The Facebook Test....

Sorry for the absence last week. I have been recovering from being under the weather. I am recovering, albeit slowly and with great determination.

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The Facebook Test...


I was minding my own business on Facebook and came across a "how OCD are you" test. I clicked it to see just what ignorant things are supposed to bother me to make me "so OCD". Ya know, because I don't already know what my OCD triggers are. And it was just as I expected. A bunch of things out of order and color coded incorrectly and dirty dishes. Because to people this is all OCD is and it is infuriating.

I took the quiz and because most of things were just asinine and about cleanliness and organization of other people's things, they don't really bother me. Apparently according to the test, I am not so OCD.  Phew, what a relief! I guess I can stop blogging now and stop getting therapy because Facebook thinks I am not a severe OCD sufferer.

And  friend had shared it and I don't want to be as ass but this stuff really pisses me off and it is so inaccurate. Ugh!

And then when I made a comment about how angry these things make me and how they are extremely insulting, I am told by the person that posted, that she too has OCD. And I am so "what the fuck" right now. I mean if you actually had it then why would this be acceptable in any way? How does this not piss you off because it pisses me off to no end. I was asked if I couldn't have been nicer about it, and I guess I could have been but then again sometimes I am fucking sick and tired of being nice about something that I fight to live with everyday. Sometimes I am just tired, and frustrated, and down right pissed. Yes, it is a free country and yes it is Facebook, and yes people are allowed to post whatever the hell they want. But if you are going to post such stupidity then expect for someone to call you on it. Expect someone to get pissed. Expect someone to stand up and call you on your shit because there is nothing funny or amusing about mental illness. Nothing. And my friend said something that really touched me. She said she just has learned to smile through it. And I had nothing to say about that because how many times have I plastered a fake smile over my face and just smiled through it like it wasn't bothering me? How many times have I left things go because I didn't want to upset anyone even though they were really upsetting me? How many times did I let things like these stupid and stigma producing tests go by and acted like they weren't affecting my mental illness in a negative light to others, and I was perfectly okay with it. Or even worse, maybe found it amusing? How many times have I helped to spread the stigma and bias that surrounds all mental illness because it was the easier thing to do? To not stand up. To not rock the boat. To not speak out. How many times have I done that? Too many times to count.

And I have been wrestling with being totally honest lately. I mean, I am honest to a fault but with OCD I tend to not be honest on things like Facebook when I see these tests. I let them go and say nothing. I do things like not explain my mental illness when people find out. I sometimes just go along and pretend that they know how it works and I just let it go. And that is a problem for me because I preach honesty in my blog. I say that silence is condoning the ignorance and yet here I am willingly allowing ignorance to pass before me and I am allowing myself to be afraid of other people's condemnation. Because I am a people pleaser. Because I don't want people to think badly of me or differently about me.  And it has to stop.

I have to stop these tests and explain why they are bad or ignorant or both, every time I see them because it hurts us as sufferers and it promotes stigma. I have to stop being afraid of what my neighbors think, or what the people I went to school with think, or what strangers think about me simply because I take not only a stand but a passionate stand and refuse to be silent. I have to because it is not about me. Not really. It is about all of us. All of us that have this shit handed down to them everyday under the guise that OCD is amusing or fodder for jokes. I have to stand up every time because just as it is about me and you it is also about my youngest son who also has OCD and HE DESERVES BETTER. We all do and the first step is to stop condoning by being silent when we run across things making sport or are spewing ignorance about our disorder. I have to stop wrestling with how much I should say on Facebook and just take the plunge. Let the chips fall where they may and if someone doesn't like it or can't handle the truth then they can just unfriend me because if they can't handle the real me then they don't really deserve to be my "friend" anyway.

