So, a nice addition to my personal brand of crazy is OCD. That would be Obfreakingsessive Compulsive Disorder.
Yah, I know, everyone’s made some joke at some point, “Ha, I put away all of my laundry within seconds of ironing, I’m so OCD,” or the even more fun, “I cannot step on cracks in the sidewalk. I won’t. I think I’ve got OCD.” Dudes, you’re cool.
True OCD is a little more severe and it’s unwavering, for the most part.
I cannot have a cupboard door open. Not because I might bump into it, or it looks wrong. Because if a door is open, then something bad is going to happen. It’s an omen. And making sure all doors are shut is a proactive approach at defeating apocalypse.
My clothes have to be organized by type, then chromatically. Not cuz it looks nice, or makes it quicker to put together l’ensemble du jour. Because if it’s not, I cannot see individual pieces (okay, that’s the ADD, mostly) and subsequently cannot dress myself. More so, having an unorganized closet means that first moths will congregate, then large bugs to eat the moths, then rodents, to eat the larger bugs, then (I don’t know. I’ve never gotten further than that without cleaning up the damn closet) maybe dinosaurs?
Stairs must be counted. But only going down. If not, I could trip and then Isobel would trip and then she could die. If I count them going up, then I am basically guaranteeing that the next time we descend, she will trip and fall and die.
Dishes must be washed in a certain order, lest be not clean enough, leading to botulism and ecoli and our subsequent deaths.
Bathing can only be accomplished in a completely clean tub – if it’s not clean, we can’t bathe. If I don’t have time to adequately scrub the tub with Mr. Clean, an SOS pad and then Method tub and tile spray for an entire week, we’re not bathing for an entire week. I’m not sure exactly what it could lead to other than germs being all over us and eventually, some form of death, probably by flesh eating bacteria. The point is, it’s wrong.
Money cannot lie around. It must be counted and put away if it’s in my vision. I used to not be able to have conversations with people because there’d be a change jar – some old, clear jam jar in it’s past life – and I could see the money and need to pour it out. But it would be rude to pour out someone else’s change, so I’d just fixate on counting what I could see, then figuring out what percentage of actual change in the jar it was, and so arrive at a general idea – the whole time ignoring them talking to me. Then, that wouldn’t be good enough, so I’d ask if I could count it – offer to roll it all up for them, and even adding in my own change so that the remainder of unrolled coin was an even total. Not Odd and definitely Not a prime number.
There’s more. There’s so much more. More like how groceries must be ordered on the conveyor belt at the store (the person behind me might be a robber, and they might have a gun, and if my groceries are not closely clumped together and even, frick, symmetrical, I will be the first hostage) and then put into bags (I won’t understand what I’ve bought, if it’s not. And I will have a really hard time putting it away when I get home – wanting to throw it all out, instead), and how about that I cannot wash off makeup in the same day that I’ve applied it (my skin might fall off), and that I’ve had panic attacks in the store because I couldn’t choose a kind of soup because the flavours were not turned towards me (which meant they were facing away from me and that is just a whole different kind of crazy making.)?
But I think maybe it’s enough, for now, to give you an idea of the certain sort of desperation there is that goes into my form of mild OCD.
This was my view this afternoon during Isobel’s quiet/nap time:
I needed to tweeze my eyebrows. Every single damn blonde hair that was not meant to be part of them? They all had to come out. Every. Single. One. Normally, I wax for this very reason – it’s so time intensive to tweeze the extra blonde hairs you’ll find on a red head – but couldn’t afford it this time. So, two hours and 34 minutes later, I was done, and got off of the floor, officially. The result? I have fabulous eyebrows, now. And I’ve staved off being blinded, yet again. And now, I have to remove that cupboard door because it won’t just stay shut.
Tell me, what does your particular brand of OCD include?
