Update and Rant......

So, I am on the medication. The diabetes can not be controlled by diet alone at this point. I am a little upset but I am working through it. It's been kinda rough. On top of all that I am now obsessing over what I eat, carb intake...blah blah blah. I actually went to the bread isle in the store today and smelled the bread. Not  the actual loaves, although I was severely tempted, but they were baking at the bakery department and the heavenly scent permeated the air. OMG! It smelled liked toasted glorious carbiness that I am no longer "allowed" to partake in anymore. You know how many carbs are in a freaking dinner roll? Too many for my blood sugar that's how many.... Sigh.....and I love dinner rolls, and croissants, and well anything that has flour in it.

So my OCD is definitely still around acting up and being a general pain lately.  Can't say I am surprised. Nor am I thrilled to be dealing with it but what else can I do? I am afraid. I am terrified that his medicine is killing me but I am dealing with it as best as I can. I am trying to anyway, and this is why I get angry when people joke about OCD like it is funny or amusing. Does it seem like what I am going through is amusing to you?


Some people just don't get why we get so angry when others make fun of OCD or say they are so OCD because they have small quirks or like things orderly. So let me spell it out for you so there is no confusion as to why we react the way we do when confronted with people using our illness as a joke or as a excuse to be orderly.

I have a wonderful support group from my family and my friends but I know that they sometimes get tired of hearing my obsessions. Hell, I get tired of hearing my obsessions so I know how they must feel. Usually, when they are really bad I just become really quite. I look off into space and try to shut it out. I wish I could explain what is like to have constant chatter in your mind and not be able to ignore it. Like there are too many people talking at once in a tiny room  but it is ,in fact, only one really loud person that is boisterous, obnoxious, and possibly drunk. I mean how else does what it tell me to do make any sense? Surely, I am possessed by a drunk angry leprechaun with severe abandonment issues that lives solely in my brain. Only then would the crap that goes through my head make any semblance of sense.

And it is hard. Hard to live with, hard to explain, hard to quiet, hard in general just to get out of bed sometimes in the morning. Not only  is it just hard. It is also exhausting, complicated, overbearing, all encompassing, and breath takingly painful. That is why it is called a mental illness and not something comforting and cute like Organization disease. It is not about organizing or cleaning or ,God forbid, color coding your neck ties. It's not about stepping on cracks or if you dog ear pages in a book. OCD does NOT stand for ORGANIZING COMPUTER DESKS!  It stands for OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER! You obsess and compulse and it is a disorder!

It's about worrying until you cry yourself to sleep. It's about running your hand over a surface until it "feels" right to the point of your skin becoming raw. I't is about being afraid to eat or drink because you may have somehow accidentally poisoned it by not washing your hands long enough. It's about pulling out your hair because it "feels" different. It is about starving yourself because you are terrified to become what your mind deems as fat. It is about intrusive, horrid, unwanted sexual/violent/blasphemous images and thoughts that would bring the strongest of people to their knees begging for mercy. It is about obsessing over if you said or did something you know you did not and yet the repetitiveness of this thought has made you lose the ability to remember exactly what happened in the first place and so you doubt. You doubt that you are a good person. You doubt that you meant well. You doubt that life is happy. You doubt that the medicine is safe, or water is safe, or that anything is safe ever again. You doubt that you can live and be free and that people will accept you. You doubt that the soap is strong enough. That the counter is clean enough.That medicines are safe enough. That anyone can actually love you enough to put up with you. You doubt that you are smart. That  you are worthy. That you are magnificent. You doubt that you have anything important to say, because you doubt your sanity now as well. You doubt that diseases aren't actually out to get you. That you are ever safe and secure no matter where you are. You doubt if anyone cares about what you think or that you care what anyone else thinks. You doubt what you know to be true and what you know to be false. You doubt and doubt and doubt.  Because your mind tells you to. Because life is supposed to be rational and your mind has stopped making sense. Because you feel dirt that isn't there, see fat that isn't there, see proportions that are aren't there. You feel things and see things that no one else does and unlike other mental illnesses you are aware that it makes no sense! You are completely aware that your mind has "gone fishing" in the rational department and you have no idea why. You are perfectly in tune with the fact that washing your hands til they bleed, or touching the doorknob for the seven hundred and fifty second time, or begging God to just let you eat this one tiny bite of banana without it resulting in you catching Ebola is completely ridiculous and yet....you are unable to relieve this overwhelming feeling of dread. The shame and disgust because you swore thirty minutes ago was the last damn time you were going to wash your hands in scalding hot water, or touch that door knob more than once, or pull that last strand of hair because it calms you down. You are aware that something is wrong. You know that your brain is misfiring and you certainly don't need one more person to point it out to you. You know and the one thing you don't doubt with OCD and it's complimentary bag of crappily made party gifts is that you have OCD.....and it sucks.

So this is why we get insulted when someone nonchalantly claims to have OCD because they like to keep their pens on the left side of their desk or don't like to shake hands with strangers. It's not the same thing. It's not remotely in any way the same pain we go through. Stop saying it is. Stop acting like OCD is some exclusive club that only the "cool kids" get into. No one wants to be in this club, trust me. We would all gladly give up one night of our pain and frustration just to simply be slightly annoyed about where our pens go.

This is not a joke. It isn't funny. It isn't something we want to be a part of or do. It isn't a brownie badge we get in grade school for selling enough Girl Scout cookies. It is a devastating debilitating illness! So forgive us if we get a little ticked off when you talk about how many times you wash your hair and how OCD you must be.


Neurotic Nelly