Because life is not a Facebook test. This is life and I want my life to stand for something. I want my life to help others and to maybe make life just a tad bit easier for other OCD sufferers. I want my life to help, in some small way, pave the road to a future where we are taken seriously and treated equally. Because all I have is my life and I refuse to allow fear to overcome my truth of what OCD is and is not. No matter how unpopular or uncomfortable that makes other people. Because we are all uncomfortable everyday and maybe it is time for everyone else to suck it up. Maybe it is time for the people that promote this garbage to put on their big boy pants and cowboy up like we do everyday. Because I depend on truth, we depend on truth, my son depends on truth to get better. And that means way more to me then a few people getting upset at me for being honest.

Neurotic Nelly

Just Stop It Already....RANT......RANT......

Thanksgiving was interesting. My Grandma was sick and had to go to the hospital the day before Thanksgiving. She was in the hospital up until today. She is now going to a rehabilitation to help her regain her strength.  God only knows how long it will be until she gets to go home. I am worried about her which triggers my OCD medical fears about myself. We spent three days at my mom's and I helped clean my grandma's apartment after which I took a shower and then spent twenty minutes trying to remove a comb I was attempting to brush my unruly mane with, from said unruly mane. It was firmly implanted in my hair like I was born with it there. (This is why I carry my own hair comb but I forgot it this time.) Then after we returned home I started to decorate out new Christmas tree we picked up Saturday, only to somehow manage to get the string of Christmas lights entangled in my hair as well. I guess I am just having a bad hair week. Or maybe my hair has Pica or was super hungry...who knows.

The tree is decorated "Old World" style. I used to read Christmas books as a child and I always loved the illustrations with the Christmas trees that had garland and red and gold ornaments. My tree looks good but I need to get those little white candles to put on the tree. Fakes ones of course, because real ones are a fire hazard and I am extremely clumsy. I mean, I got the lights tangled in my hair, just imagine what I would be like around lit candles..

Am I happy with the tree? No because it is never perfect enough. And that is how OCD works my friends. It has to be perfect but it never quiet reaches the mark. It is something all OCD sufferers learn to live with.

Then I got on the internet to search OCD news and I ended up reading this article with the title "Khloe: I'm an OCD Freak."

It's about Klohe Kardashian ( I have no idea why I bothered to read such drivel) and her Thanksgiving table and plans. There were these pictures of a grand and intricately decorated table and here is what she says.


“A sneak peak of my craziness today. I know you see my OCD in high gear when you look at my cookie jars,”

“I have a problem... I know... but I like everything neat and in its place. This kind of stuff makes me SO happy!! #HappyThanksgiving”


Yea, because nothing says happiness like OCD. Hell, I know that my life with OCD is all shits and giggles. I couldn't be happier that I spent six hours today trying not to obsess over whether or not I have thyroid cancer because I am being triggered by holiday stress. I am so glad that Khloe Kardashian knows my pain..... I now feel complete.....*snicker*

I am so sick of hearing how liking things orderly is OCD. Sick to death of it, seriously. Stop it already! You don't have OCD because you like to line up your cookie jars a certain way. What you might have is a plethora of self importance, narcissism, delusions of grandeur, and possibly some serious self esteem issues but the one thing you do not have is OCD. You do not say that OCD makes you so happy, if you actually have it. Because if you actually had it you would understand what a fucking horrible burden having OCD is. Here's a tip, there are actual words used to describe OCD. I won't burden you with the long list of what they are but I will tell you what they aren't. They aren't words like happy, or cool, or fashionable, or fun. It's mental illness and it blows. Okay? Is that so hard for people to understand?

And further more, I really don't want my mental illness to be sullied or trivialized by some small minded idiot who only got famous because her sister is famous for a sex tape and or possibly being peed on. I am so tired of seeing everything these ridiculous self absorbed people say plastered all over the news as if they have a fucking clue what they are talking about. They don't. So please for the love of all things holy, stop it already.

