I haven't written a particularly introspective or well thought-out post in a while. And I'm afraid this one isn't going to be any different. Maybe it's the whole almost working full time thing. Maybe it's the half-way normal life I'm living and trying to balance with my OCD. I know there are OCD impediments that I just don't even really notice anymore.
For instance, tonight I realized I don't have anything to wear to work tomorrow. I can't fathom doing laundry now or even determining whether I am "clean enough" to do laundry. I can't (aka won't) pick a skirt (that I just wore once before condemning) out the dirty laundry - too contaminated. So what am I going to do? Take the least offensive route - find a dress that I haven't unpacked in over a year and wear that, even though I'm not sure if it was "clean" before I packed it or if it's "okay" to wear since it's been in a box for so long, even if I did wash it before packing it. These are dresses that I have avoided wearing for some time now because of this very issue of not knowing how to deal with them...
Everyone has their problems, and this is nothing, I'm sure, compared to "real" problems faced by so many out there, but sometimes I feel that, when living life at this pace, its just assumed that this sort of thing isn't a problem. It's assumed that finding something "clean" enough to wear to work is not the most mentally challenging part of your day. It's assumed that you can take care of yourself in this way, at this point in life, and yet, I don't always feel I can. Life moves faster than I can. And while I am loathe to give up my compulsions, I feel like the world just moves too fast for them. The pace of life that I am "supposed" to be living was not designed to accommodate so much compulsive behavior. But I squeeze it in. It's way better than it used to be, but I still feel defeated sometimes.
When other people vent about their parking tickets or roommate issues at lunch or during breaks (and trust me, I do that, too), I sometimes wish I could share more of what is really on my mind - like the internal debate I'm having about whether or not to use the bathroom at work or if I'll be sleeping in my bed that evening if I do use a public restroom. It's not exactly the kind of thing that your average co-worker can probably relate to. And at this point, I hardly notice anymore. I'm used to keeping that to myself until I have the rare chance to be completely honest about it - like when talking to my therapist or when I was staying with a friend at the OCD conference, a friend who also has OCD. And because I don't talk about it, I almost don't even notice how much of my internal debate is dominated by these sort of OCD conversations with myself. But they're there. And they wear on me. And sometimes I wish I could just share what's really on my mind instead of pushing it away, hidden as my silent secret.
