We can go through life telling each other to be kind to one another. Yet we never really think deeply into how sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. I’ve learnt this the hard way recently and although I find it damn awful to take the cruelness of it all I do realise that in the long run it is for my own good. So therefore, it’s kind.

I have a mental health support worker who visits me and helps me with managing various things including my anxiety and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. She is super nice and friendly and I think she is going to be good for me in this process. I will more than likely be posting about her a lot throughout my time with her so I am going to refer to her as K. We are currently at the exposure stage of controlling my OCD and the second time we did this she sprung it upon me suddenly.

When I make a cup of tea/coffee I have to tap the spoon in a certain order across the cup/s. If I do not do this I lose the control of having protection over my family, dogs, myself and close friends. Something bad will happen to any of us if I do not tap these cups in this way. Death, serious illness, mugging – that sort of thing. I say it like it is the most simplest thing in the world when in hindsight I am too terrified to not complete this ritual. I have no issues in making a good ol’ cuppa but I will do anything I can to avoid having to stir it because that’s when the intrusive thoughts start and when the ritual begins. So it is far easier to get to the stirring stage and make someone else stir it for me.

Except this time was different. K decided I had to stir it myself to which I immediately went into an embarrassing meltdown of “NO I CANNOT DO THIS NOW DO NOT DO THIS TO ME”. As I stood next to the cup with my hands on my face and I was jittery. So jittery. My hands clamming and I started to sweat.  She was having none of it.

Credit to her she gave me a pep talk in how she promised me that even if I stir it normally nothing bad will happen and even if it did it was not down to me not tapping the cup with the spoon. So I started to stir. In my mind I knew exactly what I was going to do. I can’t risk this so I’m going to tap the spoon on the cup as quickly as possible because then she can’t do anything and I would feel at ease.

You’re a smart one K. I’ll give you that.

She took the spoon out of my hand before I even had chance to tap it. She just ruined my thought process and disrupted my entire idea. Panic had now really set in as she placed the cup on the table and told me to sit down. Firstly, Mum I am sorry I got annoyed at you for even wanting a cup of tea because my thought was if you hadn’t wanted a drink this never would have happened. Secondly, despite how annoyed I was at K she was so nice to me!

I could not concentrate. I felt like lying to her telling her my anxiety had gone right down so she would leave and I could tap the cup. But she isn’t stupid. Far from it. I admitted I would tap the cup after she had gone which was the most ridiculous thing I could have told her because being as smart as she is she told me that was fine because she would take the cup away with her and return it back to me tomorrow.

TOMORROW.

No sorry. Not having that. I expressed how frustrated I was at her but again she was so lovely in saying how she didn’t mind if we fell out over things like this because in the long run she is doing it to help but that did not stop me feeling annoyed at her.

She asked me how I was feeling and I said that I wanted her to just leave but at the same time I didn’t want her to go because she would take the cup. I tried everything I could to think of ways how to swipe the cup so she wouldn’t see, and telling her it was a cup my mum really liked so surely she wouldn’t take it then. But she was adamant.

Even threw in the “what if you break it?” card to see if she’d feel bad enough to not take it. She still took it.

I couldn’t even see her out the house because I knew she had the cup in her bag and I would start crying on the doorstep begging her to bring it back because if she doesn’t I am probably going to get murdered now.

The whole event was like a game of chess and she had just called checkmate on me. I felt a mixture of sadness, intense fear, anger and lost. Sounds incredibly dramatic doesn’t it? Over a flaming cup. The sad truth of what OCD does to your mind over something so little.

She left my house and I did not know what to do with myself. My poor mum. Having to deal with me being in a mood and banging on about this cup. A couple of hours pass and there’s a knock at the door. It’s K. Stood holding the cup.

“I was never going to keep it from you overnight, but listen to me Nikita. YOU have done incredibly well. You let me take it even if you did not want me to. But you’ve managed. You should be so proud.”

Oh my god. I did manage. She is right. Nothing happened within the time it was gone and I had no choice but to accept it was going to be gone for a night. I did it.

Whilst I know that what she did was horrible, she did it to be kind. Obviously I want to help myself but the panic of it all happening so fast and I had zero control over potential “safety” I did want to try anything I could because I was scared of my own mind.

It’s going to be a long, long process. I accept that. It’s going to be hard, there’s going to be tears, fallouts. But I am ready.

OCD. Challenge accepted.