thoughtfulI had a phone interview the other day in which I was asked about my writing process. I explained it—the checklists, the word counts, the editorial process—and the interviewer laughed and said, "So it's almost like an OCD thing, right?"
"Not almost," I said. "I have OCD."
He stopped laughing.
On most weekday mornings, I get out of bed at 5:13 AM. I write this in my planner. On Wednesdays, I get out of bed at 5:30 AM. I write this in my planner, too. On the weekends, I sleep later; last Sunday, I slept until 8:23 AM. I know this, because I wrote it in my planner.
After I get up, I dress, ablute, and check in online. This is done by visiting Gmail, personal mail, Twitter, LiveJournal, and FaceBook, in that order. Always in that order. I pack my lunch. On weekdays (except for Wednesdays) I leave the house at 5:34 AM, to catch the first bus. I know this, because all these things, too, are written in my planner. So is everything else. What exercises I will do, what my assigned word counts will be, what to remember to say to my roommates, whether it's time to brush the cat...everything.
I have been a member of Weight Watchers since late 2004. I like Weight Watchers. It gives me an excuse to write down everything I eat, and turn every activity into a number to be added to a little column. In the times where I can't attend meetings and get new "official" trackers, those same counts wind up going into my planner, along with a record of what time I took my multivitamin and how much water I've had to drink. What shows I watched that day. What books I read.
Tiny columns of numbers march along the sides of the calendar—how many days to book release, how many days since book release, how many days since I did something that I'm waiting to hear more information on. I record the return dates of shows that I watch, the release dates of movies, the official dates of conventions. Birthdays and ages. I celebrate friendship anniversaries and remember strange holidays that, having made it into my calendar once, are now a permanent part of my personal year.
When I see street numbers or phone numbers or the like, I will automatically start picking them apart to determine whether they are either a multiple of nine or a prime number. Either of these is deeply comforting to me. Numbers that are one digit off in either direction can be distracting, if I've been having a bad enough day. I would be perfectly happy eating the same things for every meal, every day, for the rest of my life.
People sometimes ask me how I can bear it; how I can break my life down into schedules and checklists and tasks without going crazy. But the thing is, that's how my brain works. I look at other people's lives and wonder how they can bear it—having to agonize over menus, not knowing where to sit, not remembering the order of the primes, not knowing when all their favorite TV shows come back on the air. I find the framework of my life to be freeing, not confining, and I don't really comprehend living any other way.
And yes, sometimes I have to make concessions in order to remain stable. I arrive at the airport two hours before my flights, period. I don't care if I have to miss things to do it; the rules say "two hours before," and I arrive two hours before. I become uncomfortable and have difficulty focusing if someone takes my chair in a setting where I have defined patterns. Some things have to be done in a certain order, and if I try to do them in a different order, I am likely to become very difficult to deal with. Failure to complete a to-do list is upsetting to me on a deep, profound level that I have difficulty explaining in verbal terms; it's just wrong. My friends learn that if you're going on a social outing with me, you need to arrive on time or deal with me having a meltdown, that I do not want to have adventurous food, and that I will throw you out of the house if your arrival interferes with standing scheduled events. And the beat goes on.
Because I am very functional, and because the standard image of "someone with OCD" is Adrian Monk or Hannelore, I do occasionally have to deal with people assuming I'm exaggerating. I don't compulsively wash my hands or clean my kitchen, I'm definitely not a germaphore, and if I re-type books completely between drafts, well, that's just a quirk. But obsession and compulsion both take many forms, and while I have found peace with mine, and consider them a vital part of who I am, that doesn't mean they don't exist. (Why I would joke about having something that is considered a mental illness, I don't know.)
Remember that just because someone is a functional, relatively normal-seeming human being, that doesn't mean they're wired the way that you are. I have to remind myself that not everybody wants their day broken down into fifteen-minute increments, because for me, that is the norm. The human mind is an amazing thing, full of possibilities, and each of us expresses them differently. I am a cybernetic space princess from Mars, and that's not a choice I made; that's the way I was made. I can get an address on Earth, but Mars will always be my home.
Whatever planet you're from, that's okay. Just try not to assume that everyone you know is from the same place. I'd be willing to bet you that they're not.
I hope this isn't a double post
April 5 2010, 01:42:38 UTC 7 years ago
I'm so glad this post AND this thread exist. Non-Monkish portrayals of OCD are rare. I think dtigma prevents OCDers from speaking about it. I said to my SO, who has OCD, as she walked by, "I'm reading a blog by someone who has OCD."
She said, "Does she say that she wants to shoot herself in the head?"
I said, "Um, no, she is not talking so much about the anxiety part" (because I hadn't gotten to that yet).
I think your description of your OCD is terrific, and the way you talk about it definitely made me think of people on the autism spectrum who are perfectly happy not being neurotypical. I like that you get across that it's not all about germs for everyone with OCD. Personally, I get sick of people making OCD jokes because they've done some cleaning, because "getting all OCD" seems to be slang for "a cleaning binge," which trivializes and misleads. For one thing, my partner's OCD seriously gets in the way of her cleaning, and people don't get that. It also makes it hard for her to arrive on time for anything, which is another thing people misconstrue. The OCD stereotype IS a stereotype.
However, the part that bothers me most about the general public's obliviousness about OCD (even though two percent of the population has it!) is the focus on the obsessions and compulsions without an understanding of the anxiety that drives them. It seems like you don't experience much anxiety, which is terrific. (You talk about "discomfort" and you mention "meltdowns," but overall, you seem not to experience the level of terror most OCDers I know experience.) Rather, you do an excellent job of showing how your life is structured so that you can (generally) control the things that would otherwise cause anxiety.
For the people with OCD I know -- whose OCD is severe and can be disabling in many ways -- while there are some aspects of it that are the "quirky" things (e.g., we MUST plant the exact same number of bulbs in each plot and they MUST be the same distance apart, just that it feels "correct" that way) that we can laugh about together, there are other parts that are just excruciating.
I think a lot of it might have to do with what your triggers are (whether they are things you can control) and where the OCD originates, as well as the form and severity. For example, for some it is triggered by major trauma, and that seems to go along with the OCD, itself, feeling very traumatizing on an on-going basis. Other people just seem to grow up with it and not think it out-of-the-ordinary.
The way my partner explained it to me is that when there is a trigger (such as a contamination, which is not germs in her case but frequently specific words, which feels like a contamination/attack on her mind), she has to do just the right compulsion in just the right way, all the while with the level of anxiety as if someone was holding a gun to the head of everyone she loves, and if she doesn't get it exactly right, the gun will go off. And of course, when you're doing something that has to be perfect under that kind of pressure and anxiety, it is very hard to get it right the first time, so when you are stuck doing them over and over, it is really torture.
I'm heartily glad for someone with OCD to speak publicly about their experience. I'm extremely glad for you that you suffer so little distress and feel it's basically others' problem, not yours -- pretty much the social versus medical model of disability. I have multiple disabilities; one of them is MCS, and -- like many other MCSers -- I feel, to a certain extent, that it is not my sensitivities that are the problem, it is everyone else's toxic crap polluting the world. But I also wanted to say something for the side that I see very little about, which is the "non-funny" side of OCD that seems so hidden (probably in part because for many with OCD, *talking about the OCD is, itself, an OCD*!). There is so much misunderstanding, shame, and stigma that she would not have been comfortable with me posting about it a few years ago.
Re: I hope this isn't a double post
April 5 2010, 02:59:22 UTC 7 years ago
OCD is big and scary, and people need to be willing to admit it, without making it into a joke. Thank you so much for joining in and sharing.