{"id":23465,"date":"2026-08-12T16:52:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T21:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/?p=23465"},"modified":"2026-08-12T16:52:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T21:52:24","slug":"i-am-her-and-she-is-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/2026\/08\/12\/i-am-her-and-she-is-me\/","title":{"rendered":"I am Her and She is Me"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

I read one of the greatest books of all time my freshman year by accident. I say \u201cby accident\u201d because I wasn\u2019t voluntarily trying to look for it. I was just trying to find myself in literature before I had to grow up. Anyways, the book was titled \u201cTurtles All the Way Down\u201d by John Green. I had never felt so understood before as I did while reading that book. Especially by a complete stranger. Aza Holmes is the star of this book \u2014 A teenage girl dealing with grief, anxiety, and most importantly \u2014 obsessive compulsive disorder.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Turtles\"Image<\/p>\n

People often joke about OCD, so it gets watered down dramatically. Society doesn’t realize that it\u2019s so much more than a feeling of slight discomfort from something being out of order. This condition can range from the obsession with arrangement, harmful ideation, germs, timing, or even texture. The best way to explain OCD to those that don\u2019t suffer from it is \u2014 a phobia that someone tries to get rid of completely. For me and Aza, it is germs. This would mean wasting an entire can of Lysol, washing our hands fifteen times in less than half an hour, spiraling thoughts, or even complete meltdowns. This mental illness took complete control over Aza\u2019s life and so many other people\u2019s lives. Real people.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Ocd<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not using obsessive compulsive disorder as a way to bash those that are ignorant enough to joke about it or the folks that have to suffer from it. Whether they’re diagnosed or not. I reflect on \u201cTurtles All the Way Down\u201d <\/span>at least<\/span><\/i> once a week and live with OCD daily, so I thought, \u2018why not just yap about it for a few paragraphs?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Any who, earlier in my blog I mentioned “arrangement, harmful ideation, timing and texture\u201d. I know at least one person reading this has no clue what I meant. Arrangement is the most common form of OCD. Biggest to smallest or vice versa, colors, or numbers being in a specific order, etc. You get the gist of it. Harmful ideation probably threw off a lot of people and maybe even concerned some. What I mean by this is someone being afraid of hurting someone else or themselves. They usually hide sharp objects behind locks, pills or anything else that can be used to do damage. Also, I just wanted to state my opinion that this may be one of the <\/span>worst<\/span><\/i> forms of this disorder. I am so thankful I don\u2019t struggle with it and for those that do, I hope they can get efficient help.<\/span><\/p>\n

The timing part of OCD is probably a little confusing to some, so an example would be, \u201cIf I don\u2019t do this in time, something really bad will happen\u201d. Spoiler: <\/span>NOTHING IS EVER GOING TO HAPPEN!!!!!!!!!!<\/b> Shocker, I know.<\/span><\/p>\n

The last kind of OCD (that <\/span>I<\/span><\/i> listed; there\u2019s many more variations) would be touching something that feels \u201cwrong\u201d. Technically it isn\u2019t wrong, but you can\u2019t reason with the mental. This may result in touching whatever it was exactly like before to \u201cundo\u201d the feeling, rubbing something else aggressively or getting agitated. If <\/span>none <\/b>of this makes sense to you, then congratulations, you probably don\u2019t have obsessive compulsive disorder! But if it did make sense, I totally understand. I don\u2019t have any words of encouragement or advice for you but keep going. You\u2019ve made it this far and have had a lot of ups in your life, so keep moving forward. And thank you to anybody who\u2019s read this \u2014 my first ever blog. I hope you enjoyed it more than you might\u2019ve cringed at it.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read one of the greatest books of all time my freshman year by accident. I say \u201cby accident\u201d because I wasn\u2019t voluntarily trying to look for it. I was just trying to find myself in literature before I had to grow up. Anyways, the book was titled \u201cTurtles All the Way Down\u201d by John … Continue reading “I am Her and She is Me”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":125,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[48,385],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23465"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/125"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23465"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23524,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23465\/revisions\/23524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}