This blog often contains uncomfortable subject matter and occasional sexual content. If you don't want to read about it, empower yourself to close the page. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OCD? Something I didn't realize was weird until just yesterday: I pull out my eyelashes occasionally. I do it at work, even. It's just that my eyelids itch sometimes because of a stray lash that's fallen out or is about to fall out. It seems that I lose them more frequently than most people. I didn't realize how crazy this makes me look until I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, tugging at my eyelashes, stretching the lid away from my eye in the process. How many people at work must be laughing at me all the time behind my back! ANS's so crazy, they probably say, she's so gross, she has like that hair pulling disorder or something. Actually, most of them are probably so ignorant and wrapped up in their own superficial, image-obsessed lives to know about trichotillomania or other disorders. I'm not ashamed of it, but I'm not going to do it at work anymore. I am now convinced that I have a mild case of OCD. The skin picking, the hair pulling, having to check things, and the occasional obsessive thoughts... I don't know why I never considered it until just a few months ago. I know I've covered the skin picking compulsion in depth on this blog, but I haven't mentioned the other stuff much, mostly because it's less severe. But I do enjoy the sensation of plucking out individual hairs. Sometimes I use tweezers to pull out the hairs on my legs. Really, I do it anywhere that I have unwanted hair, it's just that the legs are easiest to access. I've been doing it more often lately because I've cut my nails to prevent myself from skin-picking, and I mean cut them as far down as they'll go (on a side note, this is my most successful attempt to stop picking so far!) Like I said, I enjoy the way it feels. It's this bizarre kind of pain, not in any way severe, but at the same time it can be powerful enough to make the spot that I'm plucking involuntarily twitch. It's almost like an itching sensation, but not quite. And, as with picking, I feel a sense of satisfaction with each hair successfully plucked. It's something I can keep a secret pretty easily since I'm not compelled to pull hairs out of my head. I admit that I do often pull off the dead ends of my hair though. It's another habit I'm trying not to do at work anymore. Something interesting I'd forgotten about until recently: My mom has told me a couple of times that she used to pluck out her eyelashes when she was younger. She said it was because she had styes, but now I'm kind of wondering if maybe she didn't have a similar compulsion. I kind of want to ask her about it, but at the same time I don't want her to worry about my psychological well-being any more than she already does. I'm also a checker. I have been for a long time, but I never realized it. And it's gotten a lot worse. I just second-guess myself all the time. I'll check something and then think, maybe I was wrong last time I checked it, I only glanced at it, maybe I should check it again just to be sure. Every time I put my headphones on at work, I have to take them back off to make sure the sound is coming exclusively from the headphones and not from the computer speakers. I disguise this by tucking my hair behind my ears, so that way it just looks like my hair was bothering me, instead of me checking the sound. I check to make sure doors are locked sometimes, especially if I'm home alone. When I'm in bed trying to sleep sometimes I have to check to make sure my bedroom door is locked. I also sometimes feel an intense need to check for intruders. This is something that developed after I moved into the apartment, mostly because we didn't used to lock the door because we didn't have enough keys for everyone. If I come home to an empty apartment at night (and on rare occasions, during the day) I feel unsafe until I check every room, including the closets, showers, and sometimes even the larger cabinets in the kitchen. Sometimes I can come home to an empty apartment and I only need to check my own room, or I don't feel the need to check at all. Other times, I have to check every room I need to enter, every time I enter it. Example: I check my room before relaxing and surfing the net. But then I need to use the bathroom, and so I check the shower in there, and once I'm done in the bathroom I have to check my room all over again. The need to check for intruders is intensely magnified when I'm stoned. Now on to the obsessive thoughts. I think I've mentioned this before here, but I have a tendency to talk to myself when I'm alone. I don't think this is weird or shameful, but I know a lot of other people do. To me it's like practicing conversations. Conversations that are most likely never actually going to occur, but that's beside the point. It's a way for me to verbally express things that aren't really important or appropriate for other people to know. It's another way to get to know myself better. I don't talk to myself around other people, not in full sentences like I do when I'm alone, anyway. I do tend to carry on in my head sometimes, though, and that's when the obsessive thoughts kick in. I'll be zoned out, daydreaming at work, and thinking about something kind of out of the ordinary, and then I'll think, shit, did I just say that out loud? I know rationally that I didn't actually say anything. But I can't stop dwelling on it. I have to look around and see if anyone is reacting to what I think I may have said. Also, sometimes I get unpleasant images in my head. I might imagine someone hurt or just something kind of gross like rotting meat or shit or vomit, stuff like that. And I'll think, shit, stop thinking about that! Which of course burns the image into my mind until something else outside of my head distracts me, an outside interruption like someone asking me a question or the phone ringing or something like that. And sometimes I think things that I know I disapprove of. Like when I see a black person, sometimes I think, "Don't say the n-word." But I would never call someone that! I hate that word and I feel so ashamed for even thinking it. But then I start thinking, oh god, what if I'm so busy obsessing about not saying it that I accidentally blurt it out in conversation? I am not a racist, and I don't understand why I feel the need to remind myself not to use that word. I didn't know that this kind of stuff is actually common in people with OCD until I was reading up on it a couple of months ago. Turns out people with OCD have all sorts of horrifying, unwanted thoughts like imagining being raped, imagining hurting a child, imagining dead bodies, homosexual thoughts even though the individual is entirely heterosexual, etc. It causes people a lot of guilt and confusion. Like with the gay thoughts, it makes a lot of people think they really are gay, when in fact they just can't get the images out of their heads. If that makes sense? Anyway, I need to go to bed. I just don't think I've ever really written about this in depth before so I thought tonight would be a good