Tag Archive for 'OCD'

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Eleanor Roosevelt Quote Revised

Published on June 28, 2007 in Abuse, Borderline Personality Disorder, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Mental Health and PTSD. 4 Comments Tags: .

“Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have the obligation to be one. You cannot make any useful contributions in life unless you do that.”

– Eleanor Roosevelt

I found this quote on nadcesca’s blog but I wasn’t able to leave a comment there because I got an error message. So I’m leaving it on my blog. I really like this quote and I think it works well revised.

“Remember always that you not only have the right to ERASE OLD TAPES , you have the obligation to YOURSELF. You cannot make any advancement in your life unless you do that.”

“Remember always that you not only have the right to be a SURVIVOR, you have the obligation to be one. You cannot make any real advancement in life unless you do that.”

Mercy and Peace

What I mean by the statement above is that I will have to fight myself doubts, fight my past and fight my present state of mind to get to where I need to go. I’ll have to battle with my abusers for space. I’ll have to tap resources to get my needs met. Healing will be an uphill battle that I plan to win. Changing thought patterns, changing old coping skills will have to be done “by force” through therapy, through journaling, through art, through friendship and connection. These things I’ll have to force myself to do sometimes because my strength gets low and my spirit fades. Most of the fight is with myself but as I said, I plan to win and be at peace in my mind. The ultimate goal is healing, it always has been.

Austin of Sundrip

OCD Chronicles and Confessions

Published on June 18, 2007 in Borderline Personality Disorder, Humor and Relationships. 6 Comments Tags: .

I think I’ve cleaned every corner of this house this week end with Blossom here. I washed the windows, the windowsills; steam cleaned the carpets again and did 3 loads of laundry. I even dusted the entire house. It needed to get done; I had the energy to do it so I did it. After that I made turkey and dressing, fresh spinach and candied carrots. Before I could even serve it Blossom coughed over it with her mouth uncovered. I was furious. Later that evening she coughed the same way and sprayed shit all over my hand and face. I calmly walked to the restroom and showered it off. If that wasn’t bad enough, she later began making a pot of coffee and decided that instead of getting a towel to dry the pot she’d use her handkerchief to do it. She pulled her nasty ass hanky from her back pocket, the same one she’s been using for 4 days now and wiped down the coffee pot. I couldn’t believe my eyes. My coffee pot had just been wiped down with a snot rag. To my surprise my roommate found this act quite vile. If a person can gross out my roommate they’re good and gross cause that man is nothing short of triflin’. “You want some coffee Barney?” “Uh, no, no I’m good.” Needless to say it wasn’t a pleasant weekend. That girl knows how to upset OCD issues but you do not have to have OCD to find her behavior nasty. Continue reading ‘OCD Chronicles and Confessions’

I’m Not My Mother

Published on June 18, 2007 in Borderline Personality Disorder, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Mental Health, PTSD, Soapbox and Therapy. 8 Comments Tags: .

I actually called myself by my birth name this weekend. I can’t believe it came out of my mouth. I usually call myself Austin. Heck Blossom calls me that too. It just comes out, Austin this, Austin that. So I was looking for whatever and couldn’t find it and said, “Okay (insert birth name) where is it?” Usually I would have said, “Okay Austin, where is it?” I was shocked that name came out of my mouth. I think it might have happened because I ran into an old school mate who called me by that name.

Last week in therapy Dr. T and I talked about characteristics of my mother’s that I do not have. I told him I recently added a bit of red to my hair like when I was little because I look just like my mother. It’s rather disturbing to look in the mirror and see her. I’d rather look like my father so I added a bit of red, just a bit mind you. This lead to the discussion that I may look like my mother’s twin but I’m not my mother. I listed a few things that we don’t have in common. I have my mother’s lips. I have my mother’s hands and facial expressions. But I don’t have my mother’s spirit. I do not have a love for violence, for violating others, for humiliating or demeaning. I have my mother’s shape but I do not have my mother’s personality. I have dark hair like my mother but I do have a dark heart like hers and I do not find pleasure in the pain of others. I try to remind myself of these things when I see her reflecting back at me in the mirror. I look like her but I’m not her.

