“My” Anxiety

Do you use identity-first or disability-first language? This is a continual negotiation for people with disabilities or disabled people (depending on which language you use). Our diagnoses and conditions shape our identity and we shape how we relate to them with our language. One way we also do this is by being possessive of our …

Breathing is Hard

I’ve been feeling a lot of pain and anxiety in my body lately and I can’t meditate or do yoga, so I do pilates and I stress bake and cook, read, and watch movies because they distract me from my pain and ruminations at least a little bit. This picture is of one of my …

My Third Installment of Therapy in TV: NCIS

I kept thinking about this topic especially after I realized I was thinking of some examples but they also aren't the ones that come up very often when you google this topic (I checked). I realized that NCIS has a few examples of therapy. Agent Gibbs and Dr. Confalone I have watched NCIS since the …

Fear Can Make Us Small

Fear can make us small. It can make us paranoid, nervous, suspicious, unfriendly, close-minded and all these things that I don’t want to be. My anxiety and OCD means that I get scared a lot. Ordinary things that don’t scare other people scare me. Some days I’m more scared than others. Some days I have …

My New Pandemic OCD Rituals

OCD means that even when I am exhausted or in pain, sometimes I can’t help but engage in my rituals and obsessive behaviors. In these times, I can find myself washing up the dishes, and then suddenly I’m doing laundry and cleaning all the counters and the toilets and I don’t know exactly how I …