Thursday, March 19, 2015

Is this real life?

One of the hardest things about having OCD is my inability to tell when I'm being a total obsessive compulsive spaz or when I'm having "normal people" worries.

Am I have a reaction that most people would have? 

Is this really what I want or is it what I want because I'm obsessing over some random ass thing in this moment? 

Am I overthinking my thoughts? Am I overthinking my overthinking?

Not being able to trust your own judgment is hard. Obsessing over your own judgment is even harder. It's exhausting in fact. I spend more time wondering if I'm nuts or if I'm normal than I do pretty much anything else.

Sometimes it's little things...like "did I accidentally say something that someone could interpret as rude in that interaction?" or

Most of the time it's about repetitive things or my serial obsessions...like does everyone think about murderers as much as me? Or does everyone do the same shower routine every single day or do they just go all wily nily with their bathing steps?

The worst things are big things. Like cutting my hair in a drastic way. Yesterday I got my hair cut. That seems like such a simple statement. Yesterday I went from chin length hair to super short hair. That seems a little more dramatic. But when I think about the amount of time I spent thinking about cutting my hair...lord. That's a lot of thinking.

Where does it start? Do I start with the time I was about 12 and I saw a runway model on some tv show that had a shaved head and a fantastic Chinese dragon tattoo on her head and I secretly wished I would get cancer (and sometimes I find my mind lingering there sometimes now) so I could shave my head without being weird and then be a bad ass like that model? Should I start when I DID cut my hair off in high school and at the time thought it was so cute and when I look back now I realize what a tragic chili bowl it was? Do I start when I saw GI Jane and realized that I didn't really just like Demi Moore because she was a great actress (because, let's be serious, she's really just ok) and it wasn't so much that I wanted to look like her as I probably wanted to have sex with her? Or do I start with "I really really really hate the feeling of sweat on my head -- not so much other parts of my body. Body sweat is tolerable. But head sweat makes me want to rip off my head? So if I have short hair my head will sweat less? And summer is coming and Chico is hella hot and I sweat a lot." Or should I talk about how much I hate getting dressed every day and doing my hair? It takes so damn much time. Time I could be reading or blogging or anything other than spending it on superficial stuff like fixing my hair or picking out something other than sweatpants to wear. It shouldn't matter if I look like a wreck or socially unacceptable for work -- I'm great at what I do whether I'm stylish or look like a bag lady. Ugh. I hate social expectations. Or should I talk about how much I hate the media and patriarchy and I hate performing my gender in stereotypical ways (femme) even though that's really who I am and I want to cut my hair because fuck blow drying and flat ironing and fuck long hair and fuck stylish hair and maybe I'll just shave it all off and give a middle finger to the world because my value is on the inside instead of my external appearance? But oh god. What if I look hideous? What if I look like a fat headed militant dyke...which is an ok thing in the conceptual world, but not ok for me in my real life I stare in the mirror everyday look...and oh my god I not only sound like a judgy asshole but that's totally me playing into patriarchy and media and gender stereotypes...and god I am so tired of thinking. Let me ask all of my closest people what they think. Nice. Ok. Good. Yes! I'm pumped! Oh, that was underwhelming. Oh, huh, that's not so great. If one more person says "it's just hair" I'm going to throat punch them. It's MY hair. If my hair is tragic I'll be obsessed with it's ugliness for the next 2 years while I grow it back out. Maybe this isn't what I really want. Maybe I'm giving into some compulsion and it's not really what I want. I'll sit on it and not make a hair appointment because I'm now paralyzed with doubt and conflicting feelings. Oh my god, I've dreamt about cutting my hair for the last three days in a row. I have been obsessed with cutting my hair for the past month. The past decade actually, but really I've spent hours each days thinking about my hair. This is ridiculous. No one obsesses about their hair this much. You're bonkers. Fuck it. I'm making a hair appointment.

And until my stylist turned me around in the chair and I caught a glimpse of how I now looked I still wasn't sure. Actually, I'm still not sure what my motivation was for cutting my hair. But now that I don't look like an ugly troll I'm at least happy I did it. Whew. Good choice. Nothing bad happened. Now I can move on to a new obsession.


1 comment:

Michelle said...

This is me. I told you what like 3 days ago I want to do a blog? I have obsessed about it for about a week. What name should I call it so it doesn't sound dumb? Should I actually do one because what if no one reads it? I can't have a stupid name. Person, person, person what should I name it. No those aren't good names at all. Yep, we think a lot a like with our OCD.