Score Another Point for Insanity

Its Olympic time - that time once every two or four years (depending on if you watch both the summer and the winter games) when everyone bonds as Americans over living vicariously through people who are much more dedicated, talented and fit then most of us will ever be.  When I watch the Olympics, I experience something that I'm pretty sure most of you, if not all of you, do not experience.  I wait for someone to possibly mention my name.  I don't know why.  I don't know any of the athletes remotely let alone personally.  They have no reason to mention my name.  But when they are thanking people that have had an impact on their lives, I wonder if somehow, without realizing it, it may have been me.  Silly I know but I do the same thing with the Oscars and the Tonys.  Its a little different there though.  See when they say "and the winner is . . . " I have a flash that "hey, it could be me".  I'm not nominated or even an actress but yet there is a part of me that thinks - eh, stranger things.  Then, when I don't win, I wonder if the person who did win will thank me.  Not even thank me as much as mention me.  Ludicris, I know, but that's the way my brain works.  Its not self-centered as you might think.  It is actually, I believe, my OCD.  See when you have OCD you are often convinced that something has happened or could have happened even though you know it hasn't and didn't.  Like take driving for instance.  Sometimes I think I may have run over something.  Then instantly my brain thinks it may have been an animal and now it is hurt and needs my help.  So I loop the block to check.  No animal in the road.  Then I am convinced that it may have crawled off injured and be alongside of the road.  So I loop the block again.  This can continue on for an unlimited number of times.  I draw the line at getting out of my car to search for the animal but it takes a lot of effort to draw that line.   I am very proud of that line.  It lets me know that there is a chance that I have control and may some day with lots of therapy and meds be a semi-normal person.  But the point here is, I didn't hit anything but I think that it may have happened and I may have missed it.  Just like I think I may have had some encounter with an athlete or actor in the grocery store or somewhere just as mundane and that that moment has somehow stuck with this person enough that they can't forget to mention me with all of their coaches, families and God.  I actually do know some people who are actors and maybe someday one of them will win an award and I will have an actual shot at being mentioned but the odds are against it.  Unless they happed to be reading this in which case you now know what it would mean to me and you should add me to your list of people to thank or I will be pissed.  Anyway, the Olympics are fun to watch even if nobody mentions me.  Go USA!

Long Time, No Blog

Hello there stranger!  It's been some time hasn't it?  I let myself get into a bit of an insecure funk and couldn't bring myself to blog but hopefully I'm back - at least no more breaks of longer than a month.  I can't believe that I didn't blog even once in February.  It must have been a much bigger funk than I thought it was.  Oh well, you can't go back and change what's in the past.  You can only change what will happen in the future with your actions of the present.  Wow.  Pretty profound for me dontcha think?  I continue to drive my daughter to school and pick her up everyday.  Tomorrow is Super Tuesday (although they really should call it Pain-in-the-Ass Tuesday with all the political crap that's everywhere you turn) and we get to vote on the tax levy again tomorrow.  Not that that will change anything for this year.  I shouldn't really complain.  It gets my butt out of the house each weekday at least twice - once fully dressed, no jamas!  Super Tuesday is really bumming me out though.  My phone rings ten times a day and each time I get excited thinking its an actual person for me but its not.  Its just some bogus recorded message telling me to vote for Mr. Slimeball because he's the least creepy of the candidates.  Nothing like reminding me that I have no friends who actually call me Mr. Slimeball.  Way to get my hopes up.  But I'm working on it.  This no friends thing.  Don't get me wrong, I have tons of acquaintances but not many that fall into the realm of friends and the ones that do fall into my strict definition of friend usually live at a distance and I'm not really all that good at keeping up with those relationships.  Maybe I need to redefine my definition of friend.  Maybe I need to be more socially active.  Maybe I lost my therapist and am not sure if I like the new lady and so I'm looking to you guys for emotional and psychological guidance.  Yeah, I think that last one hit the nail on the head.  After six years of intense work, my therapist had to quit for medical reasons.  I feel bad for her - really I do.  But I also feel bad for me.  I feel like six years of work has just gone down the drain.  Nothing like starting all over again.  After much agonizing, I chose a new therapist or at least a candidate for my new therapist and I'm not sure if I like her or not.  So far, most of what we have done is background work - when were you hospitalized, what progress have you made, what was your original diagnosis - that kind of stuff.  Surprisingly I've learned that I have a more in depth diagnosis than I thought I did (Who knew I was agoraphobic or borderline bipolar in addition to the OCD, depression and panic attacks?) as well as the fact that I indeed had made considerable progress over those last six years (Boundaries.  I got 'em now babe.)  I guess its a little like watching your kids grow up.  Its so small every day, every week that when you really step back and look at it - holy cow they've grown!  Anyway, I've decided to document my search for a new therapist in the hopes of helping others who may go through the same thing.  So far, aside from the background, she has assigned me to buy a workbook on relaxation techniques and stress management.  I didn't.  Instead I bought a workbook on depression and anxiety.  I've been using it and it seems to be helpful so far.  I guess we'll see what "Dr. Number 2" has to say about my rebellion.  If she's not ok with it, I don't think I'm ok with her.  I see her again on Friday so we'll see how it goes.  This will be my third weekly visit.  I hate to tell her, I'm not really looking for relaxation techniques.  I'm not there yet.  I'm looking for ways to stop obsessive thoughts, improve my self-esteem, and break out of this funk for starters.  Frankly, I think even though she has the degree, I am the one who should know what I need.  I need to work through my severe anxiety before I go deep breathing and picturing my happy place.  If nothing else comes from my having this depressive funk, at least I have my new blue hair!

