Editor's note: Isabella Millen, a teen author from the Pacific Northwest, was invited to share a perspective piece on a topic that matters to her and her peers. Her story offers insight into the challenges behind stereotypes and mental health labels.
Katie was living a great life. She was a junior in boarding academy, she had a lot of friends and she was involved in quite a bit of music at her school.
Things seemed pretty good for Katie on the outside, but on the inside, it was completely the opposite. Katie was really struggling. She had to repeat certain things a specific number of times, she kept asking for reassurance from her friends and family, and she held herself back from doing things she wanted to do.
Katie thought there was something majorly wrong with her, which only made her feel worse about herself. Katie was in one of the lowest moments she had ever experienced when she called her parents. She cried herself to sleep many nights and she was slowly drifting away from God.
When she finally called her parents, she was so desperate that she was willing to do whatever it took to get better. All she wanted was to be normal and happy again.
After having many long conversations over the phone with her parents through tears about how she was feeling, Katie got a counselor. Through her sessions, Katie learned she had obsessive-compulsive disorder. This was something that was in her family, and growing up, her dad would tell her she had signs of OCD.
When Katie was younger, she rejected the possibility of having OCD because she didn’t want to be one of "those" people who had to have everything color coordinated. Katie knew the stereotypes for OCD, and she didn’t want to be defined by them.
During her sessions with her counselor, Katie accepted the fact that she had OCD. Her counselor told her, “Your OCD is part of you, but it doesn’t define you.”
Katie spent many months working with her counselor, and she slowly began to feel better. She learned helpful tips that she practiced and the skills helped her a lot. She was also beginning to understand herself much better.
It was during this time that Katie grew closer to God and started spending more time with Him. Katie realized that through the good and the bad, her Forever Friend, Jesus, was always with her.
Even though Katie was doing better and growing closer to God, she still felt ashamed to tell others about her OCD. She had accepted it, but hadn’t embraced it. During a campout with her friends, they played a game. In the game, someone had a “label” on their forehead of something, and the rest of the group would try to explain what the label was without saying the word. Katie’s friend got a label that said “OCD." Listening to how the others explained what it was, was too much for Katie. “It means you have to have everything color coordinated,” they said. “You’re obsessed with switching the light on and off.”
What made it even worse for Katie was how her friend immediately guessed OCD based on what the others had said.
Katie had done so much research on mental health, specifically OCD, since she wanted to better understand herself. She knew that, for some people, having everything color coordinated or flipping the light switch constantly was a part of their OCD, but it definitely wasn’t an accurate description of what OCD is.
This was what society thought of OCD and it made Katie’s experience even harder. The world saw it as having a quirky personality trait. Very few people understood the amount of pain and damage that can come with OCD.
After a few more months had gone by, Katie began to slowly embrace her OCD. She knew that, although it didn’t define her, it was a part of her.
Even though it caused Katie a lot of pain and difficulty, after working with her counselor, she realized she didn’t want to be any other way. She was no longer ashamed of her OCD, and it didn’t matter to her if others found out about it. Katie embraced her OCD.
Today, Katie has a better understanding of herself. She still works with her counselor and practices the techniques she learns. Katie strives to understand who people really are, despite what stereotypes exist about their experiences. She aims to be the best version of herself and, with God’s help, she knows she can.
Do you ever feel like there are stereotypes about you? It can feel like no one understands you when they view you based on the stereotypes you have. But it is so comforting that Jesus sees us for who we really are.
During His time here on earth, He called Matthew to be His disciple. Matthew was a tax collector, and there were a lot of stereotypes about him. He wasn’t viewed really well by the other Jews, but Jesus called Him anyway. He saw something in Matthew that no one else saw.
And He sees things in you that others don’t necessarily see.
So even though there may be a lot of stereotypes about you, Jesus looks beyond those and sees you for who you really are, which is a child of God who is fearfully and wonderfully made.
