Make my day quote

30 May 2017

I wouldn’t be going to school if I already knew what they taught there. This is applicable to the school of life as well.
I am where I am, not because of my capabilities, but because of my deficiencies which I’m learning to overcome. 

 

15 May 2017

Once in a while, you have a good day.

You don’t need every day to be a good day. Just try to shift from ‘once in a while’ to ‘many times’.
For the advanced players, try to shift from ‘many times’ to ‘most times’.
Who’s the winner? 

 

13 May 2017

Freeze!
Evaluate your current posture! How do you feel?

Now. Stand taller, straighter!
Shoulders back. Stomach in. How do you feel?

See? Better, no?

OMG, I have OCD

How our assumptions work!

One day we develop an idea of what we are, of what our faults and advantages are, and then we stick to it. We seldom reevaluate.

And this brings me to the shock I’ve just had about me. A few days earlier I was researching depression on Wikipedia (a nifty pre-resource). I was spending time following various links on depression, causes, treatments, etc., when I started to read about obsessive compulsive disorder. I put two and two together and then came my shattering moment. I had it, I had OCD! If I hadn’t been already sitting, I’d have to sit down.

I knew about various disorders but never gave them much thought, since, you know, I never thought they were relevant to me. Sure, I have depression, I overuse defence mechanisms, I have trouble with memory and I’m prone to procrastination, but I never thought I had anything serious.

OCD means Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. This “is a mental disorder where people feel the need to check things repeatedly, perform certain routines repeatedly (called “rituals”), or have certain thoughts repeatedly. People are unable to control either the thoughts or the activities for more than a short period of time. Common activities include hand washing, counting of things, and checking to see if a door is locked. Some may have difficulty throwing things out. These activities occur to such a degree that the person’s daily life is negatively affected.” (From Wikipedia, 4/6/2017)

Now, I quite dislike the term disorder. Depression is just named depression (well, major depressive disorder, but I never say it). Disorder sounds serious illness to me. Yuck!

You can read more about OCD here.

What got my attention was, the obsession part of OCD features intrusive thoughts. I’ve had intrusive thoughts for a while now. I thought they were part of the stress of having little children, of exhaustion from breastfeeding and sleep deprivation. You know, when you lay down in bed and then fear, every moment now, a meteorite will fall just over your building and wiped out everything, and you won’t be able to do a dime. Who ever thinks of things like this?!

I know it’s a fat chance of a decent size meteorite to struck directly here, but who can help thoughts from coming? What’s more, I then picture various scenarios where I have more than zero chance of survival. Of protecting my children with my body and stuff. But many times, the control goes away, like, I’d be able to protect one, but not another. Really, really, bothersome thoughts. Just the opposite from my dreams. When I dream of something bad happening, I always come out victorious.

Then there are other intrusive thoughts. Thoughts that have truly made me worried.

I sometimes picture myself on a precipice, like a dam. At first, when I had these thoughts I thought of jumping. But later these thoughts became much more awful. I pictured pushing or throwing over my helpless children. These thoughts are awful. I think them, I know I shouldn’t, but can’t help myself. I feel terrible all the while because I wouldn’t do it in the real world. Or would I? This is maddening. Would I do something like this, because my thoughts betrayed me? Just to see what happens?

When I’m not ready for this answer, I shut down my mind, my defence mechanism no.1. I tell myself to breathe, to calm.

I will tackle this as well. But not today. I shall meet my enemy on a familiar territory, where, and when, I choose.

It keeps nagging at me. When I was about 7-9 years old, I held a small, heavy object over my sister’s head, thought about dropping it … and dropped it. It fell on her lip and gave her quite a swell. Luckily, nothing permanent. But the point is, I did it. I acted on impulse, even if I knew better. This is one of my few early memories. It must be significant.
But this subject is too much for me now. It will have to wait a bit longer. I must deal with other things first. Like, go to an MOS therapy.

Let’s move to the Compulsion part. Did you think I just had obsessions? No such luck.

I read about compulsions, I’ve known about them but still, I had to read about them at the right time to connect them with my symptoms.

