Hey you! Read me!

Well, here’s to my first blog post. My son turned 2 today, and i’ll be 31 in just a few days, and with that I decided it’s time to stop putting this off. You see, I have so much more in mind for my life than working food service all day, coming home, eating dinner and going to sleep. I know my creative mind has much more capacity than I have seen yet. It’s time to push it to its limits and keep pushing until I can write a book, or several, and make Matt a stay-at-home dad (not that he’d ever submit to that, he has too much pride and the functional necessity of staying busy). So here’s my first week, 5/19-5/25. I‘ll publish a subsequent post each tuesday so if you like what you are reading check back on 5/26, and so on. I will warn you, as an introductory post, it will be long.

Bear with me as I tell you my entire life story (just kidding, i promise it won’t be that long).

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First, some background on myself, my family, my faith and the subject matters (including faith) that I want to address over the course of this blog. My name is Alyssa, Aly for short. I started officially going by Aly about four years ago, and made it a mainstay after my dad passed. It was always his nickname for me, and we were really close. I have lived in Arizona my whole life, and despite it’s roasting summers, I still love it in a way, especially the flora and fauna, cacti, their equally named wrens and such. Inner city life has more of a dredge, that I could stand to skip. The desert has its beauty.

I fought insecurity throughout middle and high school, finally finding equal ground for myself on the newspaper staff of the Rincon Echo. This ignited my passion for writing, which I pursued at the University of Arizona, first as a pre-journalism major, then with my insecurities taking over, I changed my major to English Literature. I love to read so the major fit, but I wasn’t ready for the stress college would induce.

Sophomore year of college was rough. Up until this point I had no idea I had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I think the pressures of going straight from Rincon (no offense with my implied tone, Rangers) to an accredited university caused my first obsessive compulsive attack. All of the sudden, I couldn’t finish my homework or take tests for fear of cheating, that I had seen the answers somewhere else on someone else’s paper, out of the corner of my eye. Then I couldn’t write my papers for fear of plagiarism, even down to the uses of certain phrases or euphemisms. I would freeze up. My grades continuously fell until I was disqualified from the UA. Eventually, my dad had forced me to see a shrink, because I got bad enough that I wasn‘t even able to get dressed some days. I was overthinking to the point of not letting myself eat, because I had to count every bite. No disrespect to other people with mental illnesses or OCD, but i was bat-**** crazy. I still struggle sometimes, but I hide it better.

From there I had been attending Pima Community College for a while, trying to get my grades up enough to transfer back to the UA and finish my degree. My job at the Deli in the food court fell through in 2014, since I wasn’t a UA student anymore, and I found myself working for Wendy’s with the help of my next door neighbor. Fast forward to 2016, and in walks my future husband to get a job, which, poor guy, he had to return for several times before my boss agreed to give it to him. Little did he know at the time, but I was flirting with him from the minute we met.

I am incredibly blessed to be his wife. Matt has been there with me through many ups and downs, and has not given up on me despite my struggles with my mental health. He struggles too with his own battles, and I think the kindred spirit we share fuels our determination to rise above. I know I am quoting some author or another here as I’m an avid lover of 19th century victorian literature, but I’m irrevocably in love with him. He is flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone (and no we are not actually related, that would be gross) but you get my point.

Alright, sappiness aside for now. We got married, got a place and had our first kid. Our lives have changed, a lot, and I would be lying if I said it hasn‘t been really rough on our marriage. Aspects of my OCD have worsened. I strongly believe that I have been fighting a spiritual battle for a great portion of my life since I gave it to Christ (not that it is God’s fault, in fact I believe it’s because I up to now haven’t responded to God’s calling for my life to get closer to him and be used to share the gospel. Instead, through my neglect I left myself open to attack). I also suspect it was partially in response to Post-partum depression, and partially from the stress of being a new mom.

Anytime big or stressful changes happen, I have an OCD episode. You can see it in my wedding photos; the happiest day of my life, overshadowed by OCD. I couldn’t wait to marry Matthew, I was so excited. But my brain wouldn’t get out of the way. I allowed fears and negative associations to take root in my thoughts and steal some of my happiness. I don’t know if any of you struggle with this, but I am so ready to be done with having my life stolen through fear and obsessive thinking.

I know this is an exceptionally long post, thank you if you stayed with me this entire time. I’ve shared more of myself than I do with most people. My goal with this blog is to record my journey and encourage myself along the way to remember the victories, and thereby encourage and help other people too. I know ultimately pursuing my relationship with God will help me surrender my fears and obsessions, and I hope you will stay with me on this journey to mental freedom.