My name is Wendy, and I was born in a small town in northern Mexico. I became one of the first women to professionally fight as a mixed martial artist (MMA), at a time when MMA was still stigmatized for women. After retiring, following a career-ending injury, I became a combat sports journalist, trying to break into another male-dominated field.
But, despite countless fights inside the cage, the toughest fight I’ve faced has been outside the ring, against the trickiest opponent I’ve ever met: obsessive-compulsive disorder.
It all started around the age of 6. As a little girl, I liked to play a game, where I avoided stepping on the cracks in the floor— at least that’s what I thought was going on.
I don’t remember exactly the first time I heard the voice of my OCD, but I know it presented as an internal male voice, telling me I had to do things in a certain way and at certain times, otherwise something terrible would happen. If I stepped on the cracks in the floor, for instance, my mother might die suddenly, my brother might accidentally cut off his fingers, or our house might burn down. Simply put, something terrible would happen to one of my loved ones.
Although it wasn’t always clear what would occur (or why it would happen), I obeyed the orders of that voice—like a prisoner serving a sentence.
In Mexico, the dominant religion is Catholicism, and I used to cross myself compulsively—not out of devotion, but out of fear. In my case, I wasn’t afraid of God’s punishment; I feared the so-called “disorder of doubt.” OCD makes you question everything, from whether you really locked your door, to whether you somehow murdered a loved one.
On average, a person has 4,000 thoughts a day, and not all of them are considered useful. But another portion of the population remains trapped on the threshold of terrifying thoughts, unable to escape. For those of us with OCD, it feels like the only way to break free from this distress is through mental or physical compulsions—but these behaviors only feed our OCD.
OCD is like an opponent I might have faced in the ring. If you shy away from punches, you’ll likely end up receiving the hardest ones, so it’s best to face them and move forward. You might receive a couple of crosses and hooks in the process, but in doing so, you might manage to land a good overhand punch. That’s the paradox of the fight: Don’t be afraid to receive a hit, because that’s when you can counterattack.
Despite my retirement from the world of MMA, I’m still fighting. The battles never ended.
I still remember my last fight in the ring: My jaw was broken in three places, but I didn’t know that yet. My opponent landed another hook that knocked me to the canvas. At this point, I’d lost the fight. I only had two options: knock out or submit in the final seconds. This was the final round, not only of this fight, but of my career, as I’d later discover. So, we engaged in a back-and-forth. When the bell rang, we were finally separated. And although my opponent won the fight, I felt liberated, relieved to face my fears.
Yes, that was my last fight in the cage, but not the last in my life. I spent six months in bed, unable to speak or eat solid food, recovering from maxillofacial surgery that reconstructed half of my face. The doctors warned me that I should retire, and in the end I did.
My jaw was broken in three places, but the deepest wound was the one no one could see. I spent years fighting a silent battle against my own mind. Doctors told me I would have to relearn how to speak, eat, and even smile again.
Since then, every day is a constant battle. This time against my own mind. I battle OCD, bipolar disorder, depression, and other ailments that plague me. But, I’ve conquered too much in my life to back down now.
Remember I told you I had to relearn how to speak, and I couldn’t fight anymore, and I’d even have trouble smiling? I now speak when I was told I should remain silent, I continue to fight when I was told I wouldn’t again, and I smile as I finished this essay I was once advised not to write.
Wendy Arellano is a journalist and former MMA fighter, who has written about combat sports, gender roles, and sexuality. You can read her most recent work in the LA Times in Español. She has not opened up about her OCD, until now.