Getting back to the "ordinary" world

      I like to watch the music talent show "The Voice".  A couple of weeks ago, one of the contestants sang "Ordinary World" by Duran Duran.  I don't know what the meaning of the actual song is, but when he got to the chorus the words really stuck with me.  If you take these words out of context and put them on their own, it very much describes what fighting against OCD is like.....
  "What has happened to it all, crazy some say, where is the life that I recognize?
I won't cry for yesterday, there's an ordinary world somehow I have to find, and as I try to make my way to the ordinary world, I will learn to survive"
     I have some weird OCD thoughts about even putting these lyrics out of context.  It's true.  I am not trying to make the song appear to be about OCD, because I am pretty darn sure that it's not.  But again, these words seem very fitting for OCD sufferers as they work their way through treatment.  How many years have we lost to OCD?  How much time have we wasted?  How many experiences have we and our loved ones missed out on because of this?  How many pieces of our lives has it stolen along the way?  The longer the OCD is winning, the deeper we get in it's trenches.  Until it's all-consuming, and we don't even recognize our lives anymore.  But that is just the thing....we can't cry for yesterday.  We can't get it back.  All we can do is keep plowing forward in the fight, in the hope for better tomorrows and eventually freedom from these OCD walls.  There is an ordinary world that we do have to find again.....somehow...best done through the very hard work of exposure and response prevention therapy.  And with each exposure, we get a little closer back to the ordinary world.  As OCD sufferers we have to be brave.  It's the only way to find our way back. And as we go down that hard road of treatment, we must remember that it IS worth it.  Some moments are so painful, it seems that we just won't survive that next exposure on our hierarchy....and then we do it and come out as the victor in that battle!!  Oddly enough, for many of us, it feels like we can't survive with the OCD any longer, but also feels like we can't survive without it either.  The truth is, as long as the OCD is winning, then we are not really living fully.  We are functioning and getting through each day.  In order to break free of the confines of these OCD prison walls, we must do the hard work.  And it is hard.  And it is painful.  But we must walk through the dark forest to get out of it.  To find our way back to the ordinary world.  And in the process, we will learn to survive.