In Sickness and In Mental Health

I can’t remember if it was hot or cold that night you walked me home from the brewery. I don’t remember what you wore (probably a checked button up) or if the stars twinkled or the porch light hummed. I do remember that I didn’t want the walk to end.  I remember that I didn’t do my hair. 

Earlier, when my roommate asked where I was going and I replied with “hanging out with Ryan,” I immediately followed up with “but it’s not a date!” 

And it wasn’t, technically. 

When I arrived at the bustling bar, you were sipping an IPA with another woman–married, just a friend!, you told me. Still, not a date. 

I was right in not doing my hair. 

I remember the lull in conversation once our walk home ended at my porch. How I inched myself backward toward the door and chuckled nervously. How I twirled my salmon pink flower earrings and forced myself to wait for you to speak. 

“Do you want to go out to dinner with me?” you finally asked and a zing of heat rippled through my body. 

Me, you really wanted to date me? 

*** 

I thought about doing my hair for our first date, but decided against it. I let my wavy-ish hair air dry and hoped for the non-poofy best. I wanted you to see the real me. Be attracted to the real me. Choose the real me. 

I prided myself that I was low maintenance. I was never the girl with her curling wands and make up routines and designer clothes, and I wasn’t going to start.

You kept asking me out, frizz and all. 

***

When I first started coming to the weekly friends' dinner where we met, you labeled me “Short New Girl” as a counterpart to the other new guest: “Tall New Girl.” 

Both introverts, we’d exchanged hundreds of group texts such as “who’s on main dish?,” “I’m bringing beer,”  and multitudes of “over it” GIFs and workday banter before we ever texted alone.

Later, when we were engaged, I asked when you knew you wanted to get to know me better. When I morphed from Short New Girl to a girl you wanted to date. 

Why me? 

“I was interested after I read your post on depression,” you replied. 

From the beginning, you were attracted to my writing (I mean, swoon right back–a man who reads and has good diction.) You never shied away from talk of mental illness and you were drawn to my vulnerability.  

It’s one thing to read a post and resonate, to appreciate the honesty; it’s a different story to marry someone with mental health issues. 

Six years into our marriage, I was diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. OCD was the reason my depression wasn’t going away, my anxiety was amping up, and why I felt irritable and overwhelmed.

***

“I’m not doing this!” I yell at the kids and slam down the plate holding my son’s peanut butter toast.  I lean forward with my  hands on my knees and heave in and out hot, panicked breaths. I feel the gnawing in the back of my throat; the prick of tears in my eyes. My world constricts and my thoughts race. I am failing again. I can’t even get the kids ready for school. I can’t get through five minutes without yelling. And I haven’t done my writing and I should have worked out and I should have known this would happen and I should have prevented it and think of all the other times you’ve failed, every hour, every day, every moment a missed opportunity. 

You’re pouring coffee from the leaky carafe and see me shut down. You set down your mug and walk over. You rub my back and I am unreachable, still heaving, still reciting a ticker tape of failures in my head.  You hug me and I am frozen. You tell me you love me, and I don’t reply. Minutes pass and you are quiet. 

The kids yell for their breakfast and you replace the offending peanut butter toast with a plain slice as demanded by our six-year-old. You watch them eat then get them dressed. You load the kids with their backpacks and water bottles and lunches in the car. 

You give you me space. 

***

“Aren’t I disgusting?” I ask you as I look in the mirror and pinch the skin at my waist. “Ugh, these love handles,” I groan and sigh. I have no regard for your feelings, how it breaks your heart that I don’t see myself like you do, how it makes you feel about your own body when I nitpick my own.

 I’m merely repeating the conviction I feel inside. 

***

I interrupt your work again. I can see you’re in the middle of an IM, your fingers flying across the keyboard. You have to re-read my newsletter. I need reassurance on the wording, the font, the filter on the pictures. 

You’re on a call, but I need this feedback now. 

***

Seven years and two kids into marriage, I’m no longer that low maintenance girl casually showing up for dates. I’m alarmed, actually, by how high maintenance OCD recovery feels. How high maintenance I feel. How dependent I am on you. 

I need exercise endorphins to combat the anxiety, expensive medication to keep from plunging into despair, time to write, time outside, time with my girls, and a somewhat clean house to even feel like I can start to handle life. 

And while there is treatment for OCD and I’m so grateful, choosing to live a lifestyle of exposure and response prevention often leaves me feeling worse before I start to feel better. 

In the OCD community, we talk a lot about sitting with discomfort and sticking with the ick. No one talks about how hard it is to be nice to our kids and spouses when we’re in the ick. 

And in the middle of it all, you are taking care of me. 

You give me space and grace. You are learning how to respond to my OCD. 

You carry the mental load of not knowing which Aly will greet you in any moment: the happy confident version or the shell of me stuck in an OCD prison. 

You’re learning that when I tell you all the ways I’ve failed, you can’t give reassurance. You say, “Maybe.” You hug me. You make up song parodies, “That thought is Poison!” You take the kids so I can write or workout. 

You stay. You never judge. You never ask why I’m not over it yet. You never belittle my slow progress. 

When you committed to love me in sickness and in health, neither of us knew how taxing it would be to maintain my mental health. 

I’m learning, too. 

You’re my biggest WHY in recovery. I want to fight OCD so that I can love you better. I want there to be space for you in our marriage, not just the throbbing urgency of my OCD. 

I’m learning to lean into my values. I’m learning to resist the compulsions now for the sake of freedom later.  I’m learning to treat you well even when I feel shitty inside. But progress is slower than I would like. 

Marriage lays you bare in so many ways. And you see the real me every day: the anxiety attacks and the looping criticism, the roller coaster of emotions. And still you choose me, frizzy (now graying) hair, mental disorder, and all. 

***

Small disclaimer: I know that all spouses deal with each other’s ish. This is just to name and acknowledge the role and toll fighting a mental disorder like OCD has taken on our marriage. I also believe all people (with or without OCD) are deserving (and undeserving!) of love. 
***

This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series "Love After Babies".