I saw this post the other day on Instagram about people with OCD having an extreme sense of responsibility and guilt. That is 100% me. I have spent my whole life feeling guilt to the extreme. When I feel guilt, it’s like a huge weight on me that makes my stomach drop and chest tighten. I can’t lift the weight off of me. The guilt is the only thing I feel, and it becomes an obsession. I hate it. To be honest, I just assumed that every felt guilt like that. Turns out, that is not the case. The level to which I feel guilt is not normal and part of my OCD.

My experience with postpartum OCD is where I truly started to notice my extreme sense of guilt. I couldn’t live with the guilt that I felt for having terrible intrusive thoughts about Caia and not liking being a mom. The guilt was all consuming. Consuming to the point that I was having terrible intrusive thoughts about fearing guilt. For example, I watched this show on Netflix about Betty Broderick. There was a scene in the show where she sat in jail after killing her ex-husband and his wife. She had a vision of both of them smiling at her. I kept picturing myself like that but with Caia smiling at me. It was one of the most disturbing intrusive thoughts I have ever had.

I can track my extreme guilt all the way back to my second grade school year. I remember I had one of those packs of 96 crayons. A girl asked if she could use them, and I said no. I remember going home that day and crying hysterically. The next day at school, I gave her a note and my pack of crayons. I can still feel the guilt in my chest. It is the same exact one I felt when I had postpartum OCD. Looking back, I wish I could go back in time and give that little version of myself a hug. I am pretty sure it was one of my first OCD moments that I can really remember that stuck with me.

Extreme guilt is something I wish I didn’t have to struggle with, but I am glad I know that it has something to do with my OCD. I have learned it has a lot to do with my core fear of disappointing others and myself. Going back to my Betty Broderick example. When I pictured myself in jail like her, I can link it back to me fearing disappointing myself and my daughter. Seeing that post on Instagram about the guilt really made me feel a little better. I am not the only one who struggles with this. Truly, I would just like to get to a place where I can feel a healthy amount of guilt and not let it consume my life.