I think what bothers me the most is that this year has been the hardest for me OCD wise. I have been battling OCD for as almost as long as I can remember and I have been unmedicated for over three years now, but there have been a ton of stressers this year. Deaths in my family, diagnoses of medical issues, relearning how to function on somewhat of a schedule which truth be told, has never been my strong suit. And to have to read something so asinine as my mental illness/mental hell being reduced to something as paltry as lined up cookie jars just really pisses me off. As if it would make sense out of all of this pain and frustration if I would only be famous, ridiculously rich and stupid, and just line my crockery in eye pleasing patterns. Then and only then I could be "so happy". So no, I am not really happy right now. Especially, after reading an article that calls OCD sufferers "freaks"....(Gee thanks. That really bolsters my self esteem.) Or having to read ridiculous claims made by morally inept morons as to why their Thanksgiving preparations in any way compare to the absolute hell I have been living with the last thirty one years.

I mean, I think we as sufferers of all mental illnesses deserve more respect than that. We deserve to be treated like what we have is an actual illness and isn't something to be used as a general term for something odd or quirky. Just because you are having a bad day doesn't make you " Bipolar". Feeling paranoid does not make you "Schizo". And lining your cookie jars up in a row clearly does not make you "OCD". So stop it. Just stop.

And just so you know, poorly written news article author: We are magnificent, brave, courageous, intelligent, and strong individuals. We are many things to the many people in our lives. We are important and we matter. We are not "freaks". We are human beings. So, educate yourself because smearing us with words like "freak" shows your ignorance and bias. And I don't think anyone who suffers form mental illness finds your title amusing or cute.


Neurotic Nelly

Try, Try, Try Again....

Today while talking to husband, I told him a story about my issues with school and anxiety. At some point I had developed devastating panic attacks. There were a great many stressful things going on, and I was fundamentally unable to cope with them. And it inevitably created anxiety every time I walked into my high school.

My mother was sick with Lupus and was having a hard time catching illness after illness as her immune system was compromised. I was taking care of her around the clock as we two struggled to make it on our own. I had been sexually assaulted at a party a few months before and dealing with the God awful flashbacks of it. My dyslexia was making the math harder and harder for me to understand and it made me feel completely stupid. We were on welfare and many times had little to eat.  Things were hard.

My OCD did more than just flare up, it inflamed my whole existence and for some reason it started to arise panic around anything involving school. The very thought of school made my stomach turn. Panic attacks would creep into my personal space. The world would turn upside down and my breathing would become labored. My pulse would raise to the point of me feeling like I was going to pass out.

When I stopped being able to make it to the bus stop, my mother would drive me to school. Only to have me open the car door, take a few steps towards the front steps and have to turn around crying and gasping for breath. It felt like an overwhelming sense of dread and despair was creeping up my spine and crushing my rib cage, effectively suffocating me. Some times I didn't even make it out of the car.

Sometimes, winning the battle would be if I could simply make it to the car in the first place. Good days were the ones the panic attacks would happen later on in the day, like after lunch, in front of everyone and their brothers. It was hell.

Everyday I knew that it was going to be rough. I was going to shake in public. I was going to cry. Sometimes the anxiety was so strong I would literally end up bolting out of my class and running down the hallway to the bathroom. Where I would hide until it ebbed back away to a more functional level.

I was looked at as odd. Told by other kids to just go home already. Snickered at. Judged. Sometimes I was pitied. Mostly, I was ignored or looked at as a freak and it hurt my self esteem greatly. I began to not see myself as a strong person or a worthy person and started to think of myself as broken. I looked broken, I acted broken, and I felt broken.

It was frustrating, trying, annoying, and exhausting. It was painful and isolating. I hated it. I hated feeling weak and at the mercy of my panic.

And yet even though I knew I would suffer and be embarrassed, I still got up every morning and prepared to go to school. Even though I knew the chances were slim that I would even make it through the school doors, I still tried. Day after day. Week after week.  Not trying was never an option.

I don't think it was because I was brave or glutton for punishment as much as it was I never wanted to let the panic attacks win without a fight. And so I fought the only way I knew how, by never giving up.