I wash my hands more than necessary. Probably. I always thought I need to wash them after anything got on them. Dirt, food, cough, … It sounds logical. But my husband washes his hands half as much (and is still alive). Also, I pack my baby’s clothes in a clean bag before putting them in a suitcase for travel. Maybe I exaggerate. I don’t know, but it sounds like OCD.

I have (had it worse) the need to hang clothes for drying in colour scheme. I had sometimes “corrected” my husband’s hanging order. He was furious. I don’t see anything wrong with putting clothes in a closet by colour, but what is the practical point in putting them like that on the laundry stand? It’s just something that bothers me, not something I see as objectively right.

I like symmetry more than usual. I want the structure where there is flow.

They say skin picking can be a symptom of OCD. I do it. I always thought I was addicted to the habit. It gives me high. This may then fall into the addiction category. It’s different than nose picking which just gives me relief. The latter seems more OCD-ish.

Oh, sh…! Did I just confess I pick my nose? Gross, but true. I intend to stop someday.

Whatever. The bottom line is, I have a few OCD symptoms. It shook me because I never thought of myself as having a mental illness. I never regarded depression as an illness. I thought about it as an imbalance that I could someday balance. I thought of all my compulsions as bad habits, as some byproduct of depression and unchecked indulgence. But, let’s face it, poor self-control is typical for OCD.

What now?!! Is it an illness if I still mostly function?
I pack this for another thinking session. Share your thoughts below. Is perfectionism an OCD form?

I’m depressed, or am I?

How much must you be depressed that you are eligible for the title?

I feel like a phony.

When I say to someone,”I’m depressed”, they’d say, “Nah, you are just a melancholic type”.
Or, when I say something sarcastic they’d say “You’re such a pessimist”. It’s no use I explain I’m an optimist, really. I say sarcastic things because I feel depressed, but otherwise, I regard the future optimistically. If you can follow my logic.

Anyway, what I want to know is, how much must you exaggerate to be accepted as a depressive person in your closest public? Provided, you want to be known as such.

Isn’t just the statement enough? Don’t people believe your word?

I believe not. People believe actions, or, perhaps, repetition. In my opinion, depressed people don’t do action. We rather hide it. We only express sadness when it peaks. And when we are unpleasantly not acknowledged, we pull ourselves back into our shells. (A by-thought: do extroverts have depression, what does their depression look like?)
So, people don’t notice by themselves, do not acknowledge our one statement, and we mostly don’t repeat it. As much as we want compassion, we fear that being acknowledged as depressed might even hurt our social status.

I feel like a phony whether I say the D word or not. Like, in both cases, I don’t speak the truth.

Would repetition work? It probably would. But there are two sides to this problem. For starters, we think we already speak about us being depressed a lot, but it might not be the case. I, for example, live a lot in my head. But people around me don’t see inside. They live lives, centred around their problems, not mine. So they don’t pay attention as much as I believe. They don’t receive hints, they don’t understand facial expression (I know I don’t, do you?). And, if we constantly repeat we are depressed? We get dismissed as not serious, not sufferers enough. We are labelled as hypochondriacs, drama-queens and such. Of course, we don’t want that, we want to be perceived as serious. So we suffer enough, silently, seriously. Most of the time, we are depressed for ourselves.

How about getting an official diagnose? So we can be what we are, not needing to prove our feelings to everyone. What is the smallest amount of blue to get an official diagnose?
I guess, not much when you get to a professional therapist. Maybe your GP (personal doctor) waves you goodbye with no fussing attitude, but a psychotherapist is bound to find something that’s wrong with you. But that’s ok. We need someone to believe us, even if we must pay them for it.

And the sum of all fears? What must your level of depression be for you to be equal to your not equally depressed peers? Well, I don’t feel adequate with my “mild” depression (I still don’t know where on the scale I am). I believe I should at least be severely depressed, endorsed by a professional therapist, to qualify.

What would a severely depressed person say to my level? “Pfft, I’d be happy to have what she has,” or “I know what she means, but she’s lucky she can function.”

Can you tell me, people? I can’t read your minds, you know, sometimes I barely read mine. Probably there’s no one who is deeply depressed and also reading this. Who’d want to read depressive texts? But still. Any comments? Am I a phony? I’m deleting every comment that says yes 🙂