objects, images, or scenarios, and then prevented from doing the compulsions to lower the anxiety. The idea is that your anxiety can’t stay high forever, and that you get used to, or habituate, to the uncomfortable feeling. Eventually, you’re not scared of them anymore.

My mom came to the group one time, and Gregg asked her if she enabled my OCD at all. She said she did; she would reassure me and hide my pills. She had to hide them in a different place each night, because if I saw them, I would immediately start panicking. Gregg told her that if I was to get better, that she needed to stop hiding my pills. That night, I took my pills by myself, something that seems really small, but to me, was the first big step in my recovery.

I went into Group one Wednesday, excited. “I love exposures!” I said, smiling.

“Why do you love them?” Gregg asked.

“They work! I’m not as scared anymore! They work almost immediately.”

“They work almost immediately,” Gregg repeated. “Good job.”

One of my first exposures was holding soap in my hand. Then, I held the soapy hand near my mouth. Then I was alone in a room with a belt, then I held the belt to my neck. I also held huge knives to my wrist, put my head in a noose, and took my pills by myself every night. Sometimes it’s still hard to take my pills, but I know I have to do it if I want to get better and stay there.

I still struggle with my OCD, depression, and GAD on a daily basis, but I can feel myself getting better. If you had told me in November that I would still be alive, and able to take my pills by myself, and living a happy, productive life, I would have called you out. I probably would have said you were lying. I genuinely didn’t believe I would live this long, and it seemed as if my life would always be controlled by the OCD. I feel proud to say that I have faced the OCD, and come out the other side. This doesn’t mean that I don’t have OCD anymore--each day is a battle, and I have good days and bad days. It sounds super cheesy, but it’s true: You don’t even know how much better it will get.