I feel like we spend so much time in life focusing on the relationships we have with others that we are forgetting one key relationship: the one with ourselves. When I am in a negative space mentally, it is so much easier for me to point out my flaws and be hard on myself. How we feel about ourselves is so much more important than how others feel about us. This has truly been one of my life’s hardest lessons to learn. I have let everyone in my life tell me how to be and decide what I need to change about myself.

My deep “core fear” with OCD is disappointing people in my life, so when I hear a criticism I take that to heart and will do anything to change. In doing that, somewhere along the way, I lost myself. I have dedicated my entire life to pleasing my family and others. I would do anything to please my parents and siblings and change anything about me to make them like me. The more I have done that in my life, the more it has caused me pain. I would change one thing, and then something else would be wrong. I could never be good enough. Really, I was just disappointing myself.

One thing I have learned from having postpartum OCD, is that it is truly hard to know who you are when there is so much doubt internally. OCD can make you doubt everything about yourself. I have doubted myself as a mom, teacher, and person in general. By changing myself so much to please others, I have never doubted myself more. I always felt that there must be something wrong with me if people want to change me. Knowing that there were things about me that bothered people in my life was a sad, suffocating feeling.

I have worked so hard in therapy to start learning how to make my own decisions. Attempting to do that has not been an easy journey. A lot of times I forget I am an adult that can choose what is best for my life and family. I have to stop caring what other people think about me and just be myself, whoever that is. Right now, I am a wife, mom, postpartum OCD advocate, PSI-WV board member, and project coordinator for the WV Perinatal Partnership. I should be proud of my accomplishments, because I did those things by living life for myself.