This I Believe - Annie huang

I found my belief when my brother had a hard time suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). I believe that everyone can break through their difficulties as long as they have ambition. Life is unpredictable, when a difficulty comes, finding a way out with ambition is the best way to solve the problem. And I think the story that happened to my brother is worth to share. Two years ago, when my brother finished the college entrance exam and was about to graduate from high school, he got the transcript but was not satisfied with his grade. Therefore, my father convinced him to take the exam again, which means to prepare for the exam again and take it again a year later. My brother was convinced to take this enormous challenge. However, it was also a transition in his life that my family gradually noticed the problem of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Obsessive-compulsive disorder is basically caused by lots of pressure. It made my brother not be able to concentrate on one specific thing and led him to think of another. My brother had to control it by taking all kinds of medicine every day, and that was extremely damaging to his health. As the result, he almost gave up studying because he couldn’t continue without medicine. While I was trying to help him get through it, he told me lots of things that disturbed him. Those things might seem insane and unrealistic, but they can only be understood by people who have really gone through it. There are two stories that really impressed me when my brother told me. The first story was happened one day when he took a flyer that was totally free on the counter after buying snacks from a convenience store. When my brother walked out of the store, he had a strong feeling that he just stole a thing, and he couldn’t stop thinking that he would be arrested. The inextricable thought lasted for a long time with my brother which gave him a tough time. The other story is that when he saw a dot on a blank paper, he would be very anxious and wanted to tear the paper up because it was not clean and flawless enough. We didn’t exactly know how severe the disorder was until the next year after my brother took the exam again, the grade was much worse than before. However, he decided to take the exam again this time by himself. My parents were really worried that he couldn’t handle the pressure, but my brother said that he wanted to find a way out to break through his obsessive-compulsive disorder. During the second year, my brother figured out a way that could relieve his pressure which was exercising. One day while I was having conversation with him, he told me that he got the ambition to break through it. “Nobody can really help me solve the problem besides myself,” he said. My brother stopped taking medicine because it made him be too relaxed, he kept working hard and even harder than before. When he was stressed out, he went to exercise. When he felt like he wanted to give up, he told himself that he could make a breakthrough very soon. Eventually, he was accepted by an university in Hong Kong after receiving the transcript, and got the highest scholarship just a few weeks ago. My brother wants to be a Chinese medicine doctor, just like my father, who has also gone through OCD during the time. It was a tough situation for my brother when seeing all his classmates had started their university life, but just him, a graduated high school student still preparing for the exam and was stucked with OCD. "Am I weird?” was the most frequently question that he asked me, and it was also the most heart-breaking question for me. He lost his confidence because he thought everyone viewed him as a weird person. But now, after he has gone through all the dreadful experience, he can share with people the story of how he broke through his difficulties with his ambition. The inspiration from his story may be the biggest motivation of breaking through a difficulty for me. Everyone can break through their difficulties as long as they have ambition. This I believe.