The Root of my OCD

I was actually having an intriguing conversation with my cousin about our OCD. I used to consider it mild, but that's not accurate. There are people who are worse than me, but it has the ability to consume me. I've touched on it lightly in my past notes, but I feel like I have more elaborate insight after bonding with her. My OCD manifests in repetition and exactness. I have a particular interest in things going exactly where I believe they should be; it's a control issue, which makes sense considering how my life is. Everything's chaotic, unpredictable, full of drama, and it feels like so much spirals out of control. I have to do something to give me a sense of control and stability. The rigidity also makes tolerating the unexpectedness that occurs in my life and the stress that follows more challenging, but it still offers a false sense of security and placement. I, either, have to learn how to move with the changes and flows of my life like water or find ways to manage with the constant change. I think OCD has been the second coping mechanism for my life, and it's failed me. The idea of adapting when I've lived life so rigidly makes me feel like it's implausible, but I could say that about a lot of changes I've made recently.

You can't remove an obsession; you have to replace it. But that isn't to say that you can't channel it differently and alter the concentration or variation of it. People who do repetitive tasks apparently do it because it calms them from the thoughts and feelings they experience. My OCD almost acts as a way for me to not deal with my emotions, which explains why I started developing manic tendencies as I indulged less in my OCD. The only way I feel I can manage this productively is by relying less on my OCD. By practicing and exposing myself to the unpredictabilities of life, I'll do a better job accepting and adapting to what happens to me. That should help me emotionally, too. But the only way to help myself emotionally is by exposing myself to it, something I've spent so long avoiding. As I become better at dealing with it, I'll hopefully stabilize.

I don't want to rid myself of my OCD, which is good because I can't even if I wanted to. But I don't want it to control me. I want to channel it to my benefit. It could be used wisely, and it's a part of who I am. I don't want to get rid of that, but I want to better myself as a person, too. The key is to understanding the root of my OCD. Thanks for the insights, lil cousin!

I Don't Want to Crash

Just recently, on Thursday, I got incredibly sick. Fortunately, I recovered quickly, but I got incredibly sick. I had sun poison, allergies, a fever, nerve pain, and an ocular migraine all rolled into one. I just had a conversation with my friend who told me to be careful and slow down because I don't want to crash. Everything's just been weighing down on me, and I guess the stress finally hit me. I bounced back quickly, but I'm a lot more sluggish now.

I've always considered myself a good person, but I've began evolving. I'm less self-involved now, even though I have a lot more to work on. I'm able to help the people around me, and it's an amazing feeling. It's a reflection of who I am, the fact that people come to me to open up and seek advice. It's me who helps them, so they return. I love that feeling, knowing that I've helped them, knowing that I can help them. But lately I feel like as I help others, a part of me dies.

I bring the people around me closer to their goals, their dreams, and that's amazing. But it seems like I can help everyone around me except myself. Why is that? How does that work? How can I help others when I can't even help myself? I do help myself when I help others. It's altruistically satisfying, but I feel like I don't have any me moments or me successes.

I started living and working in an environment that require me to help others. It sort of took form in me. I'm so busy doing that that I have no time for anything else. I hate it when I hear people say that they have no time to clean or crap like that. If you don't have time, make time! It's not that I don't have time, but I have no interest in making my goals and dreams a reality anymore. I invest so much energy into others that I'm exhausted, which is ironic with this move coming up. I have friends who are putting in the effort to help me out, and all I can do is trip out because I'm not feeling self-fulfilled.

I got evicted. Money issues are arising. School is a constant conflict in my life. I'm emotionally-drained and numb from feeling everything. I feel overworked and dead inside. I recently had a good talk with my friend who had this heartfelt message for me. He was seriously concerned about me and reminded me that I don't want to crash. I have to find a way to calm down and stress less because I'm going to get sick, look weak, and feel defeated. Just being exposed to it, he knows that I don't want to live that life. I'm living a lot closer to it than I realize is what I'm sensing from the talk I had with him. He doesn't want that for me. Sometimes I think that he doesn't want that for me more than I do, and it's my life. This should be way more important to me than in him, but I can't help it! I'm too tired. But that's the point. I have to change my life around, so I will care. After all, I don't want to crash.

Not Always as They Appear

Things aren't always as they appear, but sometimes that's the point. How are any of us supposed to learn from our misperceptions without making errors here and there? We have to experience some mistakes so that we can recognize them in the future. Without that exposure, we won't be able to make distinctions. We also learn to deal with, accept, and manage disappointments by living it. When things aren't as they appear, our perception, our world gets shattered. We have to learn to live in a world we thought was otherwise different in some way. We have to re-learn and rediscover even the most basic of things, just to get used to life again. To be honest, I'm not sure what this is about. I was reviewing my old drafts. I have so many thoughts I want to express and I don't have nearly as much time as people think I have. I wanted to publish these drafts before my memory and emotions tied to these notes began to fade. I can't remember what this note was about specifically, but the feelings I have resonate still. I wonder about what, though.

Be Comfortable in Your Own Skin

AJ tried to teach me the value of being comfortable in my own skin. I'm aware that there's value in being comfortable, but I don't think I ever understood it before. I don't think I still do. But since its importance has been emphasized to me, I'm starting to see circumstances where being comfortable in my own skin will be of significance.

I hate feeling insecure about myself. I hate incessant thoughts that haunt me. They prevent me from feeling secure about myself, even when they shouldn't, even when I don't believe it. But that's not even the point. Attraction is subjective. I think it's important that everyone feels secure, comfortable, and confident in themselves regardless of aesthetics. I'm not talking from experience, but I imagine the confidence is amazing.

