Daily more people are being diagnosed with mental illnesses like ADHD and OCD. While mentally fit people may not see this as a “serious” illness, victims suffer significantly from it.
It hurts even more when the people closest to them don’t understand what they are going through or don’t validate their process because they think it is not a severe illness and can be cured if the victims try hard enough.
Adriell suffers from OCD. One of her typical symptoms is doing everything in 5s. That means the 5th of every month would be unique to her, the 5th of every year, etc.
She goes to therapy to help her cope. Early this year, in January, she brought up getting a tattoo for the fifth anniversary of her mother’s death, and Ed suggested she talk about it with her therapist.
Adriell booked the appointment anyway. After talking to a couple of friends about it, they all agreed that making such a permanent decision, which was purely fuelled by her OCD, was not a good idea.
If she had “recovered from her OCD,” Ed says, he would not be so hesitant. Ed may not know this, but people don’t just “recover” from OCD. The fact he doesn’t know that proves how little he knows about his girlfriend’s illness.
The Aftermath
Imagine you planned to do a thing to honor the fifth anniversary of your mom’s death, and then imagine you had that thing taken away from you because it seemed “irrational” when that thing didn’t hurt you or anyone else.