No Wonder...

You can always tell how my week is going by the amount of curse words I say in my post. I apologize now, it has been a potty mouth kind of week......

I am trying really hard not to obsess.
I am trying my best and not succeeding.
I wish this was easier.

I often wonder how people go through life and receive worrying news, or news of any kind, and just put it out of their minds. I mean, how on earth does that work? How nice would it be to have such a magnificent ability? To just not think, and worry, and over analyze every damn thing would be mind boggling. These people have no idea how lucky they are to have such a gift.

As I write this, I am forcing myself to redo my living room to make it the way that I want it. Not because I have nothing better to do, but because two of my beloved family members are going through something stressful, hopefully it is nothing big. This in turn is freaking me out which then kicks in my OCD medical fears. Because my OCD works by taking my stress about other things and other people and then turns it into medical fears about myself, I am trying to shut it down before things get out of hand. I really don't fancy spending another night crying myself to sleep over some imagined ailment my mind makes up for me. My OCD tries to save me from my worry of my loved ones by giving me more unneeded worry about myself. It distracts me but with a negative distraction. It thinks it is helping....when it is, in fact, making things worse.

Example: If someone I love gets pneumonia, I get worried about them. My OCD brain shuts off that worry about them because I can not deal with the stress of it or the fear of losing them.  In turn, it turns my thoughts into an obsession that I may have a blood clot in my leg.

 Because I can not deal with stress well, my OCD seeks to distract me with some ridiculous bullshit obsession that I know is completely false but yet am still unable to completely ignore. Then all of that bad, negative, terrifying worry that I have for my loved one  just becomes a bad, negative, terrifying worry about myself. It sounds selfish but really my mind can not process the stress in a helpful way nor can it simply turn it off. It is simply distracting itself to save me from the anxiety of what my loved one is going through. It is just doing so in a way that creates an equal or larger amount of stress about something completely unrelated. Which I really don't need on top of every fucking thing else. Because I am still worried about that person just not to the point of breaking down because I am already breaking down by the worries my OCD mind has conveniently created for me about myself. Like an extremely fucked up self preservation tactic that is broken. If this was my only defense while traipsing through the wild, I would be eaten.


 It is a no wonder why I have an ulcer.


The only way for me to deal with this is to distract myself from such bullshit by forcing myself into obsessing about things I either want to do or like to think about. Like redoing my living room, or planting a new garden, or  planning a family trip. Something positive to fill the negative void of terror my OCD is creating. It is exhausting to constantly try and stuff this black hole of worry and doubt with happy or less scary thoughts but this is how I cope with my amazingly screwed up coping mechanism. Thanks OCD, you are such a little gem. (sarcasm)

I am  really trying not to obsess. I know that it doesn't help to worry about stuff. I know that distraction is something I need to do right now to keep myself healthy and above the fray of the OCD nonsense. I know what works best for me when things get like this. I know....but it is still hard.

So, I think tonight I am just going to go wash my face, put on my face moisturizer that I secretly think makes my face even more dry and has the wrinkle reducing properties of rubbing dry paper on my face (despite it's lofty claims) , and look at my laptop until my eyelids get heavy and I fall asleep....

I realize that at thirty six years old my life is about as exciting as a bottle of ketchup to some people, but when you have a mind that makes up shit to worry about over top of actual shit that needs to be worried about.....I don't really need any extra excitement. I got that part covered already. What I really need is an hour or two of Pintrest and a good night's sleep....and maybe some new face cream.

But hey, tomorrow has got to better than today and depending on how stressful my week is going to be, my living room is going to look fantastic....

Neurotic Nelly

Today...

I hate myself today....

I hate this guilt.... This shame that pounds the bones beneath my chest where my heart should be. My cheeks blush crimson with humiliation. I can feel it rush up from my toes like poison.....I despise the way my palms get sweaty and my mouth becomes dry and parched when confronted with things I didn't expect. Like rubbing cracked crystal  with broken fingers, my voice comes out in choking squeaks instead of imposing confidence. My thoughts are jagged and disjointed. I retreat back into myself to prevent further rejection. I feel ignored....It makes me feel weak and small and I hate to feel weak and small. I hate feeling like it is all my fault even though I know the truth is it has nothing to do with me. I am angry with myself for crying. I am mad at myself for letting other people's attitudes affect my own. I loath myself for not standing up for myself like I should because I am afraid, or I am too kind to others, or because I am so afraid of being seen as less than a considerate young woman. I hate that I am not a stronger person.

I hate myself when I am like this.

And then as I sit in my darkened living room, going over why I lost my footing and fell to my knees today, I remember that I have gotten through worse. People have treated me horridly and I made it through. I have had more horrible days. I have climbed larger mountains and slayed bigger dragons than this. This is just a blip on my radar. This is simply a bump in the road. I have been wounded but I am not cut off at the knees. This is nary a scratch for which to cover with one of those cheap drug store band-aids I bought a few weeks ago. It will heal in time. Probably won't even leave a scar. Besides everyone cries at some point. I am not special in that regard.


I love myself today....

