I have a series on this site about OCD episodes. This here is in that realm, but really far more global (involving more than OCD.) I will thus not categorize it as such—a mere episode. It’s deeper than that.
I’m very proud of this site and what I’ve spelled out—though when I look at it as a whole (as of now), I think I’ve explained things in my life with a bit too positive of a spin. That is not to say I have been dishonest, everything I write here comes from deeply thinking about my conditions—which are centered around OCD (obviously) and anxiety.
By positivity I am not exactly speaking of the content. Somewhat, but more the output. I am able to write—a lot—and that alone seems like I have a level of energy to be productive. I have to say—I am not quite sure how I do this. I have very little energy for much else.
I am not ok. I am overwhelmed by things people—at worst—muscle through to do life, so to speak. I don’t do much life. Pretty much everything around me is bad in my eyes, and that is something I do just carry on through. I can’t change much, if I were to try to change a lot around me, it would get quite messy. I would insist upon things, and thus affect others. I fear I would be nothing but selfish, because I am completely blind to most social structures—and thus I do not know where the lines are. I know it is fair for me to ask to get some of what I want. I know it is unfair and wrong to insist I get everything I want. But my brain cannot see the line and how to stay on the good side of that line.
That’s everyday like living in society for me. It is something I do very little of. For the sake of my sanity and to be careful with my emotions, I stay away from most of what people consider “life.”
I have people I am responsible to. That creates such massive anxiety, I often cannot get out of bed to face that reality. They don’t know that, but it is true. This anxiety is often there even knowing I should be able to handle it just fine. I’m actually partially a very strong person. And partially an extremely weak person. This makes no sense to me either. It just is one of many contradictions either I’ve set up, or something out there has set up as “my life.”
I can write, you see, because I am observant and the words flow. I don’t quite know if they are even any good. These words. I know I am generally happy when I finish an article that it sums up the small part of my condition that I wish to explain.
But I rarely speak globally about myself like I am now.
Not counting my staying in bed as an escape, not facing the world, I sleep around six hours a night. That leaves eighteen to exist. I would say, on average, very honestly, no hyperbole, seventeen of those are not good. Give or take one. Maybe some days three hours are good, that’s rare. It’s usually around one.
When not filled with anxiety, the best I become, the best I seem to be able to do is be disappointed at the world. Not angry. Certainly not what you’d call “depressed” in any clinical sense. I don’t have depression. I know of it, I have felt it, I do not have it. But disappointment, yeah—I have that.
What am I disappointed at? I don’t want to get into manifesto territory here. “Manifesto territory” is actually somewhere I was this weekend1.
This world is not a really good place. Let’s face it. Or let’s not—it is not for me. I can only speak for me, so using the word “let’s” really isn’t my place. If it’s working out well enough for you, I think that is great. I do not have a look, which extends from a negative emotion, I give to happy people. Or content people. Or whatever everyone seems to be.
No matter how much love I have around me—and I feel I have love around me—my condition is one that is suffered alone. It has to be, it is so deeply internal. I am a walking existential crisis—for lack of a better term—pretty much all the time. Such a thing requires a lot of thought, and I cannot turn off the thinking. I can’t turn off thinking about all of existence. No, I don’t have crazy theories on existence that you would file under [insert your favorite synonym for a crazy person here].
This is not a succinct article, I do know that. It is probably not going to get any closer to succinct. That is ok with me for this time around.
I have a diagram for how life should be. It is simple, as simplicity—while not my forte—does have strong merits in understanding. Though it does not solve. Action solves. My actions are almost always compulsive (hence the “C” in “OCD.”) They often do… something. The problem that something doesn’t turn into anything that lasts.
This is the root of my problem with the world: nothing good lasts2. And I want everything good to continually last and build on top of itself into something really good.
Part of OCD is wanting things to stay as-is if they are working. That is the root of obsession. Or, if they potentially can work for good—existing as a possibility in the future—for them to happen and then stay.
I’m in a strange place where my medication is working very well. The difference is absolutely noticeable. Heck, without it, this blog would not exist. I would be focused on such tiny details in life exploding in my head. Stains on shirts, the truly worst case scenarios of every action I could take (and thus not taking any because of that.) So… I have that going for me. It doesn’t tackle the global whole of existence though. Thus I am not ok, even though some things are going exceedingly well relative to, say, a year ago.
I see the world as a spinning dial—a game where it passes through good and bad eventualities—and I just want it to stop. On something good. And stay there. For some time. But I have no control over this, and quite frankly the spinning dial does not stop. On good or bad. It just keeps going. Good, bad, good, bad… seemingly infinitely.
That is not good for someone obsessed with things being “right.” A loaded word—”right,” but one I think can be grasped without much explanation. Because what I specifically think is “right”— the details—are not relevant.
I’m not ok? My world is not ok!
The question at hand then becomes—where does my world end and the rest of the world begin. Where is that line? I cannot sense it with any part of my brain—and I have a hypersensitive brain.
This question is, to me, of supreme importance. Why? Because I often—if not always—cannot grasp that which exists only in my head, and that which exists outside of it. And there is a problem with it all—The World. It is not good for me.
OCD is a rather multi-faceted disorder. The above is just one way in which, for me, it overtakes me. I fully see other disorders and diagnoses playing into what I’m describing here. But the root is my obsessions primarily, and compulsions—often hidden behind inaction—secondarily.
All of the above can describe the life of people with disorders other than OCD, possibly. But I can only speak for myself.
Having a mental disorder places you in a world of extreme discomfort. “discomfort” in the most intense manner—I hope—you can imagine. Unfortunately, there is not another world. It is this one. This is the one. That’s it. There is no other option.
Coming down from this torrent of bad that this article has laid forth, in an honesty that even scares me, I leave with this: whatever anyone’s mental state is, whoever you are at your mental core—understand that there are people who are in a bad place at a percentage of the time that is close to breaking the needle of the proverbial meter measuring such.
That is to say—bad, almost all the time.
They—like me—at any point in time, are most likely not ok.