It was finally time to graduate. Nearly three and a half years of hard work and dedication were coming to a close. We had taken all 5 parts of our board exams. We were finally earning the title of "doctor". We would be entering into a licensed profession and had secured new jobs. There was also the impending realization that we would now have to be real-life, I-pay-my--own-bills-with-my-own-earned-money, adults - and it seemed this realization was making things worse on Nick. This was meant to be an exciting time, but I would spend a majority of it worrying about how the upcoming festivities would go down.
My immediate concerns were how he would handle the days surrounding graduation. I had my family and best friend coming to town. Nick had his family coming to town. I was worried that the additional people, additional family dynamics, and additional stimulation would be too much for him. I was worried that he wouldn't be able to tolerate the graduation festivities without retreating to play video games. I was worried that if that happened, our family members wouldn't understand why he couldn't "pull it together", get angry or upset, and create more stress.

After graduation, we were supposed to spend Christmas holidays with my family for a couple of weeks before moving to Colorado. Again, I was worried he would spend the entire time playing video games. I had emailed my whole family trying to educate them on OCD and what might happen over Christmas. I warned them that he might not be the usual boisterous person they knew. I warned them that he might retreat to our room or not partake in activities, and made it clear that it had absolutely nothing to do with them. I tried to tell Nick that he couldn't play video games at all over Christmas, and while he agreed, I didn't necessarily believe that would be the outcome.
And while I was mostly distracted by these worries, I had another thought as I reflected on our time at school. We had a lot of life-stress on top of the "regular" school stress in the last three and a half years. Between March and July 2018, we had dealt with the death of Nick's dad, the death of their family dog, the death of his aunt. He didn't cope well with the losses and after his aunt passed, Nick had a stress-seizure while sitting in class. Then we got married, and 4 months later, started the journey with tinnitus, OCD, hospitalization, and video game addiction. But I knew we weren't the only ones who had dealt with other life stressors outside of this program, so I also spent part of my time wondering what other classmates had dealt with during our time at school. We knew some had had babies and some had lost family members. But I wondered if anyone else had been through mental health struggles like this. When we hospitalized Nick, one of the police officers asked him, "Do you have any idea how many people we have hospitalized while they're holding that same board exam book that you're holding now?" It made me wonder if someone else had struggled with this, but remained silent. I would probably never know.
This was meant to be an exciting time. We were graduating. We were moving. Then we would be starting a new chapter. But I spent most of it worried about what would happen.
As it turned out, this would be a waste of energy.
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