One of the things my mother and I also have in common is OCD. She likes to laugh and so do I. My mother is quite spontaneous. I’m not spontaneous but we share a love for art and poetry. She’s interested in cultural history as well as language arts but she’s not interested in how you feel when she’s hurting you. My mother likes the colour gray best on the colour spectrum. She likes her ice cream soft and prefers butter pecan to any other. She loves nuts, diet Pepsi and Snickers candy bars. I happen to like them all as well. My mother and I have tastes that match like our love of cars and choppers, the country side, historic landmarks, caving and tennis. Even so, we do not share a lust for offering up pain. So no matter what traits we have in common it is the things we don’t share that makes looking at her in the mirror tolerable.

I have her hands. I have her face and her body type but I’m not my mother.

 

Update: A Nike ad says perfectly that we may look like our parents but we are not them unless we choose to be. Image compliments of Jigsaw Analogy .

Austin

I’m Not My Mother
Monday, June 18, 2007-7:46PM EST

OCD Confessions

Published on May 12, 2007 in Mental Health. 3 Comments Tags: .

As I talked to the lady outside my fence about the domestic violence shelter I thought to myself, Dear God I hope her kids don’t have to go to the bathroom cause I can’t let them in to go. I don’t have to money to replace a toilet seat AGAIN.

Me and my dang on restroom issues. And why do I fear kids? They seem so germ filled…and old people..my God I fear them more. How I ever came to live with two cats and a dog I will never know. How I survived being the foster mother of three toddlers I will never know. Now when I think about it I want to disinfect myself. It’s sad but it’s true. While I spoke with this woman about her future and mine in the back of my head I worried that she would ask if her kids could use my restroom.

Austin

OCD Running High

Published on April 15, 2006 in For the Record. 0 Comments Tags: .

2:10 AM

I’m going to have to ask for OCD meds again. It’s getting to the point where I just cant stand anything at all. Tonight we had to go into the restroom to hide from the storm. I dropped a washrag on the floor and it immediately went into the trash. I brought blankets in the restroom with me so that Cap would have something to lay on. When it came time to leave the porcelain hiding place I wanted to toss those too. I didn’t. I just got one of them. The storm left a lot of flooding. As a matter of fact my front yard looks like a swimming pool. I knew that I wouldn’t go outside with it covered in water. Right now I want to tuck my head between my knees and hide my face. I don’t have claustrophobia unless I’m in some place with a lot of dirt, real or perceived. Because of the amount of mold and the obvious signs of mouse activity in the closet under the stairs, I figure that I’d get in there and really freak out. I’m calling the doctor on Monday. Lord knows I don’t have the money to keep replacing stuff. Also, you have to be able to touch stuff to be able to clean it. The house is a mess. The worse it gets the worse I get.

It’s difficult to go into my own restroom. It’s difficult to have my friends brush up against me. God forbid they should be wet when they do that. My mother said she use to sit on the bed and hold her knees because she was too afraid to get off the bed for fear of germs. I wish I could say that it wasn’t getting to that point. Right now I’d like to lay on my bed and cry. I feel broken.

Obsessive Cleaning

Published on February 28, 2006 in Dissociative Identity Disorder, Mental Health, PTSD and Therapy. 6 Comments Tags: .

When I start cleaning things I know there are issues inside that need to be dealt with. When I see dirt everywhere, when I would do the same load of laundry 3 times if it didn’t look strange to Barney, when I run disk defrag twice or change the bed sheets twice on Monday’s then I know I’ve got some issues to deal with. When I start that damn cleaning every inch of the house then it means inside is chaotic and in my mind that’s “unclean” it’s cluttered, it’s out of control. I know very well that when I start cleaning shit left and right that its really me I want to clean. I can’t scrub enough to get that feeling out of my head.

I was talking to someone, I can’t remember who, and I was telling her about rearranging the herb cabinet. I have 35 fresh herbs and spices so this was no small task. If you add in the store bought shit then the task is even larger. I was there for over 3 hours. The labels had to be just right. They all had to be in the same direction. I had herbs together, spices together, barriers and then whole spices together. Then I alphabetized them according to those specifications. Lord that was one very long night. But it felt like if I walked away my mind would crack more than if I stood there and re-arranged them for another friggin hour.

