But are you sure?

Author of Obsessed: a memoir of my life with OCD - out now!

[obsessedandthecity]

Wheres the line?

Here's the situation. It's very difficult for me to keep track of things. What kind of things? All. I have no idea where my credit card is but no one's charged anything on it so its clearly in my house abyss. I have 2.5 pairs of airpods (because I lose a pair, buy new ones, lose them again) but at the moment can only find solo left airpod. I have a doctors appt some time this week, either Wednesday or Thursday. It's on them to send me a text reminder or five if I'm actually expected to show up.

It's annoying for me and everyone who must witness me scramble around looking for all of my life possessions multiple times a day. Im really, really aware of this so, after thirty years of drowning in my own happy tornado, and accepting that I have ADHD, I am going to fix it. Fix what? All. It started with the basics. Get a wallet. Put the credit card and license in the wallet and never ever take them out. I know I want to run in to CVS and only bring my card because a wallet is sooo cumbersome (and what if I lose it?) but we cannot separate cards from wallet. It's the buddy system. THEN, we have big brother: the purse. Purse drives me insane. It's small, cross body, but it's always swinging everywhere and whacking into racks of baked goods at Wegmans (Wegmans <3). But purse is the enforcer. Cards go in wallet. Wallet goes in purse. Purse stays clasped and, like wallet, we never take anything out of purse. .... and it's SO HARD. Continuous, genuine effort put into these three tasks that are ingrained/innate in others.

SO ANYWAY, example aside, here's another example. I have bought an agenda. A place where I can write everything down and therefore be able to take over the world. A paper personal assistant (PPA). Great idea! Life problem solved! Except how I came about said agenda.

It had been on my mind for a while that I needed a PPA but it's such a pressure filled ask and I'd been avoiding it. Selecting a PPA is an OCD decathlon. Are the colors right? How do the pages feel? This one with the flowers is - GOING TO GIVE ME CANCER. Dangit, ok, Not the flowers. How about this one with stripes? Nice blue tones. But blue represents sadness so if I buy this one I'll be sad all of next year. So we converse and argue and ruminate and while I love paper products and Im excited about the potential of PPA to tame all the "dont forget you have an appt somewhere at sometime soonish" flying around my head, the entire process sounds exhausting. A few weeks ago I'm standing in the Barnes and Noble line (shop local! Do as I say not as I do) and there, perfectly placed by their marketing peeps, is a stand of planners. Colors, shapes, bindings. It's already March. I need an agenda for this year. Pick one. We can do it. In the middle there's an 8x12 ish, spiral bound. It's covered in a repeating pattern of blue terries, except one, who is orange. And theyre so happy and cute. My brain is like BLAH DEATH BLAH but like, shut up? Real me wants this agenda. The secret messages are OCD. We know this. So I bought it. Way to go self!

Then I got it home. And I kind of open it a few times, pretend to be happy - show it to everyone who reaffirms to me it's quite lovely. And then I sat it in my office, and never touched it again. Because death. And bad. I bought the planner I wanted and while I know OCD thoughts arent real and neither a specific agenda nor my choices about it control the future, it makes me uncomfortable. What will happen to the stuff I write in it? Will the phone call go badly? What if I write down something for my son? Will the curse spread to him? Or if I scribble notes about a project I'm working on it, does that lead to doom? I just dont want to deal with it. Why invite all that into my head and then allow it to spread onto the event itself. So its mid March and I dont have an agenda. Perhaps not a surprise for anyone but guys I'm trying. Last week, at Target, I saw a smaller, simpler planner. It's floral but feels safe, standard. I bought it, it's in my bedroom (so as not to be contaminated by other PPA in the office).

But, is that allowed? Where's the line in the fight against OCD? I've told myself I need to go against every thought. I should use the scary PPA and deal with the anxiety (that I will carry over in to said phone calls and appointments) because that's how we stop OCD monster from growing. But sometimes, I want to take the easy route. The safe agenda. Is that a failure? Can there be a grey area where we compromise? The jury is out.

And this, folks, is why I might miss my doctors appointment on Wednesday or Thursday.

[obsessedandthecity]

[obsessedandthecity]

[obsessedandthecity]

If you read about anxiety or mental health, you’ll sometimes see the sentence “you are not your thoughts.” I find it so so helpful. I am me, and my thoughts are output from my brain. Additionally, just because Ive “produced them” doesn’t mean they are true. The gruesome mental image I had of my car smashed into the guard rail? Brain output. A persistent gut feeling that my husband is currently dying of an undetected disease? Brain output.

So if you think of yourself as a house, brain output is all the stuff going on in the front yard. Squirrels in the trees, some guy with his dog, the weather, a grocery bag in the gutter. It’s on your property but its separate. You choose what you let into your house.

[obsessedandthecity]

OCD cheat code

Ive discovered the world’s best OCD hack. It starts with creating a new OCD rule: As long as I go against ALL of obsessions today, then NONE of the terrible consequences are true. Yes I ate potato chips even though they cause cancer and yes I watched an episode of This Is Us even though it would kill my son and yup I even wore the purple socks even though (surprise!) more cancer. But it’s because I didn’t give in to any of them that I’m safe and all of the scary stuff is negated. 

