The Potato Bug

Somewhere around 2014–2015: Senior year of high school

The sun was beating down on my neck and all that filled the air was the brush of wind from students running in all directions, laughing and excited for the weekend. For me, it was not a great day. My eyes felt as if they were weighing my whole head down, my neck aching, body weak from stress and lack of sleep. This was the first day in a long time that I was able to stay the whole day at school. Day after day by the fifth period, I would end up in my mom's car, breathing into a paper bag either on my way home or to my therapist whose building was nearly five minutes away from the school.

..

Before I started writing the book, VulnerABLE, I was trapped inside my mind. Even though there was always an open door inviting me to use my voice and speak up for what I believe in, I somehow stuck myself in a ditch so far down that I prevented myself from attempting to make a change in my life and in the world. I was kicking, screaming, and begging in my mind for relief from my shame, guilt, sadness, and the like, but all at the same time, it was me who was trapping myself.

I am going to give you a peek inside of my mind years ago when I was afraid every single day of myself. Afraid that I had no worth, and afraid that I had no hope to feel at peace with the presence of my anxious thoughts.

And all it took for me to break down was an encounter with a potato bug.

..

I sat down on the curb as I waited for my mom to pick me up to go home. My backpack was so heavy that I laid back on the ground, stretching and breathing past the stomach and backaches.

I then saw a cute little potato bug creeping around the sidewalk, dodging all of the feet stomping past. I smiled, reaching my hand out to lightly touch the back of the bug as I used to always do as a child to see it curl into the rounded shape of a potato. This little bug was somehow making me forget about my stomach ache for a second, finally experiencing a moment without anxiety creeping in. Attempting to roll the bug just the slightest bit out of the way of the people walking past, and for my sheer enjoyment of seeing a potato bug roll, I extended my finger and gave it a tiny push.

The tiny push was harder than I thought, sending the little bug forward, rolling quicker than I expected. As my eyes followed the bug, my sight was interrupted by another student’s foot standing in my view, stepping on the bug on the way down the path.

My smile immediately disappeared as I started to blame myself for the little bugs life.

As the student walked away, I remember having a fear that that little push, the loss of that bug’s life, made me a terrible person. If I just didn’t poke the bug for my own enjoyment, this wouldn’t have happened, I thought. I wiped a tear from my eye, so afraid and upset.

What did I just do? I thought to myself. Why did I have to bother the bug? The bug didn’t deserve this! This is proof that I’m a horrible human.

I always had to make sure that I still had a chance to be forgiven by others. I had to tell everyone what was on my mind every second just to make sure that I was “normal.”

But I can’t tell anyone about this reget, I thought. I’ll sound CRAZY!

This was such a small moment in my life. But a small moment that turned into a fixation that I remember clearly to this day.

..

At that point, my obsessions and compulsions were getting worse. Even the smallest of moments, like the potato bug, would trigger my anxiety, sending me into a spiral of self-depreciation and searching for reassurance.

This wasn’t the first severe obsession I had in high school; I was used to these types of thoughts. My stomach ached worse every single day, and I woke up every morning with constant thoughts popping into my head that claimed “today is the day you’ll catch the stomach flu.”

I have this severe fear of vomiting, ending up in the emergency room each and every time I catch the stomach flu. My parents and nurses would stand around me trying to coach me how to throw up as I do whatever I can to hold it back, afraid of the feeling. Afraid of the uncontrollable. Afraid of germs.

At the beginning of senior year I had a stomach ache that lasted for weeks, and then months. After colonoscopies, endoscopies, and many doctor appointments later, anxiety has deemed the cause.

“Something else is wrong,” I begged others to listen. I grew up with fixations that took over my whole life:

-Obsessing that I was pregnant as a virgin, spending hours googling, frozen by fear in my bed, not able to talk to friends or family without my thoughts of a pregnancy screaming louder than the present moment.

-Fixations that my eyes were crossed, sitting in the mirror and taking picture after picture to make sure my eyes were in the same exact place.

-Fixation on germs. As a late teen, I would tense up and panic when someone would touch any part of my food. If someone reached into my chip bag, I immediately threw the bag away or gave the rest away, not touching food that someone else’s hands touched.

The fixations continued with the most bizarre topics.

Then came the fixation that I was a bad person. That I was too powerful. That if I had any thought pop into my head that wasn’t pleasant, I was pretty much worthless with no chance to improve. I wanted to be perfect. I kept checking, reassuring myself that I was normal.

..

I never knew how to describe how these fears felt to others, how much these thoughts took over my life and were seemingly worse and worse each time. Friends would laugh when I would obsess or get visibly annoyed every time I left an event due to my daily stomach aches. People would mess with me, taking sips from a straw in my drink when I would leave the table, laughing hysterically when I later found out I drank from the straw that someone else’s mouth touched.

It wasn’t until my senior year of college when I was finally formally diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), a mental illness that I’ve been experiencing for as long as I can remember.

The diagnosis and treatment continue to be life-changing. When I started to realize the pattern of my thoughts, my habit of searching for reassurance, realizing how I constantly defined myself by my thoughts that I had no control of, I started to understand myself. I started to understand the toxicity of temptation and the toxicity of someone changing your voice. I improved upon having 5-week freakouts after I accidentally drank out of the same cup of someone else.

For those who don’t have OCD, and even those who do have OCD, my specific fears and obsessions may seem small. Or you may completely relate. Working through OCD and shame has taught me more about life that I use when I’m in the midst of my obsessions, as well as when I’m not. We all have obsessions and moments where we check for reassurance, OCD or not. The lessons I’ve learned have helped me in all areas in my life, including temptation, fear, shame, guilt, and the like.

Working on improving anxious thoughts and improving on the way we view the shame we have in our lives does not mean that we will never have anxiety or experience shame again. As one of my professors once told me in regards to OCD, fear, sadness, anger and the like, these emotions and anxieties may be life sentences, but they are not death sentences.

My fears do still scare me at times. I still feel tings of panic, sometimes falling into a spiral. But it’s better than weeks, months, even years of neglecting self-care due to fear and inability to calm down. I’m working on it, and I am continually developing the tools needed to become more self-aware.

One of my mantras is to remind myself every day: “You didn’t think it wouldn’t get better. You never thought it would get better, but it did. When has obsessing ever lead you to an actual solution?”

And for you too, no matter who is reading this, there is so much hope and encouragement. Hold on to it.

..

VulnerABLE: How to Notice the Power of Vulnerability through Lettuce, Laundry, and Love, is a non-fiction book that speaks to people going through a time of transition; people looking to reframe their mindset, and notice the power in their voices. With chapter titles that explore assumptions we project on ourselves including, “I’m not the only one” as well as criticism that others say to us, such as, ”Calm down and let it go,” VulnerABLE explores in-depth the words that we say to ourselves and what others say to us that may withhold us from embracing our vulnerability.

To learn more about how I found my voice and worked through self-depreciation and the thoughts in my mind that took over my life, and how you can find YOUR voice, pick up your copy of VulnerABLE: How to Notice the Power of Vulnerability Through Lettuce, Laundry, and Love today, now on Amazon (eBook and paperback):

Related posts:

This was contained in a statement signed signed by the Assistant Director, Public Affairs, Jide Lawal on Sunday. The Summit commended the administration of Mr. Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu for his…

Now is just the beginning of 2023, but Meta Oasis's team is working hard to give everyone a more high-quality and attractive Metaverse! I'm very excited and can't wait to play the VR and computer…

This past week was the inaugural Virtual Medicine Conference at Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles. This two-day event, focused on the use of Virtual Reality in healthcare, brought together a wide range of…