Someone else’s thoughts are in my mind
On OCD
Hey, psst, Ika. There’s paper underneath your fingernails, it’s going to cut you until you’re ridden with pain and infections.
Also, you know what? There’s someone breaking in as we speak.
What if you’re secretly a murderer and you don’t know it?
Scream at her, hit her, take off your clothes in front of everyone.
When this voice speaks, someone else dictates my thoughts.
Someone quietly cruel.
These thoughts might be made-up, but
Why did I think that?
What if I act on it?
What does this say about me?
Am I really secretly that horrible?
The thoughts are annoying, and sometimes they make me feel physical pain. But it’s the reaction to these thoughts that really scares me.
Because a part of me believes all. of. them.
Feedback loops feed the system back into itself.
Basically, I think. Then I think some more. Then I try to pacify myself. I feel guilt for pacifying myself. 5-second relief. And then the thoughts come back stronger.
There’s dirt all over your hands.
The germs are crawling into your skin.
What? I just washed them with hot water and soap.
You’re a disgusting pig for not believing that your hands are dirty.
It’s okay, I know my hands are clean.
Really, Ika? How vile can you get? The germs are going to fill your organs till you’re vomiting leeches.
Perhaps it’s not someone else dictating my thoughts. What’s scary is that these thoughts could actually be mine.
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They’re fake they’re fake they’re fake.
But one question sticks.
What if?
What if, just one teeny chance, they’re real?
I don’t trust myself. I don’t trust that they’re fake.
What if that’s just me deluding myself?
It’s truly isolating when you can’t even trust your own mind.
After all, who else do you have left then?
My brain screams 200 thoughts per minute.
And I constantly rifle through this information to find something of meaning, something worth thinking about, something that connects to my current situation.
I’m never done thinking.
I fall asleep daydreaming of a quieter tomorrow.
But alas, tomorrow never arrives.
I drift in and out of conversations like a genie.
Except I don’t grant wishes, I destroy them.
And this in turn destroys my relationships.
Whoever let me out of my lamp clearly erred.
Where does Ika end and where do the thoughts begin?
Or am I really just my thoughts?
How do I know what’s real, what’s possible and what’s fake.
I don’t need better thoughts, I recognise that after struggling for 14 years.
I just. need. less. trust. in the bad thoughts.
