...Or at least it turns out I'm a medicated form of crazy. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. The diagnosis is life altering. Why? Because for years I've known something was wrong. Depression? Social anxiety? I was even beginning to think I was suffering from a paranoid personality disorder (thanks google). I finally decided I was just flat out nuts, and there was no help for it. I have spent years of my life trying to diagnose myself, but to anxious to actually seek help. I thought I could deal with it, once I pinpointed what was actually wrong. I finally figured it out. Thanks to reality TV that is. A show called Obsessed on Netflix opened the door for me to OCD when I realized it wasn't all about germaphobes and lock checking.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder in which people have unwanted and repeated thoughts, feelings, ideas, sensations (obsessions), or behaviors that make them feel driven to do something (compulsions).
Well, what do you know. Check, check, check, triple check. It was like a light turned on. I wasn't stuck in the darkness alone anymore. There are millions of people out there like me, and I can live like a semi-average person. That is, once I got over my most life-impacting obsessions. The phone, and the dark.
I started counseling. I see an amazing therapist. She's given me the tools to curb my anxiety, and work on the whole phone and dark thing. What is it about the phone, and that type of interaction that makes me more comfortable driving across town to speak face to face? Still haven't figure it out, but its a work in progress. Why would I think that something is going to grab me from under the bed at night, or that I will see things in the mirror when its dark? Who knows. What I do know? I have stood next to my bed now, in the dark, without being grabbed. I haven't checked any closets, or behind any shower curtains for sometime. I have even peed in the dark on numerous occasions without seeing anything in the mirror! Progress, not perfection.
I dont really know if the changes in myself are clear yet to others, but they will be. Having a diagnosis, and being on the right meds, has meant a world of change for me. I'm still anxious. I still bite my lips. I still count and re-count. I still have to hear the cabinet door hit the cabinet for me to be satisfied its closed. And yes, I still refuse to put my purse on the floor. But I can live with these things. They dont make me crazy. They make me quirky. And I can live with that.
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