But, say that when I heard my brain tell me the “truth” about purple socks I had then, out of fear, worn different socks...well, then, GOOD JOB, I’ve just unleashed the wrath of the potato chips and This Is Us. It’s an all or nothing situation and a good motivator to keep turning my cheek to OCD, to keep pushing through the discomfort and anxiety. 

Totally aware the entire crux of this is irrational and based in flawed OCD tinged thinking but I’ve never had issue with that before, why start now :) 

[obsessedandthecity]

There is a reason I live on Reddit

[obsessedandthecity]

[obsessedandthecity]

I’m eating a bag of Haribo sour gummies and the last 7 gummies I’ve gotten have been yellow. I’m not sure what this omen means but it can’t be good because we all know yellow is the most dangerous color

[obsessedandthecity]

“Having anxiety feels like I’m riding a bull. A bull is my nervous system. And I just have to hold on to it. And then being in the world feels like everyone is an equestrian. Just like perfectly in sync with their own nervous system. And it just isn’t true.”

[metal-stina]

[obsessedandthecity]

[wellwatered-deactivated20200419]

friend: why are your hands all messed up?

me: oh i pick at my skin when i’m anxious

friend: well stop

me:

Wow, I’ve Never Thought of That Before

[obsessedandthecity]

I believe you are the author of the book Obsessed. I would like to thank you so very much for the gift of your words describing your experience. Your memoir has allowed me to better understand my son’s struggles. Additionally, your courage and vulnerability in writing this book is to be rewarded as mental health is in dire need of being placed in the light rather than hidden in a dark corner. Many, many thanks!!

Thank you so much for your kind note! I’m glad this helped you to understand your son more. It’s hard to verbalize what’s going on in your head to your parents - it’s scary and confusing and embarrassing. My own parents said they didnt fully understand my OCD until they read Obsessed. But your interest in the topic, seeking out more information, shows that your son is very lucky. He values you more than you know! 

[obsessedandthecity]

Hi Allison, my name is Aliceson. I also have OCD that focuses around my actions harming my loved one. I just finished reading your memoir and it was so relatable, thank you. I was really left wondering though if you and Jenny remained friends through the rest of high school/ maybe even later. I have one friend, Sam, who was similar to Jenny but we are not as close as we were before this all happened to me so I was just very curious about you and Jenny

Hi Aliceson! Thank you so much for reading Obsessed! Jenny and I stayed close friends throughout the rest of high school. I’m not sure if she ever fully realized how much she meant to me and how much I valued her loyalty. We didnt talk about my OCD too often after my initial diagnosis but she was an important source of silent support. Unfortunately, we didnt stay in touch when we both went off to college but I keep track of her on social media. She seems really happy, just as she deserves! I’d encourage you to reach out to Sam. You dont have to tell him/her everything but I think you’ll be surprised how they react. Most people, when youre honest and open about your struggles, will do their best to help or at very least be respectful. And if they arent, then you dont want them in your life anyway, and you will eventually find people who appreciate you exactly the way you are. Dont settle for less! 

[obsessedandthecity]

Long Lost Consequences

Approximately forever ago, I had a passing obsession with the podcast Serial. And not obsession like I was obsessed with it, but obsession like OCD obsession. Serial was super popular and everyone was talking about it and I was really excited to listen to it and hop on the bandwagon so of course my brain was like- but wait!!! Listening to Serial will cause (something too terrible to even think about). And me, being an obedient, cowardly OCD-er, nodded fervently. And I never listened to Serial. 

Just recently I’ve gotten back in the swing of podcasts and Serial is now on its third season. I love love love This American Life which is made by the same people so I was like oh fun! and started Serial all the way from the beginning- episode one, season one. About five minutes in, I got this feeling. THE feeling. Your neck tightens and your stomach gets all churny and your head hurts in a way that probably, definitely, indicates you just sprouted some sort of tumor. And I remembered the obsession from approximately forever ago. The one that said listening to Serial would cause (something too terrible to think about). It’s been years and years since I had this thought, since I obeyed my mind and didn’t listen to the podcast that all my friends and all of the world was talking about. But the thing is, I can’t remember the consequence I assigned to it. My brain usually chooses from a pretty predictable list: you’ll get cancer, you’ll die in a terrible way, your husband will die in a terrible way. So, I’m relatively sure I would have picked one of those as the outcome of me indulging in the podcast. 

But does that consequence still apply this many years later? If I can’t even remember what bad thing my brain said would happen is it still true? (of course it wasn’t true in the first place but YOU NEVER KNOW). 

Mostly because I really really wanted to listen to it, I decided that there’s some sort of statute of limitations. I can’t remember when I made the rule about Serial, I can’t remember what it was. So, water under the bridge, right? When I’m listening to an episode, I’m very on edge, very prone to listing out rules and consequences and restricting myself. Dont sit there, dont eat that. It’s like my brain’s in overdrive. It knows there’s something fishy going on and is trying to protect me but it cant get its compass to work so it’s just spinning around, making up things on the fly. But I can deal with it. And I highly recommend Serial. #Adnanisinnocent

[obsessedandthecity]

[obsessedandthecity]