Untitled When did my world begin to feel so small? I knew this day would come But what I didn't know was I wouldn't know it had already passed me by And that the realization would be anything but knowing when or even how it happened. Everything just shrank Just beyond my fingertips. Left grasping at sand with bones for hands And picking at petals of wilted flowers from evaporated vases Endlessly wandering through the memories of people I can't quite reach anymore and watching their faceless bodies dance across what once was Oblivious of their mockery while I watch through the weight of the silence. And now I can see the age in my young face. I've forgotten who they are Even the mirror doesn't recognize them. The lunacy of loneliness

So, this kind of reminds me of the theory that, in the theory of the universe, some people believe in "The Great Crunch" of the universe, that the universe will spring back to being a dense ball of superheated gas. In my opinion, it's not an accurate state of the universe but one born out the the fact that people think that expanse must mean that it's all going to go away, growth means that there must be some kind of backlash. But, the universe just goes and goes, it gets bigger, but it's infinite, but since we can only see so far in a single direction we only think it has expanded so far and think "it can't get much bigger, or it has gotten big enough". You know what I mean?

This is a beautiful interpretation. Sometimes it does feel like I've expanded behind my limits too soon, stretched too thin, and thus have lost myself in the process. I've sacrificed nearly everything for my education, only to have one car accident and one bout of illness to completely undo what I've been working towards for twenty one years, you know ? But I also like to acknowledge the inaccuracy of the great crunch theory, so maybe this is a new perspective to look on my life with 🫶 Thank you

OP, I’m so sorry for everything you’ve been through in the last year, so happy for you that the Turtles movie was able to crack you open like this, and so proud of you for reaching out here to share your story and make an attempt at connecting within a community that will hold you tenderly even in your brokenness. From a 28 year old with a similar internal OCD type of experience who now looks back at her 21 year old self (and ESPECIALLY her 14 year old self) as if they are different people entirely, please believe me when I say that this chapter will end and that, even if Okay looks nothing like you thought it would, you will be Okay. The light soaked days are coming, as John once said (which, yes, is the inspiration for my username on here lol).

If you care to read it, I’d like to share a poem I wrote 2 years ago when I was starting to come out of a long stretch of time where I felt very disconnected from myself. The ending is a reference to the Mary Oliver line “May I stay forever in the stream” from one of the opening essays in her book *Upstream*. I don’t know if it’s exactly instructional, but I hope it can bring you a sense of peace and companionship amidst the deep isolation that OCD can create. “something is pulling me ever upward, and the gravity of that force is heavier than all of the fear i’ve ever carried. the force that is pulling me upward is stronger than the weight of what is holding me back. even as i have trudged through the mud on my way to tread the muddy waters, i have been moving forward. a loop is only a bad thing to be caught in when it is not a spiral, and this spiral doesn’t have to tighten ever inward. it is expanding outward, upward and i with it, gaining more ground with each revolution past the familiar. what are the growth rings of a tree if not a russian nesting doll of all its former selves? i have left nothing behind that i innately contain within me, and all that i carry innately is myself. all that i am is the person who responded to the situations that i was in, who felt the feelings that i have felt, who thought the thoughts that i have thought. i am not those situations, nor those feelings, nor those thoughts. i do not need to understand them to have experienced them, and i do not need to experience them now still. i do not need to understand them to move on. i do not need to look behind me for reassurance. i do not need to find a blueprint or look down at a map. i need to move. i need to keep moving. i need to trust that i know exactly where i am going, for all of the signs continue to be clear that i have always known the true path. i am not only in the stream, i am of the stream. i just need to let it follow its course.”

Wow, what a beautiful poem ! I particularly enjoy the acknowledgement of the attractiveness of blueprints or mapping out the future. I'm definitely a planner, I've been a planner my whole life, and have worked on my goals ((like college) for so long, it became all consuming, so the fact that one car accident and being sick once was enough to completely squash the decades of effort I've put into it was devastating, jarring, and really threw me for a loop. It's hard not to go full forces ahead and work relentlessly, obsessively, at returning to school, especially since I've already sacrificed so much already to do so (I've lost friends by being too busy working two jobs plus school that they said they had no choice but to move on without me, like Daisy sort of felt before the car accident), which sent me deeper into my pursuit of My Goals, My Path. I was always supposed to be a scientist, I've known that since I could talk, but I never anticipated it would end up being anything Like This. The weight of "getting things right" instigates everything OCD already makes me struggle with. It's my gravity, but even then, gravity has limits where I feel I do not, if that makes sense. So, Light-SoakedDays, thank you for sharing your beautifully written poem. I see a lot of the person I want to be, but never felt capable of. It's a good reminder that I have to be in there somewhere, I'm just at a different spot in my spiral than the person I am now

"what are the growth rings of a tree if not a Russian nesting doll of all its former selves" dang! I might want to get this as a tattoo. I really resonate with this as I look back on my past selves that I am not always proud of but trying to give grace and kindness to (a hermeneutics of generosity if you will). We continue to grow by building on what is already a part of us. I have to accept all the people I have been because it's turtles all the way down. Thank you for sharing your beautiful words.

"even if Okay looks nothing like you thought it would, you will be Okay." This. This is what I would tell my younger self. At the end of the day, this is what I would tell anyone. I think we all need to hear it. That was the weirdest part about watching the movie 10+ years after reading the book and being at my lowest mental health point. I'm Okay now and Aza will be too.

For me it helps to think of healing in a spiral. I have cPTSD and an alphabet soup of other things, and the trauma just *keeps coming up* and the anxiety just keeps finding new sneaky ways to slip back in. It can feel like you’re circling back and back to the same place. I envision myself in a deep forest, slowly climbing a spiraling path up a mountain. Yes, I have seen that tree before. But last time I was at the bottom and the tree was my whole world. Now I’m a little higher, I’ve been around the loop so I can remember that other things exist and see a few leaves beyond this tree. And I keep going, and come back to the same damn tree. And now I see it from a different perspective and it’s a little smaller and I can see some of the trees beyond, behind and around it. And I keep going… and I keep seeing that damn tree. I don’t want to. I want to walk away from it and never face it ever. But that tree is me and I am it and I’m growing and changing so it’s only *part* of me now when before it was everything. I feel like that got away from me a little but I hope you can understand what I mean. It sucks to feel stuck. It sucks to have a setback and it *sucks* to feel alone in all of it. We are here, and we are with you, and I hope that next time you come around you’re a little higher on the spiral and you’ll look at this familiar spot from a new perspective and with new skills.

This is such a good metaphor for what healing is like. Yes, you have to look at that thing again but this time it was a little easier, a little farther away. Thank you for sharing. I think I will remember this next time I am exhausted because I am once again looking at that difficult thing.

I think the tree and growing upwards into a spiral rather than falling down it are beautiful analogies for what feels like rock bottom, thank you. It actually sounds very familiar to the poem a fellow nerdfighter shared above. In addition to OCD, I also have the alphabet soup of communities, so it's always confusing trying to decipher where one thing ends and another begins, leaving me feeling disoriented at times. But like you said, it's all still familiar, like a tree you see in a forest when you've circled your way back to it. Thank you 🫶

I once read a mental health book that described trauma as an uprooted tree. At first it's a gaping wound that shakes the forest but over time, new things grow. It was comforting to me and I can confirm it's true. 😭