Eventually, the school was able to work with me and the teachers came to my house to teach me. I was bummed that I had lost a great deal of the social connections I was privy to in school but extremely relieved that I would no longer have to deal with the debilitating panic attacks and finally get my studies finished.

It never occurred to me not to fight back against my mental illness. It always seemed if I gave it an inch, it would take a mile. I always strived no matter what, to try, try, and try again. To take any progress as a win. To not be angry or sad at what I couldn't do but to be proud of the things I was able to accomplish. Even if it may have seemed trivial to others. And I think it helped me in a great deal.

The panic attacks finally ceased after I left school and now are extremely rare. But still even if they came back tomorrow, I would still keep getting up and getting ready to do whatever they don't want me to. After all, it's my life and I will be damned if panic gets to tell me what I can and can't do.

I learned a great deal from all of this crappy anxiety stuff. I learned that I can do more than I ever thought I could. That sometimes just having the will to fight is a win in itself. To never give up. To never blame myself and to always believe in myself.  I am many things but broken isn't one of them.


Neurotic Nelly

Lurking...

It's there. Beneath the skin. Pulsing and pounding. Stretching and vying for a better hold. The anxiety. This damned feeling of ever present dread. And I don't know why. It hovers in the background like that forgotten something that I just can't quite put my finger on. OCD is like that sometimes. Not a conscious feeling but more of a subconscious guilt. A haunting of my soul. A mist of my mind. A deep fog that settles over everything I touch and see, making it impossible to breathe. I can't see it or smell it. I can't taste it or touch it with my hands but make no mistake, it is there. Lurking. Waiting. Stalking me.

It bothers me. The repetitive thoughts and notions. The overwhelming guilt associated with it. The unwanted images. The disturbing thoughts. The loudness in my head. The coppery taste of fear. The rapid heart beat. The sinking feeling of guilt that churns in the pit of my stomach. Always the feeling that somehow I have done something wrong........or worse, that somehow I am responsible for something bad happening.

If I had a quarter for every time someone has told me I am repeating myself, I would give Bill Gates a run for his money. I hate that. The notion that the fact that I can not simply just let things go, annoys people. I am not trying to annoy. I just can't help it. I can't let the subject go until I feel that I have been heard. Sometimes, not even then. I feel like the OCD feelings have filled me up to the point of spilling over and so I end up purging. I end up talking about the same things over and over again. Each time hoping that this time, finally, the bad feelings will ebb away. That I have released the OCD demon and can breathe again.

I wonder if other people understand me. I wonder if they understand the need to talk about the same things are a way to get them out. Set the creatures loose. That those conversations are the verbal equivalent of sticking my fingers down my throat to expel the guilt, shame, frustration, and pain. that they are me purging. I don't repeat myself because I forgot the things I said. I do it to be able to forget and move on to something else.

It is frustrating to talk and talk and talk and feel like I am being tuned out. I know that I have said these things a million times but until I feel the relief then I have to say them again. I need to feel like what I say has been heard. I know that's hard to do. To listen to someone go on and on and on about the same crap. I have OCD, I am not delusional. I know that I repeat myself. Sometimes, it is because I feel I wasn't really listened to. Sometimes, it is because the person I am talking to is bobbing there head up and down like they are paying attention but their eyes hold the thousand yard stare. Sometimes, it is simply because the feeling of the purge hasn't happened yet. I still feel too full of the negative, debilitating, taint and can't shake loose of the feeling of anxiety.

Only then can I enjoy a few moments of relief. Until something else pops up. Then I am sure I will have to talk about that as well...repeatedly.

Being repetitive is a part of having OCD. It is it's calling card, if you will. If we do something, you can bet we are going to do it again....and again...and again. It's all part of the illness and as frustrating as it is for you to have to hear it, it is even more frustrating for us to have to do it. Frustrating and painful. Devastating and often times lonely. Like ripping the scabs off of old wounds only to re bandage them again. So if someone with OCD wants or needs to readdress a subject you have already discussed, please take a moment and think about how hard it is for them to have to go over it again for the sixteenth time with the anxiety building each time. We don't enjoy it. We don't want to do it. We just want relief and if at all possible, a tad bit of understanding.