Shop . . . Craft . . . Stop . . . Repeat

I love projects.  I love coming up with the idea.  I love the listing of the required materials.  I love shopping for said materials.  I love choosing.  I love creating.  I love seeing the progress I have made.  The problem with me lies in the finishing.  I can't seem to finish a project.  I have half finished crochet blankets.  I have half finished cross-stitch pictures.  I have half finished scrapbooks and drawings.  I even have half painted ceramics.  There are a few projects over the years that I have finished and I take great pride in those.  I don't really know why I have such trouble finishing a project.  Maybe its my ADD.  Maybe I lose interest in the project once I get so far into it.  That could be it.  Maybe its my OCD.  That desire for everything to be perfect.  I know that there are mistakes in my projects so they can never be perfect so why try to finish them.  They'll always be incomplete because they're not perfect.  Either way, I don't know why I do it but I do.  I start a project and then just kind of . . . stop.  I think about them.  I think about how I really should finish them but I just don't.  Maybe its not so much the creating as it is the shopping.  Maybe I justify shopping for materials by starting a new project.  Then I get to make a trip to the local craft store and load up my cart.  Oh my God, I am a shopaholic!  I am justifying my need to purchase things.  I am using my projects as an excuse.  I am making another trip to Michael's today.  Shhhhhh!  Nobody tell Hubby!

A New Chapter

My books are going to hate me.  See after running out of space for all of them, I have decided that I should get a Barnes & Noble Nook Color.  Yeah, that's right.  I'm giving in.  Selling out.  Cheating on my paper and ink friends.  I wasn't sure at first and am still not 100% sure (but I rarely am about anything).  Anyway, I looked around my bedroom the other day and thought "Wow, I'd have a lot more space if it weren't for all these books."  Now don't get me wrong, I LOVE my books.  Perhaps a little too much.  See once I read a book, I have immense trouble letting it go.  Could be my OCD, I don't know.  I feel a bond with the people and the places and the story.  I hate giving them up.  In the past I have forced myself to part with books I didn't really enjoy and was ok with that.  But there are also books I really did enjoy that once sold to Half-price Books or donated to a charity, I wish I had kept.  I wanted them back.  But in order to reclaim my living space, I had to give them up.  With the Nook Color, I can have 8,000 books in my library and still have space on my shelves.  I will also have mobile internet access in hot spots, tons of apps and even the ability to view pictures and videos.  Its almost like a smaller, much cheaper IPad.  I can get e-books from the library and even share my books with others who have a Nook.  My books are even backed up on the Barnes & Noble server so if something happens to my Nook, I just get a new one and poof! access to all of my old books is like magic.  And no breaking my purse or juggling my belongings trying to lug around a thick hardcover copy of the latest novel.  I'm really having trouble seeing the downside of this choice.  In my quest to decide which e-reader to get, I asked friends and family and was met with a resounding - just use good old-fashioned books.  They have not seem my bedroom.  I understand their fondness for the tactile words but sometimes things change and you've just got to roll with it.  My love of books, bookstores, libraries, bookmarks and anything and everything to do with books is unfailing, but I feel the need to take this huge technological step.  Goodbye my dear tangible literary companions.  Hello night-reader-easy-on-the-eyes-setting while reading in bed without having to struggle holding a book open and rolling from side to side to see the proper page.    Happy Birthday/Mother's Day to me!

