Here is another excerpt from my first book:
Universally speaking, teenage years are a difficult stage in life for everyone, regardless of your gender, who you are or where you come from. It is a time of great transition, personal change and revelation. It is also a time when one seriously considers – perhaps for the first time ever – who they really are and who they would like to be. So tell me, what would you do at this critical point in life if you fear you are going crazy and might need to be sent away???
It is perhaps a morbid question most people don’t want to think about; one of those worst case scenarios we simply assume cannot happen to us. I too once thought the same way. But sadly, this was the exact dilemma I was forced to face during my teenage years. As bizarre thoughts, behaviors and rituals continued to increase, I found myself moving towards the conclusion that I was going insane.
In retrospect, I now see the irony in my analysis of myself at that time, as people with OCD are about as far from being crazy as anyone can get! Rather we are typically intelligent, rational human beings with very high morals and values. But as a naïve teenager, my symptoms had me believing otherwise. All I had to do was imagine my reaction if a friend was experiencing this. In my youthfulness and ignorance, I would have thought they were losing their mind! As a result, I was far too afraid to tell my parents what was going on. It seemed, for the first time ever, that I would be facing this bully alone.