I could barely even type those words. Honestly. Do you know how many times I’ve forced myself to abbreviate OCD in hopes that it might weaken it? That it may mean that it goes away? That it doesn’t actually exist? That maybe it’ll just hop out and say oh yes! You did it. This is actually Oreo Consumption Disorder…you just like sweets, you might get fat, but that’s about it. Ok bye! It broke my heart that it never did. I do love Oreos. If only I was obsessed about that.
Anyways, I haven’t wanted it. Haven’t wanted to deal with it. To admit that it’s affecting me. That it’s probably affected others. That’s part me, but also part me under rating it. How do I decipher grief vs. OCD vs. just plain hurt and pain? How do I decipher myself vs. OCD? I need a plan! I need structure. I need something. It just hasn’t come. No matter what methods I tried, no matter what prayers I said, it just doesn’t, relent. Ive moved jobs, moved cities, moved mountains literally and figuratively in hopes that it would subside, but ah, it’s time to admit that it hasn’t.
How angry I’ve been. How bitter. How irritated. How sad. Hopeless. Depressed. All things that aren’t really, me. That’s also the hard part about spelling out OCD for me – it now feels me. When in fact, it’s the opposite of who I have always been. Fun wheeling, loving, care free, aggressive, attacking, kind, determined, zestful, sexual, just…me. This feels like the opposite. Here in lies the problem with accepting this. Now it’s part of me. But not me. But I’m forced to act like it sometimes. And it kills me. Because I have to experience the painstaking ever-present anxiety that I know exactly what to say in a moment – at work, with friends, with a new crush – but it gets taken away from me. I’ve struggled to admit it, but it’s there. That little jab, that little TICK, that little, PUSH, that little…you know when you’re reaching for something on the shelf because you know the exact spot its in so you almost half look away because you’re so used to it, but then, all of a sudden, it seizes to be there? Or, rather, someone has swiped it .0002 seconds before you have? Multiply that times 100 and you have it. The intrusiveness. The oppressiveness. Of a daily – thousands daily – intrusive thoughts taking away your line of thought, there by taking away your daily cadence, there by slowly degrading you into a world of who knows what. (I also read this is what grief is about – a pathway in your brain that all of a sudden, doesn’t have what used to be there, maybe its a person, maybe its a thing, maybe its a thought, in my case…) And the truly hard part is, when they happen, if you can’t catch them, find them, SEE them, PRY for them in time, you don’t get a chance to recover. You know that its happening, that its there somewhere, but you can’t see through the storm. Poke out of it. Get your head above water. Something like that. You sit there in a room texting someone new and you know what you’re saying isn’t quite right, isn’t…”real”…but you can’t stop. The uncertainty and distress and existential anxiety/guilt is just too much, so you hit send. And the funny thing – it just gets worse. That’s the true gut punch. Right when you think it’s getting better, it’s not. Because then you aren’t connecting, no sir, no more haha (if you haven’t gathered, this is OCD talking). Now, you’re compulsing. And have you ever mixed compulsiveness into connecting and think you’re doing one but actually doing the other? And the anxiety thrives? But you don’t? Oof. That’s fire. But not the way the kids say these days. Actual fire. Burning. It burns in your heart. It literally hurts your heart. Because if you don’t catch it in time, you’re in for it for as long as it wants to pull your circuits and have its way. Mix it with a touch or rationality that you did actually know what to say – somewhere in there – or at least you know how you were feeling somewhere in there – and you try to then be rational – but the moment is gone. The beauty of it. The hope of it all. Gone. You can’t get it back. You try, you always try…you text, force, push, admit, apologize, but the hurt of something so close and in your grasp is mixed with the ever-present shame and guilt that you could have done it. You just didn’t. And of course, its always your fault. It hurt this weekend. It really did.
I think part of the reason I haven’t spelled it out is because I don’t think it’s what I thought. You picture it, right? The hand washing, the person who can’t seem to let one colored pencil out of order or else the world will explode. Howard Hughes sitting inside his movie theatre with his cups arranged neatly and only allowing nurses in on strict orders of hygiene and protocol and order and order and order and order. Never out of order. If one single thing gets out of order…don’t even say it…order.
When I first was diagnosed – ne – cursed? Given the label that puts you down down down in a society that only wants to go up up up? That may be for another time. Anyways, I had those visions. I told myself this isn’t me, I don’t feel like THAT. This can’t be happening. I feel fine. I can go throughout the day, see people, talk to people, all while managing an undying and crippling fear that I may hurt someone or say the wrong thing at any waking moment that consumes your entire being where you are forced to apologize for things that you don’t even remember you said that you actually might not have said that may never even have actually been present for but you thought it so it must have happened…ya? I know, it makes perfect sense. Sometimes your thoughts become dangerous. Insidious. If you live in a world where everything is true, how do you manage?
Mine hasn’t been the acute. The big. The wildly. The showmanship of our deepest fears and wildest fantasies about Hoarders on Discovery or fanatic airplane pilots from the 30’s. In some ways, I keep feeling like it’d be easier if it was. I’d at least have something to show for it, right? HERE. EVERYONE. LOOK. THIS….THIS ARRANGEMENT, is how crazy I am. Now, you can help me, because you can finally SEE it. But no…I get to keep mine in the dark. Inside my head. But simultaneously feeling like its on display every waking moment for everyone to see. Mine is more…chronic. Sleepy. Insidious. Oppressive. Pulling emotional strings and decision making like it was the devil himself, having a hey-day with your life but just quiet enough where you forget about him until he shoots up from the underground lair he’s hiding in. Waiting in. Stalking in. Waiting until the perfect moment….your happiness.
I think the most poignant and painful thing about is that it makes you believe things that aren’t real. Story lines that don’t add up. Emotions that don’t have factual basis. How you can love and connect with someone while simultaneously being so scared of them (of yourself?) that you can’t express that love in a way that actually makes sense. Its a short circuit. A haywire. A electrical field that has been exploded by an EMP. It doesn’t just short it. It blows the whole thing up. I can tell you from experience. Connecting with someone, feeling, chatting, giddiness…then it comes, like a wave. Like the uncertainty you never knew you had. And your mind flips. I can literally feel it slip. Have you ever seen the movie Split? (Another M. Night classic)…he shifts into a new personality. It feels like that. Except you’re aware its happening. And that’s how it feels…but then you can’t explain it because who says that? Like they feel like someone else but they know they’re actually not, but if you know you’re not, why do you feel like it? Well you must just be…insane. There’s the conundrum. How to talk about something that actually feels insane, but you full well know you aren’t insane. You’ve been hijacked.
This leads me to my thought – PING.
Just kidding. I’m starting a therapy program this week, and I may try and do a blog each day. Going through my experience, thoughts, hurts, pains, dark parts. I’ve been trying to figure how to help people. To at least, if I can’t figure out how to make this good right now, maybe I can at least share it and it will help or comfort someone else. I think that would be good enough for now.
The Search for Gratitude 