Until next time,
Neurotic Nelly

Deepen the Pull.......

I wear my heart like a wet, red stain on the breast of a velvet gown..........

this describes me completely. It is a quote from my favorite poem A Well Worn Story by Dorothy Parker. It might as well be my mantra, my call sign, my epitaph.

I bruise too easily. I am too sensitive, too open, too accepting, too forgiving, too kind. I give and give and give till I have nothing left but the air in my mouth and lint in my pockets. I bruise. I break. I falter. I fall down.

I end up with nothing left. Nothing left of my strength. Nothing left of my will power. Nothing left of my soul except the gaping whole were it should be. I have allowed myself to be hurt again.

I accept people too freely. I always jump head first into friendships. I go with the emotions I feel. If they say this is your friend then I do not question. I always try to see things from their point of view. I always try to be conscious of their feelings and wants. I try to a be supportive of their needs. I may not always totally understand them but I spend almost every breath trying. Because I feel that is what friends do. Maybe I am wrong. I am no longer sure.

Sometimes I wish I were a self obsessed jerk. A narcissistic tool that cared nothing about other's feelings. How nice would it be to not worry about if what I have done hurts others? How nice would it be to finally not feel so deeply for those that don't give two turtle turds what I am going through? How nice would it be to so wrapped up in myself to not drop everything for someone who would not, could not, or chooses not to do the same for me? How nice would it be not to be the puppet whose strings are being pulled every which way just to see if I can dance? How nice would it be to not feel the disappointment and sting of being manipulated, lied to, and used yet again?

What has it gotten me? To be nice, sweet, and open? What the hell good is it? Really, I would like to know. What is the point of it all when it only gets me pain and despair? When time and time again my blind trust is burned to the ground like some kind of  sacrificial viking ship. Set it out to sea and set it a lite. What do I achieve by being this way except to become a beacon that draws the users and manipulators like some deranged bug zapper. "Please be my friend just make sure that you stab me directly in the heart when you get a chance. The heart or the back, either or, just make sure the knife is sharp and you smile while you do it."
What fresh hell is this? What is the point? My urge to help others, to love others, to accept others is more of a noose rather than something to admire. It slowly closes in threatening to cut off my airway and yet that deepens the pull.  All that has to be said is that I hurt someone and the guilt washes over me like salt water stinging and burning the cracks in my skin. Pointing out battle scars I didn't even realize I had. I am so exhausted of it all.

The worst part is I can not change this about myself. I have tried. It's my personality. A personality that is more flawed than good. My heart has been shattered like glass so often I am afraid I might run out of glue. My self esteem has abandoned me. My nerves are left feeling raw and my tongue is scorched. I feel tethered to the ground unable to shed this sadistic cycle of guilt and agony. It is like a disease if you will. An incurable disease to care for others too much and I so wish there was some magic potion to make it all go away. I don't want to care anymore.

To have to read or listen to where I went wrong or what I have done that wasn't good enough is tiring. I can not be everyone's everything. I can't even be myself half of the time. I can recite my flaws. I guess I couldn't give enough. I couldn't continue to be emotionally torn. I guess I am quitter. A bad soul. Not Christian enough. Because I turned away I suppose putting myself first finally has made me a horrid excuse of a person. I guess that is what I have become.

My biggest problem is I allow others to hurt me. I wear my heart like a wet red stain on the breast of a velvet gown instead of locking it up in a titanium safe, under the subway transit, buried beneath large boulders, and encased in cement. I seriously wish I could. Then maybe I could not have to hurt so very much. I would no longer have to be vulnerable. Vulnerable sucks.

Here's your sharpened blade back....I don't need it anymore....I have enough knife wholes in my back already.