About

Hi, I’m Emily Mannikko. I’m 29, and my journey with mental health began in 2012 when I was diagnosed with OCD. Two years later, I entered an intensive residential treatment program, and in 2020 I completed an intensive outpatient program. It’s been more than a decade of learning, healing, unlearning, and growing—and I still take it one day at a time. Over the years, my story has become about more than OCD. It’s become about being human. About navigating the messy, beautiful, complicated layers of mental health that all of us experience in some way, whether we talk about it openly or not. Living with mental health challenges hasn’t confined my life; it has expanded it. It’s taught me to see people with deeper empathy, to honor the small victories, and to recognize how much we all have in common beneath the surface. Most recently, I began DBT therapy in the fall of 2025 – a reminder that mental health never truly takes a day off. I’m learning how to let my emotions move through me instead of drown me, how to pause instead of spiral, and how to show up to my life with more steadiness and self-compassion. It’s been a long road, and I’m still here living it, learning from it, and telling the story myself. And for what it’s worth, human resiliency—and what we’re capable of handling, even when it feels unbearable – still teaches me every day just how powerful and courageous the human spirit can be. My hope is that by opening up about my experiences, others will feel seen in their own. We’re all navigating something, and when we share our stories, we help build a community where compassion comes first.

We cannot become what we want by remaining what we are.