When I was cooking dinner today I could see every single speck of dirt in that kitchen. At one point I wanted to run out of there back to my relatively clean area. For the love of Pete, don’t let it rain. Rain means mud and that my mind can’t handle. This is getting crazy I tell ya, just crazy. I was watching King of Queens. They had a show about bed bugs. I had to turn that shit off. It wasn’t funny to me. Hell, I have enough trouble laying down in that bed without worrying about friggin germs. So, I turned it off.

I was so happy Barney wasn’t here to see me the other day when I about threw away a glass because of a perceived stain. God that was horrible. I knew I was doing it so I tried to just walk away from it.

Right now I’m feeling rather useless and like a failure. I feel a bit lonely too I think. If I could give in and lay down I might save myself a bit of trouble. Giving in hasn’t been something I’ve ever been able to do. I have to fight until there isn’t anything left. When I get to that point and lay down there is nothing but shame. I call it the Broken Boxer Syndrome. You fight as long as you can but for the sake of living you throw in the towel. There’s a bit of humiliation involved but you get to live in the end. Sometimes it feels like if I don’t lay down I’ll lose my friggin head. If I’ve been up for a few days in a row, fighting sleep, trying to contain my thoughts then that 4th night I end up throwing in the towel. I can’t take another minute of being awake so I just go lay down. But it feels like I have nothing left to fight with when I give in like that. I know what I’m going to dream. Hell I dreamed it again last night. so why on earth would I not fight it like this?

I was thinking too about the containers issue that I spoke of the other day. Not only do I keep containers but most of them are glass. I can see through them. I obviously have control issues. My dishes are mostly glass. I need to be able to see through them. I need nothing to be hidden on them, no areas where I can’t see through them. I have some plates that aren’t glass but most of them are glass and they’re the same exact plate from the same exact store. Again, control issues.

I have to throw in the towel. I have to either throw it in or break my teeth as I grit them and type this damn entry. God help me ‘cause obviously I can’t help myself.

Ariel
Obsessive Cleaning
Tuesday, February 28, 2006-3:46 AM

Hangin’ In

Published on February 13, 2006 in Borderline Personality Disorder, Dissociative Identity Disorder, For the Record, Mental Health and PTSD. 0 Comments Tags: .

I didnt realize yesterday was Sunday until later in the day. That means no bread got made, the dog didnt get washed and I didnt make any phone calls. But I had a better day than the man the Vice President shot. I’m not sure why it takes a 28-gauge shotgun to hunt quail unless the quail is the size of Harvey the Rabbit. I’m not a hunter but a the word shotgun kinda sounds like he really wanted quail scraps and not a whole quail. My goodness. Anyway, so yesterday went pretty well. I can’t complain. Barney had a V-Day date with some broad. I’m kidding, she looked like a nice woman. She tested the limits of my OCD when she asked Barney if she could use the restroom on the first floor. He said it belonged to me and that she would need to use his upstairs. My goodness, had she asked me to use my restroom he would have been embarrassed because I couldnt have let her use it. The whole time I lived at my last apartment Slave Girl didnt use my restroom and I was going out with her. For 5 years that woman never used my restroom. I let one person use it one time and I went out and bought a new seat. OCD can get expensive. UK didnt flinch when I told her she couldnt use my restroom. Her daughter (age 15) has OCD worse than I do so she understood completely. And she knows OCD can be expensive.

I actually slept again. I slept on the loveseat again. Well, I started out on the loveseat and moved to the bed. I had nightmares again, manageable ones I’d say. I think this will be a very long day because it’s only 7:30AM and I’m bored as all get out. It’s not like there isnt’ plenty of stuff to do. It just seems so early and I fear getting it all done and having nothing left to do. I look forward to watching Jay Leno cause you know he’s going to have a hay day with this shooting. I just wish it was Bush that shot the guy. We could add it to the list of stupid things he’s done like choking on a pretzel and ending up in the ER, falling off his bike and things along that line.

Destiny