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 |   A journey of self-improvement - or not. |
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Sup? I'm Char. You may know me from timeless classics such as
and
I blog for things like
[Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Believin' all the lies that they're tellin' ya Buyin' all the products that they're sellin' ya They say jump and ya say "how high?" Ya braindead, ya got a fuckin' bullet in ya head |
Artist: Motion City Soundtrack Song: Stand Too Close [Embed For Use By Upgraded+]  "JAFBG"  Prompt: Which thing about 2020 is pissing you off the most? There are a lot of external things to be pissed off about in 2020. *motions wildly at everything* But the real kicker is the internal things that we can't escape, even in the safety of our homes away from any potential virus or deranged people. The things that possess us against our will, hold us hostage. I've wanted to sort my thoughts out a little bit on what it's actually like to live during a global pandemic while having obsessive compulsive disorder. I know I've mentioned it here and there in my blog, but I need this moment of organized ranting. A little bit about OCD. Just because I know a lot of people hear the term thrown around like... "my desk is messy it's making me so OCD haha" I figured I'd explain the disorder briefly. Essentially, all obsessive compulsive disorder is one disorder, but it manifests itself in different ways. Some people with OCD have to do repetitive checks in their home so that they'll feel safe, meaning that they might check to make sure the front door is locked and the stove is turned off literally hundreds of times before they can go to sleep at night. Some people might have a specific number of times they must do a compulsion in order to ease their anxiety. Others with the same disorder might have it manifest through scrupulosity which is repetitive feelings of intrusive thoughts about death, guilt, and going to hell. So they might have to pray in a very specific way for hours at a time. If they get interrupted, they may need to restart entirely. Others with OCD have it manifest in the way of contamination obsessions, so they might get compulsive handwashing behaviors to the point of destroying their hands or just taking up a ton of time. Or they might be afraid their food is expired or contaminated in some way which makes it difficult to eat. Either way, OCD goes like this: intrusive thought >> anxiety >> compulsive behavior >> temporary relief The last 3 stages of the cycle are the same regardless of the intrusive thought you're having, and the manifestations of OCD can change throughout your life. There are so many different types of obsessions people have with this disorder. Pre-pandemic. I didn't realize it, but I've had OCD for pretty much as long as I can remember. I got formally diagnosed back in 2017 following what could only be described as a complete psychotic break. I can't even explain what my brain did to itself that year. But essentially, I had to drop out of all of my in-person classes because I couldn't be around other people and several hours of every day of my life was devoted to compulsions. I didn't have the word "compulsion" in my vocabulary in that context yet though. I was seeing a neurologist for my migraines during that time and he actually asked me point blank if I'd been diagnosed with OCD. Of course, I was like, "Nope, I don't have OCD!" He quietly wrote a referral to a psychologist and urged me to set up an appointment at my earliest convenience. I knew that even though I didn't have OCD, I did have something going on, so off I went to the psych. And yep, OCD it was. Start here if you already know about my ocd experience: I was actually doing pretty well leading into the pandemic. I can't express how proud I was in January when I started my new job and I was actually able to shake people's hands when introduced to them. In the US at least, that's a custom you're expected to follow. During the height of my OCD breakdowns, I couldn't shake people's hands, and if I did, that was a guaranteed panic attack if I didn't immediately jump into my ritualistic handwashing compulsions. So that was a huge personal win for me. The early days. At the beginning of the outbreak in China, so end of December/early January, it wasn't a huge news story in the US yet... but I was still following. I remember Kira saying, "You're doing so well, Charlie. Don't do this to yourself. You just graduated and got this new job, everything's going well, don't sike yourself out." But I did. In fact, my first journal entry of the year mentions the virus. Just kind of a throwaway line in between talking about work. Anyone with an anxiety disorder will attest to the fact that you get a lot of "bad" feelings, but I had an incredible level of dread related to this virus, and I mentioned it repeatedly for the first few weeks of January in my journal. I was so excited about my new job though that I was kind of throwing a line in