Imagining OCD, Serial 004

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This is part four of a series of things I have noticed about the way I carry on normal life that can be tracked back to OCD—but in a much less serious sense as other situations written about on this site. “Don’t forget to have fun!”

• Imagine an obsession with one’s weight. It is not uncommon at all, especially once you reach a certain age. But even before that—young people go through issues with weight quite a bit. We live in a society populated more by vapid people than not, and we all—no matter how hard we try not to care—want to look good relative to how our culture defines “good.” None of this is healthy, it is in fact quite cruel. I go through this as well, I’ve been skinny my whole life1
until reaching about the age of forty. Then I began gaining weight. My biggest anxiety, one that haunted me every day? The fact that I might disrupt my shorts rotation compulsion with needing to introduce a new pair of shorts. Yeah, OCD.

• This website, now that it’s getting some good traffic, makes me happy in general. It means people want to hear what I have to say. But what makes me even more happy is, while growing, the traffic to the site follows a nice wave from Saturday’s and Sunday’s being even with highest traffic to Tuesdays being the lowest in terms of traffic. I almost enjoy looking at that wave more so than thinking about growing traffic. Visit often! But try to keep it to a minimum on Tuesdays, ok? Yeah, OCD.

• Zip-top bags2 are an invention of pure beauty to one obsessed with organizing. There are times when putting sets of zip-top bags in larger zip-top bags is necessary. They can organize any oddly-shaped stuff into true sets. Wonderful! And it alleviates one of my biggest obsessions—food going bad. Of course it’s gross when it is clearly bad and stinks, what I am talking about is the obsession that leftovers are bad when they don’t look or smell so. If I am not one-hundred percent sure, I throw it away. As well, if there is any hint that the zip-top bag became open and exposed anything to air after being put in the fridge, I do not trust it. This is a lot of talk to get to a simple quirk (?) I have. Lately zip-top bags have evolved to have an actual plastic zipper on them. I now put all of my faith in them. And after decades of having perfect trust in the old method zip-top bags used, I no longer trust them at all. Yeah, OCD.

• Coming back to talk of this site, I never quite intended it, but I find I can write a worthwhile article every other day. I sometimes go in quicker spurts3 and queue them up, and I post an article every other day. You’d think this may bother me, as the week has an odd number of days. But it is peculiarly comforting that articles get posted on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday one week; and Monday, Wednesday, and Friday the next week. It’s a nice puzzle that gets put together over two weeks. And repeats. Repetition is soothing. Yeah, OCD.

• And we move to somewhat more serious one. I have mentioned before I have something in the area of Pure Obsessional OCD (Pure O). Yes, I am also bothered by a sentence that states “something in the area” of something defined as “pure.” What it means is the obsessive end of OCD is much more prominent than the compulsive end. I obsess practically for a living, but I do not have as many ticks and repetitious compulsions found in others with OCD. However, I think them. I think through compulsions with every obsession I have, I just hold it in. And it is friggin’ hard. It weighs on me, I know I want to act on a compulsion, I know it is an irrational compulsion, I force myself not to act thusly. And an ironic circle this becomes: I am obsessed with the compulsions my own obsessions create. This repetition is not soothing. Yeah, my OCD.

 

1 Even being skinny that becomes fodder… but that is for another discussion  [BACK]

2 Yeah, I’m one of those who won’t mention a brand name without being paid for it. Eh, I need money.  [BACK]

3 I happen to be doing that now, already wrote an article today, but you wouldn’t know that.  [BACK]