The Promise I Made That Genuinely Saved My Life 

"I promise I'm not going to do that."

I was 17, sat in my therapist's second living room, a fish tank to my left, a chalk drawing of a flip-flop in my lap that my therapist had just this second commissioned from me, and the whole of my future there in her hands.

Except, it wasn't really. It was in mine.

Trembling fingers clutched the possibility that I'd have a future free from ritualistic and intrusive OCD behaviours. Fingers that had previously had to tap 16 times on light switches now holding a possibility that for so long I'd never thought possible. 

Yet, just like that, in the car on the way back from my second, maybe third therapy session having finally confessed to my parents what I was struggling with (something that, for almost a decade, I just could not tell them. Not from fear or worry or shame, but because my OCD wouldn't let me)  -  something happened. Something good. Something unexpected. Something I'd never believed I'd attain.

I had an epiphany.

The one thing stronger than any debilitating mental health issue

Is our core values. 

No matter how anxious a person is, they'll still call an ambulance if somebody around them is badly injured. No matter how poor somebody's relationship with food is, they'll always want to see their loved ones well fed. No matter how riddled with OCD I was, I still would never break a promise.

Now, this theory obviously isn't infallible. The same way some of us are early birds and others are night owls, what works for us as individuals doesn't necessarily work for everybody. But, in this case, unless they're suffering from something as atomically intrinsic as depression in which it shoves your core beliefs so far into the dark you don't even realise they're there, then most people operate with their fundamental philosophies at heart.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I truly believe that. And it's my very beliefs that saved me. 

Ever since I was a mere nib of a human, barely able to walk (still heavily versed in talking by then), I have highly regarded the value of a promise. 

A pinky promise, to me, is a blood oath. A vow. A signature on the fabric of the universe that, should you break, will unravel who you are and suck your integrity deep into the depths of an existential black hole where you'll be jabbed and tickled by lie-loving leeches, feeding off any grain of goodness you once thought you possessed. Basically, if I make a promise, I keep it. 

And so, when I returned home after that therapy session to resume my abnormal ritualistic routines  -  I stopped. The intrusive thoughts screeched louder, like tyre tracks rapidly halting at the obstruction of my mental blockage. I sucked in an uneven breath and with this epiphany affirming my choice, said, "I promise I'm not going to do that."

So I didn't.

A decade later  -  I still haven't

I'm going to be 27 this month *my reflection laughs with my own face at my own face. "Nobody's ever gonna believe we're not perpetually 9," she says. She's not wrong* and ten years on, I've kept my promise.

Now, I'm not going to pretend that it was smooth sailing from that moment on. There were times when I'd forgotten what promises I'd made, my intrusive thoughts screaming so loud, so shrill, I could barely hear myself beneath them. There were times when I couldn't even bring myself to make the promise, because my OCD had my tongue in a chokehold, the words strangled and unable to dare to form. 

But there were times, most of the time, where I made a promise and battled the itchy, sharp, uncomfortable feelings that arose whenever I didn't give in to a compulsion, where I sat through the horrifying mental movies of terrible things happening to terrific people and fought the urge to give in to the persuasive and pervasive voice of the intruder in my brain  -  and I kept that promise. 

I haven't tap-tap-tap-tapped (x4) a light switch in years. I haven't had to keep all of my belongs on my bed with me in yonks. I haven't lingered on a crack in the pavement for 42 minutes in the middle of the night, my foot pressed awkwardly into it desperately waiting for the "feeling" that would release me in forever.

I can paint my nails purple again. I can put a pen to the page. I can finally refer to myself as "I" rather than having to disregard my presence entirely. I can think my own thoughts. I can make my own choices. I can make promises  -  because I know I can keep them.

It's keeping those promises and staying true to who I am at my core that has kept me going all this time. Pushed me forward. Lured me out of the dark. 

And that's why I'm telling you this. If you're going through anything even remotely similar, or if somebody you know and love is suffering in comparative ways, tell them to look deep. Turn inwards. Dig beneath the barricades these mental monsters cage us inside of and find the thing, anything, something that is rooted into your core. Stitched into your fibres. The foundation of your very being.

Remember who you are, what you live for, why you're here. And let it speak louder than any intrusive thought ever could. Recognise your own powerful voice in and amongst all the madness.

You'll figure this out somehow. You'll find freedom again. You'll be okay (better than, even).

That, I promise you. And you know how I feel about promises.