Being mentally ill is political. Being Puerto Rican is political. Having and suffering through any form of chronic illness is inherently political but before I get into politics I am gonna step back really quick. I think I should begin by giving you some background on what it feels like to live with OCD and what it can look like. First and foremost, if you are a nerd like me, information matters to you so let me begin with defining OCD in my own words because medical terms can be scary.
OCD stands for “Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder” and I bet the FIRST thing that comes to your mind is a person frantically cleaning, flipping a switch, or anything the media has told you OCD “looks” like. In most instances, they show you the compulsions and not so much the obsessive parts of it. The obsessive part of the illness has to do with fearful thoughts like a fear of dying, fear of the dark, fear of getting sick and the list goes on. These thoughts then stick, meaning they go on a loop or interfere with your day to day life. In my case, my “loop” is a fear of hurting myself or losing control of my well-being. Now, compulsions are the result of the obsession part. A compulsion is something the person does to feel better, at ease, and to alleviate the stress and anxiety that the obsessive thoughts cause. Compulsions can look like constant cleaning, switching the lights on and off, organizing things a particular way, tapping, phrases and more. MY particular compulsion is “avoidance” more specifically, harm reduction. I want to reduce ALL harm possible because my fear is that I will be triggered into losing my mind or hurting myself even though that is not something I want to do or will realistically happen. Now, OCD does not cause suicide, OCD does not and will not make you “go crazy”, OCD does not cause self-harm, no matter how REAL these thoughts might feel and no matter how uncomfortable you might feel. Again, if you are self-harming and you have thoughts of suicide, please reach out for help. It is scarier to go through it alone than to go on recovery.
Let’s get into it now, let me be as illustrative as possible. I want you to think about chocolate cake. I don’t care if you don’t like it, I just want you to think about it. Picture it.
Okay cool, now DON’T think about chocolate cake. Just stop thinking about it. Think about your day, not the chocolate cake. Did you cook today? DON’T THINK ABOUT THE CHOCOLATE CAKE. Did you go to work today? Chocolate cake? Did you have your morning (chocolate cake) coffee? What are (chocolate) doing tomorrow (cake)? What time do you usually (chocolate cake) go to bed? What do you have (chocolate cake) on? What is with you? Why can’t you stop thinking of the damn chocolate cake? Chocolate cake. Chocolate cake. Chocolate cake.
Okay… Can you see how that can get annoying and stressful? That’s what my OCD is like except I’d much rather obsess over chocolate cake than the morbid crap that goes through my mind. But this is the thing, sometimes I convince myself that obsessing and dealing with my OCD on my own is easier than me texting my therapist or letting my loved ones help me because being vulnerable, mentally ill, Puerto Rican and a woman is political. Living in an individualist society and being raised in a very religious, patriarchal culture mental illness is not a priority. Instead, you should “pray” the illness away or “push through it.” In my culture being mentally ill is “cosas de locos” meaning “crazy people things.” We are not locks, we are normal folx who need to give our brain a little bit more attention and love than others. On the other hand, you’ll hear that being mentally ill is “cosas del diablo” meaning “devilish things”. Not nice, right? These undertones of judgment have been embedded in me and it has been very hard to be compassionate with myself especially when I was first diagnosed. I kept thinking of how I was a failure, a failure because the one part of my body that controls everything is what is sick. It’s not a fractured bone that I know will heal in X amount of months but instead, the one thing I need the most to function properly is what I need help with and that to me was annoyingly unbelievable. Of course, with therapy, I have come to realize that that is not the case even though I play the in denial card but I am so far from being my most mental health enlightened self. But I am way closer than I was before and that is a FACT. Throughout my mental health recovery journey, I have taken it upon myself to research my illness and how to cope with it along with coping skills my therapist provides for me. One thing I came across super quickly was that most of the blogs and mental health advocates are white women. Yes, their stories have some similarities with mine but it just didn’t quite hit home for me. White folx in general have an easier time in every aspect of society (particularly white men). They have access to therapy, money for professional care, and their feelings are validated. While Black and Latina women have to hide our mental illness because we, in a literal sense, cannot afford to be mentally ill, have a family to take care of, and or society already has a target on us. Imagine being Black and struggling with mental health or Latina and struggling with mental health. We experience the judgment in our own cultures and communities to experience racism, judgment and resentment from those outside our communities. Our anxieties, our depression, our mental illnesses are political. They are political starting from our own communities and even more so to those outside our communities. We are expected to tolerate more abuse. We are expected to have a higher pain tolerance. We are expected to give to others and not to ourselves. We are expected to be neutral even when we are our saddest and our most anxious. Vulnerability for Black and Puerto Rican women is revolutionary. Black and Puerto Rican women expressing vulnerability is a decolonial, anti-racist and an anti-patriarchal practice. Yeah, it’s tiring, being mentally ill is exhausting, but being a non-white woman and mentally ill? That is a different level of exhaustion.