So... Have any of you guys read Turtles All The Way Down yet? John Green's new book.

Okay, so I read it on the plane, and was thinking about it all day. Like... her thought spirals? That grow inward? Ever felt like you related to a character so much that you were them?

Now, I don't have OCD, at least I don't think, but I do have these thought spirals, that leave you haunted, but like, I can change my thoughts- I can try and kind of succeed.

But- you know, so I read this book, and I had one of these thought spirals- can't even remember what they were about- and they just overwhelmed me. And then I started thinking- 'What if I'm faking it? What if it's a placebo?' 'But if I was faking it, why did it feel so real?' And then the voice roars 'Because you just want attention, because you want to feel special, because you want an illness to get attention, to feel special.' And- I don't know, and I kept denying it, but the thought kept cropping up- like weed.

And like, you know everytime I do something embarrassing, this thought will keep popping up, like 'You're so worthless' 'LOL look at her 14 years old and she can't even do the dishes properly' 'You clumsy fuck you can't do anything 14 years old and you can't even push a suitcase properly you rammed it into someone's leg and ruined their day'

And like, even as I'm writing this down that thought is still there, making me feel like 'You're just exaggerating it' 'I'm meant to keep you from getting too arrogant, that's clearly not working.' 'You're pretending to feel these things and know these things and you're fine.' 'You've never even cried over it. It's fake, you and I both know it. It's fake, it's fake. You're faking it.'

Recently I had a panic attack on my trip and I couldn't breathe and I started crying but there was still this voice in my head saying, 'You're faking it and you know you can breathe and JUST STOP IT YOU'RE INCONVIENCING EVERYBODY stop playing into placebo stop faking it you know you can breathe you're just pretending and wow at least you can produce fake tears on demand You're doing it for the attention and you know it. Don't lie and tell me you can't breathe because you can you can you can.'

And I've never cried over this because everytime I do it's like 'You're so ungrateful you come from a well-to-do family and yet you have the audacity to complain and cry about a mental illness that YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE. You're faking it, stop vying for attention.' And you have to earn tears, and what reason do I have to cry?

And it's like it's telling me these things and I know it's coming from my head and I know I can stop it but it just won't. It's like I can never truly be happy or sad cause there's always this voice telling me that I'm vying for attention and I can't even tell if it's wrong. If I am doing these things for attention. I can no longer tell if I'm acting or if it's real what I'm feeling and after the panic attack or a thought spiral I feel so disgusted because I'm faking it and I don't know if it's real and I'll never know cause it's my head and even now every word I write feels like a lie, even this sentence, it makes me want to cry but then I wonder if I really want to cry or if I just want to seem special and I don't know which it is anymore.