I don’t know if you have ever seen the move Frozen, but I really resonate with the main character Elsa. Caia really started to like the song “Let it go” from the movie. Since I basically had to listen to this song on repeat, I started paying attention to the lyrics. Elsa talks a lot about how she had to let go of what didn’t make her “perfect” according to herself. She spends most of her childhood hiding from what she thought was an imperfection, which kept her from living her life and being with her sister.

I completely relate to Elsa with my OCD. My main struggle with OCD my whole life deals with my trying to be perfect. My mom told me about a time when I was seven where I showed signs of OCD. I was being tested for the gifted program at school, and they didn’t let me in because I was too worried about being “perfect” with the answers. Even at seven, not being accepted into this program made me feel like something was wrong with me because I wasn’t meeting my own expectations of myself.

School was always a struggle for me because I wanted to prove I didn’t make mistakes. This got even worse as I went to college. When my freshman year rolled around, that is when I felt completely out of my comfort zone. I had lost my best friend, and I felt alone. The only aspect of my life I could control was my grades. I remember getting a B in one of my classes that first semester. I cried for days. I wanted to prove that I could get straight A’s. This was incredibly unhealthy of me, and I had no idea at the time.

After graduating college, I moved onto my teaching career. My OCD decided to manifest in my career as well. I had to prove to myself that I was the best and perfect teacher. I had to have the best behaved students, and I wanted them to have the best grades. If this didn’t happen, I was the worst teacher in the world. I would go home and cry for days. It started to get to the point where I would get such anxiety before work that I would feel sick. I didn’t want to go anymore. I had always wanted to be a teacher too, so this was sad for me.

Once I had Caia, I stopped teaching. This was a relief for awhile for me. Then my OCD started manifesting again in motherhood. This time it was postpartum OCD. The postpartum OCD was the worst episode of OCD I have ever had. I wanted to be the perfect mom, but I started struggling with all of the postpartum OCD symptoms. It made me feel the worst kind of guilt. I felt this guilt to my core. I wasn’t a teacher anymore and I was not even a good mom in my mind. I didn’t meet my own expectations. Disappointing myself is a terrible feeling.

I would have never figured out how unhealthy my life was if I didn’t go through postpartum OCD. I was not living my life at all just like Elsa. I was hiding behind my own insecurities, and that made me miserable. No person on this Earth is perfect. I had to learn that I am a human being that makes mistakes. Learning this never felt so freeing to me. I was trapped in my own “perfect” expectations of myself for so many years that I didn’t even realize how truly unhappy I was. Being able to fully embrace my imperfections and mistakes has made me feel like a different person, one where I can truly be like Elsa and “let it go.”