Normalcy Interrupted

Sometimes things are going so well, I forget that I have OCD and panic disorder. I mean, sure I try not to define myself by it, although I do "warn" people... you know, so they won't fuck with my post-it notes at work or tease me when I'm being irrationally obsessed with something somebody said... But those things happen so rarely now, after years of living with this "disease". I go weeks (or even months) with normalcy--getting up, going to work, going to the grocery store without fear or panic or severe obsessive/compulsive behaviours--I begin to get out of the habits that help keep me healthy... and then BAM!

Nope, kid, sorry. The world doesn't work that way for you. Messy ethernet cords immobilize you... You're obsessed with how the scatters of magazines lay just right in your magazine holder (you spend at least an hour arranging and rearranging and arranging and rearranging)... You're positive that your friends were giggling about you during the movie Saturday--you dream about it and can't move because of it. I know it totally seems like melodramatic silly stuff, and it is. That's what sucks about it. It is stupid stuff, like if my pages are paginated or I have too much hair on my arms or my sweater has lint. Or if random stranger on the Metro has too much hair on their arms or too much lint or x or y or z ... Stupid-inane-everyday-nothing worth worrying about-stuff consumes me and takes over my brain and I can't feel or think about anything else.

I don't know, it's not like I think I'm special for this (oh, overly-educated middle class white girl has such a hard time a la Prozac Nation)... Bleck. And I sorta didn't want to write about it--I mean it's so incongruous to the post I wrote yesterday it seems like I'm making too big a deal, you know? Of course, that's the thing: I can control what goes on my blog... I also fear that putting it out there is like I'm defining myself by it... but I guess it's ultimately cathartic for me to analyze it instead of just writing obsessive thoughts in my Moleskin journal like I normally do, forever captured on paper. Maybe talking about it publicly helps ease my secret shame? I don't know... I do know I'll probably obsess over this post for at least the next two days and maybe even delete it... Sigh.

In the end, the one thing days like this will always remind me is that this is normal for me and probably always will be. And that's okay. It has to be.