YOU DON'T KNOW!

"YOU DON'T KNOW!"

That's one of my favorite phrases. It's also sort of my Hail Mary desperation statement. When all my logical (or illogical) reasons for why I'm scared, anxious, worried, what-have-you have run out, I usually end with "BUT YOU DON'T KNOW!!!"

Andrea has created the perfect retort: "No I don't know, but neither do you." Boom. She always roasts me with that one. 

Anyone with anxiety will tell you that most of the anxiety comes from what we don't know. What could happen. What if. And that's hard. But it's even harder if you have OCD. Because not only do not know what could happen within the reasonable, rational world, but you can also dream up eleventy million implausible, maybe impossible, totally ridiculous things to also worry about.

I think it's important to note that we/I do not sit around thinking of ridiculous scenarios that COULD happen just to annoy people around us. Those things just pop into our heads that seem just as likely as any of the "real" sort of things you could/should worry about. Is it likely that the stranger walking behind me at a restaurant will all of a sudden grab my head and snap my neck and kill me? Highly unlikely...but you never know! And the more I worry about it the more likely it seems that it could happen. That's the main difference between people with OCD and everyone else. Other people might have that thought but then say "Oh, that's silly" and laugh it off and continue with their day. People with OCD might know that it's silly, but it's no laughing matter. And the more we try to NOT think about it, the more we think about it, and then the more it becomes real life. Believe me, if I could stop these ridiculous thoughts from a) entering my head and b) leaving quickly if they do come in, I would be a much happier person! But the problem with having OCD is that your brain conveniently disposes of logic and reason for you. Even if you can say "I know this is silly and unlikely to happen" the small part of your brain where OCD lives whispers "But what if it does?" and then you spend time quieting the OCD and in the process obsessing over why it might be right. It's exhausting.

The best thing about having a completely non-anxious, calm, steady partner is that she can act as a nice port in the harbor of crazy town that is my brain. When I come up with a particularly ridiculous "what if" she can respond that it would have never occurred to her that that could happen, but yes, maybe it could but it's super unlikely. There's something immensely calming about her responses. She doesn't act like I'm ridiculous, so then I don't feel shame and embarrassment -- which often heighten worries for me -- but she considers it like it's a serious potential and then says it's unlikely to happen. And I'm much more likely to believe her because I know her brain is more rational than mine. And the fact that it has or never would occur to her often makes me think "Hmm, that probably means it's really unlikely to happen or she would have thought about it." Not always...sometimes I say "WELL IT'S A GOOD THING I WORRY ABOUT EVERYTHING OR WE MIGHT DIE 12 TIMES TODAY!" And in her steady, reassuring way she says "You're right. It's a good thing we have you to keep us safe. And a good thing we have me to make sure we don't become agoraphobics and keep us moving forward." Ah, yin and yang.

Brain Aneurysms

When I was in junior high a family friend died suddenly of a brain aneurysm. She was in her mid-30's. She had just given birth to her 3rd child in the past year. I babysat for their family sometimes. I remember my dad told me after softball practice. And I was like "what the heck is an aneurysm?" And then my life was never the same.

Every time I have an intense headache...which lets face it, is often since headaches are triggered by stress and hello? My life is stress. But luckily, as I've gotten older, understood my OCD, my anxiety and started taking meds my stress has gone down and so has my frequency of headaches. Thankfully. But every time I have an intense headache I am sure I'm having an aneurysm.

Welp here it is. My fatal brain aneurysm. I'm ready to drop dead at any moment.

Every.

Single.

Time.

And every time I don't die? I think whew. Just a regular headache this time.

But it's probably a headache because there is a clot forming in my blood vessels. So next time I'll die.

And then I massage my head vigorously because I reason that massaging my blood vessels externally will break up any of the clots that are starting to form. Because obviously I have magical de-clotting fingers and if everyone would just massage their brain blood vessels more often we could stop dying of brain aneurysms.

See how OCD works? Obsess, obsess, obsess...oooh. Some sort of compulsive, repetitive solution to soothe the obsession. Brain aneurysm -> magical de-clotting massage -> reduction in anxiety...and then the cycle starts all over again. 

You'll Poke Your Eye Out!

Continuing with the theme of ridiculous fears this week, today I'll share my fear of 4 way clothing racks. Yes, 4 way clothing racks. Like these:

Gah. Just looking at them makes me all blinky. This obsession didn't start until I worked in retail at the age of 16. I worked at Fashion Bug for years. At some point I started worrying that I would turn around too fast and gouge my eye out with the end of one of the racks and lose my eye. This made it unbearable to go to work. I wanted to wear safety goggles to work, but I knew that was weird so I just made sure I walked slowly around the store when putting things away and tried to work the cash register as much as possible.

Even today I'm scared of them. When I go shopping I'm always on high alert for eye stabbage. I'm always afraid I'll be unaware of my distance from a rack and smash my face into one. Which is ridiculous since I'm hyper aware of the racks and my distance to them. But I'm also clumsy. So what if I trip on the carpet, my own feet, the air and land eye first onto a rack arm? So risky. I just try to stay away from those kinds of racks in general. And mostly online shop. Eeek.

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.

365: Obsessed

Confession: I am obsessed with Deadliest Catch.

I have NO idea why.

The show and I have exactly nothing in common. I'm a vegetarian and I abhor the continued pillaging of our seas. They're crab fisherman. They're all blue collar roughneck dudes. And clearly that is about as far from my life as you can get. The show reinforces a ton of gender stereotypes that I generally (fiercely) resist. I can't even fathom worse working conditions. All of the guys on the show are hardcore thrill seekers/risk takers. I've been terrified of a dead bat for two days. I really have no idea what the hook is for me. But the heart wants what the heart wants.

365: Obsessed

Lately I have been obsessed with popcorn like WHOA. I am possibly even more obsessed with the popcorn button on our microwave. I've had microwaves with them before but they never worked worth a damn. I'm not a very good popcorn maker on my own--and by my own I mean listening to the pops and stopping the microwave when more than 3 seconds pass between pops or whatever the weird measure is suppose to be. Too much anxiety...now? Or wait! Now? Was that 3 mississippis? Arghhh! I always burn it or have about a billion unpopped kernels. But no more! This button works to perfection!!! It gets it right every single time and I don't have to have a 4 minute long anxiety attack while it's cooking. I can just walk away and violá! Perfect popcorn. Love.