here or there sandwiched in been all the exciting new things I was experiencing. I clearly was working to not get consumed by it. Gaining traction. By late January/early February, the US had its first cases of the virus and we saw the spread in some of those early European countries. I was clearly getting more agitated as time went on and I expressed a lot of disgust for things at work like buffet-style lunch conferences where a hundred people would walk through essentially a cafeteria lunch line and talk over the food, grab food with their hands, etc. But I was still trying to make a good impression on my coworkers and I was worried about disrespecting the social norms of the office. On Friday February 7th, I took my lunch in my office and wrote in my journal: I could have gone to the chili cook-off if I wanted to, but I already have food that I brought from home for lunch and I really think there are too many lunches and cook-offs and whatever here. I really don't want to be rude, but it's really getting on my nerves. At 10:30, Rachel stopped by my office to remind me about the chili cook-off at lunch and asked if I'd go to this one. I told her I already brought food from home for lunch and she said I could just save it for dinner tonight. Just before noon, Rachel stopped by again with 3 or 4 of our coworkers and said, "Come on, Charlie, let's go! It's time for the chili cook-off!" I got so annoyed because she already knew I didn't want to go. I told her again that I'd already brought my lunch for the day. She told our coworkers, "Charlie's being antisocial today" and they all laughed. When I say no, I wish people would listen. I then go on to explain why it's gross to eat food that people you barely know made at their homes that you've never been to. I then bizarrely suggested that someone could have broken glass in their chili? No idea. Which might not seem like a huge deal, but is a sign to me that I was breaking with reality just slightly. A more reasonable thing to say is that someone's house could be filthy, could have dog fur in their chili, something more rational than broken glass.  The big explosion. Leading up to the big explosion of cases in March in the US, I'd already been in panic mode for a couple weeks. I was horrified by the idea of going to the office. I was taking my lunch outside in my car because I couldn't eat or drink anything in the building. I was having panic attacks regularly and taking Xanax to get through the workday in one piece. During the last week of February, I was listing the daily case statistics at the top of my journal entries (I still do that). During the first week of March, I apparently considered quitting my job saying on Tuesday March 3rd: The backslide isn't worth it. The 'everyone is like me' time. Soon after that, I went to my boss and told him I needed to work from home. My anxiety about the virus was too distracting to get anything done in the office. I was the first person at work to ask to work from home because of the virus. My boss hesitantly approved, which my coworkers didn't like because they didn't think it was fair. Luckily, all of them were working from home within two weeks. From mid-March through May, I went through a different phase. I was relatively relaxed. I was working from home so I barely left the house, just twice a month for groceries then straight back home. From my journals, it sounds like I was feeling a bit validated, possibly. On Saturday April 4th I wrote: It has been so wild seeing people act like... me. The panic, the fear, the anxiety. None of it is new to me. Hearing people say that their hands hurt from washing them so much or they're having nightmares about the virus, it's such a foreign feeling to them. But it's not for me. It's like I've been practicing for this. June to now. In June I was writing a lot about police brutality and the protests. I'm still writing about it now in my journal, but more as an afterthought. The reason for that is that I've started seeing the mental health effects of the virus. The effects of being inside for 5 months straight, not seeing anyone I don't live with, not going out at all, no friends, no family, just nothingness and more nothingness. On Wednesday July 22nd, I wrote in my journal on my lunch break: I don't see a way out of this. I don't see any type of time frame in which I'm going to feel comfortable being around other people. I feel like I'm being gaslit because I see some people just going about their lives like normal, going to family reunions, restaurants, house parties, without masks, without any fear. Did I make the pandemic up in my head? Is it not that bad? Am I having an ocd episode and I'm being completely crazy? Should I be out enjoying my summer? Going to visit with all of my friends? I know I couldn't even if I wanted to. Even if there was no virus all along, would it even make a difference? So I will understand if you don’t stay They say I’m great at first, but then the magic fades |
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