Because if I don't how do I expect others too? Because I am worthy of love and affection. Because I am strong even when I think I am not. Because I can stand up, no I will myself to stand up. Because no one is perfect but that doesn't mean that they aren't special and magnificent and beautiful in their differences not in spite of them. Because no matter what anyone else says, I am a good person. I am a nice person. Because being a nice person doesn't mean that I have to allow people to dictate to me who or what I am and believe it. I am me. And that is enough....It has to be because that is all I've got. It is all any of us has got....being ourselves. Because it is okay to cry, and fail, and lose, and stumble. Because it is going to happen at some point. Because it doesn't matter how many times you have fallen. What really matters, is how many times you get back up.

 I love myself enough to keep trying.....

I love myself today

Because only love defeats hate and I am worth more than feeling sorry for myself, or being mad at myself, or feeling like I am lost. I am not lost. I am not broken. I am exactly who I need to be.

Neurotic Nelly

To See or Not To See...That is Not the Question...

I can not wait until bedtime tonight. I usually struggle with insomnia but I have only had three hours of sleep in the last twenty four hours so, I highly doubt this is going to be an issue for me. I am not tired...I am beyond exhausted. I needed a pillow and a blanket and a flat surface about three hours ago but I have responsibilities. Now that I did not have time to receive and utilize a pillow, blanket, and a chance for flat surface laying.... I am cranky.

             Let's talk about Punxsutawney Phil for a second. I don't know if the U.S. has anymore of a more bizarre tradition than bringing out a terrified ground hog and holding him high in the air for people to cheer at him and then quietly watch, what I consider to be nothing more than a rather large ground squirrel, to see if he looks at his own shadow. Shadows depend on light source, not ground rodents. I may not of graduated high school but I did pay attention in Science class.

For those of you not familiar, a ground hog in a small town in Pennsylvania (Punxsutawney Phil or Phil for short) is supposed to predict our length of winter weather by whether or not he sees his own shadow. Yes, I am being serious. Yes his "predictions" are then broadcast on the news. If he sees his shadow and returns to his hole, it means six more weeks of winter and if he does not then it means an "early spring". It is called Ground Hog Day. This has been a thing since 1887. There is a rather funny Bill Murray movie about it, for further reference.

Now, not to be a negative Nelly but I am highly suspicious of any rodent claiming to predict the weather. First off, good ol' Phil was wrong last year. He predicted an early spring and we instead ended up with one of the worst winters I have ever experienced. We are talking negative 29 degrees Fahrenheit at some points. Um, Phil your predictions suck.

Secondly, I realize that even our own weather people are not accurate. We have all been repeatedly let down by them. In fact, a few weeks ago we were supposed to get a huge winter storm that was going to put us under several inches of snow. Most of us got a dusting. For some of us, not a single flurry was seen.

And it begs to question if a human person with state of the art radar equipment and a weather balloon can not accurately predict winter weather, how the hell can an overweight rodent that lives in the dirt do any better?

And how, pray tell, do we really know what Phil sees anyway? It is not as if he wears top hat and monocle and strokes his handlebar mustache while speaking with a faint French accent, "I have seen my shadow, Monsieur. You shall have much winter this year". He doesn't speak....He is a groundhog. He eats, sleeps, rummages, and poops. He does not hold titillating conversations with humans. Although, he does occasionally bite them.

Believing a rat makes weather predictions makes as much sense as me holding my twenty two pound cat out of the first story window and claiming that if he meows at me, I will win the powerball lottery. It is absolutely ludicrous.

Who the hell knows what he sees. Maybe he sees psychedelic monkeys form the Wizard of Oz swooping down to grab Dorothy and her little dog too. Maybe he sees Julie Andrews dancing on the grassy mountainside singing "The Hills Are Alive With Music". Maybe he sees a giant delicious chocolate cake floating in the sky. I don't know if he sees his own shadow but I do know that what he does see every year on February 2nd is a bunch overly excited people acting oddly and praising an overgrown prairie dog hoping in vain that the dredge we all call Winter will soon cease it's icy precipitation. What Phil sees once a year is whackos. Crazy, nutty, whackos desperate for a little bit of sunlight and a smidge of warmth in the desolace we call February. He sees people that are clinging to a slim thread of the possibility that we may soon walk on the grass without getting snow in our shoes.  That's what he sees.... Desperation. It must be terrifying for him. Poor little guy.

That is a lot of pressure to put on a unsuspecting groundhog that has no idea why he is being carted around and cheered at once a year when all he wanted to do was eat some nuts and sleep in like all the other regular groundhogs get to do on this day.

So, in short Groundhog day is a tradition, albeit a weird and totally inaccurate tradition but a tradition none the less. However, that does not mean that I have to believe that my weather has anything to do with a hairy rodent seeing or not seeing something or rather what we imagine him to have seen out of our own desperation. Because it is silly and frankly, I am too tired to be silly right now.

If a college educated weather man can't accurately predict the weather with all of the gadgets at his disposal, I highly doubt an earth dwelling ground squirrel is going to do much better.....but stranger things have happened. So, we will see.

Neurotic Nelly