You Say Potato...

I say, did I really log off my computer? If I've learned one thing from reading about anxiety, it's perspective. So I've got a new positive perspective, I might not be as screwed up as I thought. According to this article, either compulsions control anxiety, or the compulsions control you. I'm going with door number one!

People with OCD have persistent, upsetting thoughts (obsessions) and use rituals (compulsions) to control the anxiety these thoughts produce. Some of the time, the rituals end up controlling them…

Is it obsessive to make sure I take the same amount of steps in sidewalk squares, or check to make sure I’m logged of my computer thirteen times before I leave the office? Perhaps. Whatever it is, I would not say it’s controlling. It’s much more comforting to perform some token rituals, than it is to obsess on a brain tumor. However, in the interest of keeping an open mind, the article also states:

Performing such rituals is not pleasurable. At best, it produces temporary relief from the anxiety created by obsessive thoughts. People with OCD may also be preoccupied with order and symmetry, have difficulty throwing things out (so they accumulate), or hoard unneeded items.

Hmmm? So it isn’t normal to keep clothes five years after I stopped wearing them. Next, I suppose you're gonna tell me that my cupboard full or promotional plastic cups isn't normal. But what am I, some baller? Am I supposed to throw things out just because they’re a little old? Fashion is cyclical, and I’m just staying ahead of the curve.

Okay, sure, I obsess on locking my doors; but does not wanting to be raped and murdered by a serial killer make you a bad person? Is that an irrational fear? Am I the crazy one because the sound of the "house settling" triggers images of intruders creeping around the bedroom? Because the rattling of my central air sounds like a murderer trying to jimmy the garage door open? Maybe it isn’t pleasurable, but neither is being BTK’s plaything.