I'm Not Maid for Cleaning

Why is it when you have nothing that HAS to be done, you are bored and can't think of anything to do but when you have something that you NEED to do, you can think of a million distractions you would rather be doing?  Right now, I have approximately 24 hours to start and complete my taxes, clean my entire house, and finish my Easter shopping.  This is just not gonna happen.  The shopping I could do.  Shopping is never a problem.  Its the taxes and the cleaning that are going to be the problem.  Actually, I could probably pull off the shopping and the taxes, but not the cleaning.  Its really a lost cause.  I start off by making a list of what all needs cleaned.  Then I feel overwhelmed and like I wanna nap.  If I start cleaning someplace, one of two things happens, either I get distracted by someplace else and move to there before I am finished or it ends up looking worse than it did at first.  Its hopeless.  I'm a lost cause.  Frontrunner is coming to visit tomorrow and her worker is coming to "see our house".  So we're not talking about a little gathering in the living room where I can happily shove everything into our bedroom.  No.  We're talking on the same level as home study.  Peeking in all rooms and closets.  Looking with an evaluating eye at all of our mess.  I've already told Frontrunner that we live messy and she's cool with that.  I just don't want her worker to bring her here to Suburbia take one look at our mess and cart her back to Faraway.  That would suck.  So, I have to try.   I have to at least make the effort.  Right after I finish blogging . . . and call Hubby . . . and finish my ice coffee . . . and . . . I need a maid.

Just Call Me Dorothy

I am petrified of storms.  Its really sort of a love/hate relationship.  I love to hear the thunder and rain.  The lightening doesn't even bother me.  For me, its all in the wind.  I hate storms because they come with wind and, sometimes, tornadoes.  I've always been this way.  Its part of who I am.  When I was a little girl and the wind would pick up or it looked like a storm was coming, I would run all over our backyard pulling anything that wasn't tied down into the house.  Toys, decorations, lawn furniture.  It all had to come in.  And I didn't even live in tornado alley.  We're talking mid-atlantic states here.  Not exactly known for their tornadoes.  I mean, this is a place where what would normally be tornado sirens are used instead to call volunteer firefighters to the fire station.  We did have a tornado once.  It came through near to our house while we were away.  I remember being so scared that when we got home all my stuff would be gone.  (And to someone with OCD, even undiagnosed at the time, "stuff" is very, very important.)  Hubby and I survived some non-descending funnel clouds while living along the gulf coast.  I remember hearing the tornado sirens in the middle of the night thinking "wow, that must be one big fire".  Little did we know.  I think back to the two years that Hubby and I DID live in tornado alley and I don't know how I functioned like a human being.  I think I just chose to ignore the threat as a coping mechanism of some sort.  I remember the green skies, the wall clouds, the sideways rain and the tornado sirens but I never remember being scared.  Now, I live here in Suburbia, basically the midwest, where the threat is higher than you'd think it would be.  I live the months of March, April, May, June, July and August in fear of the wicked winds.  I force my family, birds and all, into the basement every now and then where we sit with our bike helmets on waiting for the warnings to be over.  I have, through much therapy, come to realization that I am as safe as I can be in my home, but my car is a completely different story.  The thing that fears me most about storms now is traveling in them.  One night, on the way home from a wedding, we were driving down the interstate when the radio went off with tornado warnings for all the local counties.  Having just passed the last exit before a vast stretch of farmland, I insisted that Hubby drive backwards down the interstate on ramp shoulder so that we could take refuge in a Hampton Inn lobby while the cyclonic cones of death made their way through the area.  Today, we laugh about that night, but I would do it again in a heartbeat if I had to.  The reason I'm writing all of this today is that tomorrow we are taking a trip to Hometown to see our new little niece.  We are making the trip in one day which means we will be coming back to Suburbia in the dark, driving straight into a cold front.  They are not calling for any severe weather but with their tendency to do nowcasting and not forecasting, I am nervous.  But I will go.  When the thunder rumbles, I will white knuckle my atlas.  When the lightening flashes, I will scan the horizon for potential funnels.  When we start the trip home, I will medicate . . . heavily.  Meteorlogical scars run deep in my mind but I will live through this.  If not, I'll see you in Oz.