There's so much in life that I don't appreciate because I'm unable to embrace it since all I see are the drawbacks. What a disturbing way to exist. I don't want to exist; I want to live. So long as I only see the negatives, I'm always going to have a single-minded perspective. And I want to be a well-rounded individual. But, most of all, I want to appreciate what I have.

By focusing on the negatives, I perceive myself as not deserving things. Then I project that onto others. I used to be thoroughly 100% against going out with someone who was perceived as difficult. I realized how bigoted of me that is. Even difficult people are amazing people. How much have I limited myself in the past because of this? It not only polluted my mentality, but I was totally discriminating towards others who didn't deserve it.

It's come to my attention how flawed my perspective became when I started thinking like a girl so to speak. I've been talking to this girl, and she does a lot of judging girls outfits. It sort of put me in that mode, and I remember looking at a fat girl and thinking how she probably won't be able to find someone who loves her because she's so fat. I didn't think she was an awful person, but I was so one-dimensional and insensitive about the entire thing. It turns out that she's engaged! How could I have gotten this so wrong? I remember thinking that if she found someone, I should be able to find someone. Isn't that awful? My ability to find someone shouldn't and isn't comparable. How can I be so vain and narrow-minded? I swear that's not the kind of person I am, but a part of my mentality needs to be told that then. I have to learn to be comfortable in my own skin!

I want to enjoy what I have without obliterating those talents because they aren't flawless. I'm human. Of course, I'm not going to be perfect, but that doesn't mean that I shouldn't embrace the qualities I do have. I want to become a writer. I do think I have a talent in that area. Yet I can't bring myself to comfortably admit that I'm a talented writer because there are so many better writers out there. That doesn't change the skills and talents I have. On some level, I know that. I'm tired of having this disconnect. It permeates so many aspects of my life. I'm sick of it.

Things Will Work Out

I've been so busy stressing that I haven't looked to the future lately. I always just keep moving forward because I don't know what else to do. I don't know how to give up. I haven't had time to really trip out sufficiently, too, because I’m overly busy. But when my friend dropped me off, he sincerely said that things will work out. I told him that it always does. He said, "What else can you do?" I should've said, "I wouldn't know." That's when I realized that I haven't even looked at the possibility that it will, but it will! Sometimes even the smallest things people say have a profound impact if you're open to it.

I didn't realize it at the time, but it really resonated in me that night. I was sitting in my old room. It was empty and lifeless. But I didn't see it as a home stripped away from me anymore. I don't know what I saw, but it wasn't at all bad. That's something. And it s because I knew that things will work out. Sometimes I just have to stop and realize that for what it's worth.

I have awesome friends who pulled through for me at the end, helping me with my move. I have other friends who helped me look for a place. I live in such a chaotic world that sometimes I forget that things will work out, that things do work out. I see it as though I’m spinning, spinning, spinning. I stop only to do it all over again. I don’t always realize that I made it each and every time. This will be no different.

Even Though I Hate it Here

Even though I hate it here and I was counting down the days I can finally escape this place, it's still all I had. As disgusted as I am by this place, I made a home out of it. Armen once told me that I open up more in my room than anywhere else. I wasn't aware of how comfortable I became in my own room. It was my place. It belonged to me. I've never had something like that before. Now, in one fell swoop, it was stripped away from me.

I've finally reached a point in my life where I was willing to absolve some control. The next thing I know something was taken away from me, completely out of my control. I do believe that surrendering control is going to have a profound affect on my overall well-being, but everything I'm experiencing makes me feel otherwise. It's hard to do the right thing when the "right thing" is nothing more than a feeling, something intangible. Everything is spiraling out of control, and I don't even have time to hang on. All I can do is fumble around in the tornado because there's too much to do.

I don't have time to panic, to protect myself, to keep myself safe. I have so much to do. I have to pack. I have to pack. I have to work. I have to work. I have to help. I have to organize. Sleep and food has become a luxury of the past. I can't remember the last time I haven't had a headache echoing in the background. I don't have time for allergies or sun poison.

I'm too busy for everything, which is precisely why I have to find the time. But how do you find time that you don't have? It's more important than ever to find peace, to feel like I belong somewhere, anywhere, to be at home. I feel like every time I begin to make progress or gain new insights that can bring about change, something gets in the way. It's stupid that at age 25 is when I discovered the value of opening up to others, how important it is for me to have people in my life and not keep them at a distance. It's made me realize how I have to do things for myself. 25 fucking years, I didn't know this. I finally learned something huge and extremely late in life, I know. But I can't do anything with it.

I didn't know it at the time, but getting laid off was my first vacation, a break. I'm never able to live in the moment because I don't have moments to spare. I'm too busy allocating it towards something else, anything but me. I haven't been living in the moment, and it keeps escaping me. I don't know how to slow down. It sounds stupid, and it makes my friends laugh sometimes, but it's true. And it's not funny. I have to learn because I don't want to crash and burn. I'm t ired of my life and the drama in it. The most laid back person I know told me that he can tell I have drama in my life; he could hear it in my voice. It makes me want to distance myself from him because I don't want to contaminate his life. It must be nice to have a private, quiet life. I wouldn't know. I hope someday I will.

My Sanctuary Gone

AJ once told me that I open up more in my own room than anywhere else. That shocked me because I hate that place. He said, "You may hate that it's your home, but it's your home." In spite of how messy it is and how toxic the energy is, a place where I can be open is a sanctuary, is my sanctuary. It's difficult for me to open up, so it's huge. I'm not sad that I'm leaving that place, but I'm sad that the sanctuary I've built there is gone. No, not gone just homeless. I guess I'll have to find a sanctuary somewhere else. I can do that. I just have to find a place first.