Trapped in a reality that doesn’t exist
For some reason I only feel comfortable being straight forward to those I already know. I guess that’s a stupid statement, because I guess that’s only human. I seem to believe that by pretending to be normal, I won’t scare people away. There’s another silly belief, because it’s not like I have a plethora of people dying to know me. So just be honest…
In some imaginary black and white world, there’s one way to live and then there’s another. The concept of denial, in my world, seems to be only one thing: homosexuality. This is not what this is about. I don’t believe I am gay, but my mind might tell me otherwise. When your mind is easily manipulated by something out of your control, past emotions could be clouded, situations could be molded. As confident as you are one minute, some slight degree of change, a stupid remark, a gesture, might send everything out of wack.
Let’s establish one thing. I’m not well, mentally. Who is, really? Is this really such a bold statement? There’s one thing I’d like established. I am, or have been for the past several years, focused on psychology…not professionally or scholastically…more on a casual level. I’ve been interested in the inner workings of peoples’ minds, watching how they work, and most importantly, spending way too much time in my own head.
What happens if one day you might discover that everything you’ve been telling yourself or you’ve been believing is unreliable, that you’ve been following a very unstable source. It’s both a blessing and a curse, because on that day you were able to give it a name: obsessive compulsive disorder.
It’s partly exciting, and party frightening. The symptoms are all there. Yeah, most people would read some article by a psychologist and start to believe “hey, this is me,” but it’s a different story when what you’re reading has already been written in your own journal for some time. It never had a name before. Well, it did, loosely…I called it “perfectionism.”
I remember exactly when I named it. I remember exactly what I wrote, because I’m looking at it right now. Written on the back cardstock piece to my pocket-sized notepad are the words Perfectionism controls my life, with – 6/8/04 written underneath. I was sitting on the steps to The Crowbar in State College, PA, a few hours before I would perform as a member of the improv troupe The Comedy Whorehouse.
My pet has always been around…as I search for examples, I have difficulties coming up with solid evidence, because it was all routine. To me, it would be as normal as breathing. For me to feel like this was an abnormality would be, well, abnormal, because this was my reality. Other pieces of evidence are in the differences between my philosophy and actions. While I would spend an absurd amount of time paying attention to detail in, say, a piece of work, the signs are more apparent in my overall thought process and behavior.
Once you name it, a few of your thought patterns come to the surface. You get that lightbulb and realize it’s a problem. I guess a lot of the evidence is clear in my many projects started and abandoned, mostly due to my extreme attention to detail, self-pressure, and realization at one point that if it doesn’t come out perfect, it’s not worth continuing. This is why I never finished those songs, this is why stories start and abruptly end, this is why I don’t try, because for one, there’s probably a thousand other people already doing it and better than I ever could, and two, I might fail.
That’s a huge part of my problem: fear of failure. This comes in many flavors. When you think of fear of failure, the most common examples are pretty much true. That’s a very straight forward statement. The more abstract ideas behind these would involve such concepts as being made to look foolish, such as making a stupid face, performing a foolish physical act, being lied to. Not having control over circumstances which I literally have no control over, such as the way somebody perceives me. I attempt to control that by censoring myself, by hiding things, by judging my every move to try and gauge what other people are thinking about me.
By this point, I’m somewhat proud of myself. I’m still typing, I haven’t stopped and decided to go back and delete everything I’ve written. At times I would censor what I would say online on such a page like this for fear that my family might read it and…well, I don’t know. I don’t really have an answer as far as what they would do. In my mind, it would be some sort of something negative. Negative in the sense that they would be concerned or upset or think I’m completely insane. Enough hiding that.
In my head, there’s this belief that people would think I’m insane. There’s this belief that people would be afraid of me. There’s this belief that if someone I know read this, they would think I’m completely fucked up and not want to deal with me. There’s this belief that people that don’t really know me and are passing through or perhaps considering knowing me would think twice about continuing.
And then there’s me. I’m fascinated and intrigued by people who embrace psychology. I relate better to those who are depressed, to those who sit and think more than they talk, to those who don’t strive to be some extremely socially active becon. I think it makes people more interesting. All that fun inner turmoil. The realization, “wow, we’re fucking insane.”
So here I am…I’m coming out. No, not as a homosexual, but as an insane, depressed being who (believes he) suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder, or more specifically, obsessive compulsive personality disorder. There’s a great article on it here. I read that with wide-eyed awe, as it nearly line for line described me, and gave me a name for that voice in my head. It sucks to have a problem, but it’s great to have a name for it, because that’s the first step of fixing the problem.
The end.