OCD Behaviors

  Yay for bloggies!
I have a few things to write about tonight.  First off, in about 55 minutes, it’ll officially be my 23^rd b-day.  Wooo!  Tomorrow is also the last day I have to drive up to school for the rest of the month since it’s the end of our fall semester.  I’m getting a final critique in my Painting class and then hitting the pizza joint afterwards.  It’s going to be a lot of fun.  This semester was incredible in comparison to my previous semesters.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I get really really good grades, too.

  I have had a never ending supply of hangnails this winter too.  The corners surrounding the cuticle on my right thumb are covered in wounds from me constantly pulling off loose pieces of skin.  I’ve tried lotion and what-not, but to no avail.  There’s not much I can do but destroy the little cuticle monsters.  There isn’t much snow right now either.  I managed to get some good sledding in around Thanksgiving before most of it melted away though!  Hopefully it snows again soon.

  The main thing I wanted to write about was my frequently occurring issues with OCD.  OCD is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and is defined by Wikipedia as: an anxiety disorder characterized by intrusive thoughts that produce uneasiness, apprehension, fear, or worry, by repetitive behaviors aimed at reducing anxiety, or by a combination of such thoughts (obsessions) and behaviors (compulsions).  My behaviors vary.  Since Jr. High, I’ve had the behavior of needing to arrange things in color order.  For example:  If I had a pack of crayons, I would need to arrange them in the order of the colors of the rainbow.  Imagine my frustration when I came to browns… I stuck them at the end because they didn’t belong with the main colors.  When it came to coins, it was frustrating because I wanted to arrange them in order of what they’re worth, but their sizes wouldn’t allow me to because I like arranging them from smallest to biggest as well.  I gave up with this and just made separate stacks of each coin with the head side of the coins facing up.  Those are the main behaviors that I’ve developed that are more defined and ritualistic.  Well, I guess cleaning is a big one too.  If I clean something, then everything else HAS to be cleaned.  I guess that’s not a big one…  Anyway, there’s a bunch of other little ones that I won’t go into.  The main ones right now that are interrupting my normal day are:  when I eat food, and right before I go to bed.

  When I eat food by myself, I can eat normally without any anxiety.  When I eat food around other people, I get completely obsessive.  I try to avoid eating food around people.  Not because of the OCD, but because I have low self-esteem and hate being judged by what I’m eating or how much of it I’m shoveling down.  Sometimes I like eating around people, but it’s only if they’re going to eat too.  So sometimes if I have to eat around someone, I’ll try and find an excuse to not eat at all by saying, “oh I already ate” or “oh I’m not feeling good right now.”  I feel terrible for lying because sometimes I have already eaten or I really don’t feel good.  Ugh.  But sometimes of course I’m hungry and will end up eating.  This is when the anxiety and OCD behaviors kick in.  If I have a plate full of different things, whatever pile I’m eating from has to be right in front of me.  If I want a bit of something that’s on the other edge of the plate, I’ll turn my plate so it’s in front of me.  I also do two different things at random times when I’m eating around others.  The first thing is that I make myself eat every single last piece of food on my plate, whether or not I’m full or still hungry.  I get extremely anxious if I see any extra food on my plate.  I wonder if I’m worrying about wasting food but that isn’t what fuels the anxiety.  I just HAVE to finish EVERYTHING.  The other thing I do is eat half of each portion and then try to hide the remainder of those portions.  I can feel the anxiety of worrying that who I’m eating with will see that I didn’t finish my food and will get angry at me or something.  So I either wrap up the food in a napkin or just put the napkin over the food.  If I can’t hide the food, then I’ll usually get up as quick as I can to throw it away before anyone sees it.  I’ve noticed that at restaurants, my anxiety around eating is a little better than eating at someone’s house or at home.  Although I get nervous if I don’t finish everything on my plate and I have to organize whatever is left a certain way so they don’t ask if I want to take it home.  Whew.

  My other OCD behavior involves what I do before I go to bed.  No matter what—even if I peed not even 20 minutes before—I HAVE to visit the bathroom before I go to bed.  I get this huge unbearable anxiety that I have to make sure I’ve peed before going to sleep.  The thought of waking up in the middle of the night to pee doesn’t scare me or anything… I don’t understand it.  So I’ll be in bed already and realize that I haven’t peed in a few minutes prior to falling asleep and I start to panic and obsess.  I’ll sit there and yell at my brain that I peed not even 20 minutes prior and I don’t even need to pee right then.  And then I think ok, maybe I should pee.  Just really quick.  So after I do that and get back in bed, everything is absolutely fine and I can go to sleep.  It has gotten so annoying to me because I’ll be completely relaxed in my bed and I don’t want to get up, but my anxiety explodes inside my brain and I have to do this behavior or something bad will happen. 

  I know that a good way to deal with fears or my behaviors with OCD is to just face that fear.  I’ve thought about just going to bed without peeing RIGHT before, but my anxiety gets so bad that I can’t.  And I’ve tried to eat food normally around people without worrying about what is on my plate, but I can’t do that either.  It’s a strange system of behaviors that I’m locked in for now.

  Well I’m going to stop typing now.  It is bed time for me.  Goodnight and good luck out there.

Picture:

I do not understand this picture.  It is hilarious to me without explanation.