Another One Bites the Dust . . . and . . . Another . . . and . . . Well . . . You Can See Where This is Going

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!  Now that the lovey-dovey stuff is out of the way, let's get on with this. 

After reading our front-runners background information on Wednesday, we are still interested in her.  I called her worker Thursday morning and afternoon leaving messages both times.

We had our meeting on Friday with another county's social services agency.  It went condially.  We went.  It was pointed out to us why we would not be a good match.  My faults were pointed out.  Just mine.  We requested more information about the girl.  We never got it.  We decided that she is not the girl for us and they are not the agency we want to work with.  Oh well, officially cross another one off of the list.  Meanwhile, we waited for a call back from front-runners worker.  I left two more messages that afternoon.

The weekend passed.  Our daughter had two winter guard competitions and personally did well.  As for the group, not so much.  Let's just say they have yet to crack the top three places.  We are holding out hope for their big trip next weekend out of state.  All weekend we tried to put it out of our minds because we knew there was no reason for us to even hope that she would call till Monday.

And so we arrive here at Monday.  I have called twice already and gotten her voicemail which says she will be out the 10th of February and will return calls the next day.  I didn't leave another message because I don't want to appear stalker-creepy.  I know they are busy but we are waiting.  That child is waiting.  So much hangs in the balance.  This morning there was a placement meeting for one of the other girls we had inquired about.  They determined they cannot place her with us because of her special needs and my anxiety and prescribed medication.  What is that supposed to mean?  Oh heck no, I don't feel discriminated against because of my "disability".  No worries.  I won't spend the afternoon trying to feel like its not my fault that we aren't being considered.  I wonder if Hubby was adopting on his own if he'd have a child by now?  Seriously.  Oh well, officially cross another one off the list.  So I wait.  Anxiously.  When I'm done posting this, I will send an email to our front-runner's worker.  Maybe we'll get through that way.  In the meantime I'll feel like crap because I am obviously a big part of the reason why they won't place a child with us. 

This process is excruciating.

Not as Seen on TV

I have OCD.  For those of you who think you know about the disorder, this may come as a shock.  We are not all germaphobes who vaccuum our houses 24/7.  My house is a mess and I'm fine with that.  I even have pictures hanging up that aren't totally straight.  Yes, I prefer to have things piled from largest to smallest but the thing is not all people with OCD have the type of disease depicted on television.  It is a very frustrating disease.  The one thing they never show you is just how exhausting the disorder can be.  Your mind is always going - constantly thinking.  Its like having a song that is stuck in your head all day.  You know how annoying that can be.  Now imagine repeating things in your life like that constantly - both mentally and physically.  Imagine never being sure of yourself.  Always doubting if you did something or said something.  Using key words or actions to help you remember that you did something and those key words or actions becoming rituals that you must do in order to prevent something bad from happening.  You know that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach the moment you realize you've locked your keys inside your car?  Now multiply that feeling by ten at least and insert it into your day about 150 times.  That's what its like to have OCD.  You have to have others make decisions for you because you're too afraid the one you make will be wrong.  You have to do things twenty times just to be sure you did them (and most likely because twenty is a nice even number).  Through the marvels of modern medicine I am able to function at a fairly normal level.  I get to work on time now because I don't have to drive home to make sure I locked the door.  I can go to bed without getting up five times to check that the stove is off.  I can even throw away a box or two here or there.  There are even some advantages to having the disorder.  We're great with names and faces.  We are usually quite organized (even if its just that we know where everything is with in our mess).  We are usually good at doing math in our heads because we are always adding random numbers we see in various places.  We have great attention to detail.  Just don't be fooled by what you see portrayed on television.  There is much more to someone who has OCD than just what you see on "Monk".

For an accurate and humorous description of one woman's struggle with OCD, please read "Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood" by Jennifer Traig.