time while it was still fresh on my mind. 12:32 a.m. - 2007-08-14 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Not the same anymore? The last two times I've smoked, it hasn't been much fun. I guess last time was all right, but I was nervous because CG and TW and BK were there. I always feel like I act so stupid and childish when I'm stoned. I don't see CG or BK acting all immature when they smoke. They can still carry on conversations. And I'm always worried that TW is listening to all the nonsense I talk about when I think she's not paying attention. She doesn't smoke so I feel like she's observing the rest of us, and laughing at us. Tonight was HB's "grown-up slumber party" and it was mostly pretty boring. I felt like I had to act like I wasn't stoned because Han is uncomfortable around it. And then a bunch of people got back from watching the meteor shower, and they were all drunk. It's weird being around drunk people when you're stoned, because usually the big drinkers aren't also smokers. Oh, and I tried to get up off the couch and move to the beanbag (while passive-aggressively complaining about the couples' nauseatingly sweet displays of affection, I might add)but HB insists on keeping her damn coffee table a foot away from the couch, and I couldn't get through and MD was in the way, and I tripped. And it was like, here's ANS again, too fucked up to walk, ruining people's good time. And I got mad at myself, and everyone could tell, and it was awkward. So mostly after that I didn't talk. I crocheted. And I was dwelling on it, even though I knew everyone had already forgotten about it. I don't think I'm going to smoke around people anymore unless it's just MD and HB and LH and JBen. I can't handle it in front of people I'm not used to seeing all the time. I was thinking I wanted to stop smoking altogether, but I think I just need to limit who I smoke around. I still want to smoke by myself, because I like being able to reflect on things and learn more about myself. But I just can't handle the anxiety around other people. 1:41 a.m. - 2007-08-12 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Appearance issues I was going to post this on MSNBC.com in a discussion forum about Body Dismorphic Disorder, but so many people are quick to dismiss it as a made-up condition created by the pharmaceutical companies, I figured it'd fall on deaf ears. Plus, it got way too long, as anything I write about myself does. Even this paragraph here got too long. I meant for this to be one sentence. Anyway, I liked what I wrote as my response so I decided to post it here. I don't think I have BDD exactly, but I have disliked my appearance since I was a child. I used to look at my reflection sideways in full-length mirrors, glass doors, etc, with my shirt pulled tight to see just how much my stomach stuck out. During puberty, when many other girls still had tiny little stick legs, and my thighs were getting bigger like they were supposed to, I would sit on the edge of my chair so my thighs didn't look so fat. I was teased for having frizzy hair. It is naturally wavy, and after I showered I would brush my hair every couple of minutes until it dried because I was convinced that I could brush it straight. Of course I didn't realize that this was just causing more damage to my hair and making it frizzier. In high school I would cry because I felt like nobody would ever find me attractive. I know I wasn't ugly, but I felt like everyone else found me repulsive. I still have issues with the way I look, but I try not to let it control my perception of myself. I think my eyes are too small and close together, my cheekbones are too big, my forehead is too short, and my jaw is too square and manly. I actually looked up what kind of surgeries would "correct" these perceived flaws, and they were all surgeries for men who wanted to undergo a sex-transition into women. Kind of upsetting to think about when you're already a woman. The only thing I really obsess about, though, is my skin. From about the age of nine I've had mild acne, which I have completely blown out of proportion. I started picking at the blemishes on my face, as many young girls do, but most grow out of it. But for me it has turned into a compulsive skin-picking disorder. When I was fourteen I noticed I was getting blackheads on my shoulders. I would sit under bright lights and pick at them for as long as half an hour, or sometimes even longer. I am twenty now and still have difficulty controlling myself. I am ashamed to show my bare shoulders. I have not worn a tank top or bathing suit in public since I was about fifteen, and sometimes I'm ashamed to even wear a shirt with very short sleeves. I compare myself to other girls all the time. At work I see guys talking to pretty girls and I feel jealous. Sometimes I see a conventionally attractive girl and I get angry at her for being good looking. I then have to remind myself to think rationally, that it's not her fault that she's attractive, it's how she was born, and it's not my fault that I was born to look this way either. I find it very difficult to meet people. Sometimes when I see an attractive guy I look away because I feel like he will feel disgusted and uncomfortable if he knows I'm interested. I don't bother pursuing conventionally attractive men, I usually go for the guys who are not as good looking because I feel like a very attractive man would cheat on me. I know I need to just "get over it" and that nobody is paying attention to how I look. I know I'm not as important as I think I am, and that people have thier own lives to worry about. I tell myself this all the time to remind myself not to obsess. It's a constant argument with myself, sometimes I feel hopeless and depressed, and sometimes I'm telling myself that nobody cares that I have a few blemishes, and if they did care, they wouldn't be worth my time anyway. I am fully away of how irrational all of my insecurities are, but I still fall into the same patterns again and again. 10:29 p.m. - 2007-08-08 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Last night JBen actually kept his word and came over last night. He was kind of drunk. He took a Viagra, one thing led to another, and we ended up having sex. It didn't last very long. It hurt because I got no foreplay leading up to it. Guys really do not understand that. Women need foreplay to get them aroused and prepare their bodies for penetration. Otherwise it's just uncomfortable and boring. I mean, I still had a good time, but it wasn't earth-shattering or anything. He stayed over. It was nice. I'm kind of getting accustomed to sharing a bed with him. I'm definitely less nervous when he stays over. And it's nice to have someone to talk to before I go to sleep. I did tell him he needs to let me know when he's going to be late or when he's going to cancel. I'm not mad at him anymore, but I will be if he does it again. I want to smoke tonight. It's been a few days since the last time I smoked, and it didn't work. I know MD and HB haven't gotten any more weed. It pisses me off because they're my hookup, and when I request it they don't do shit about it until they feel like smoking too. JBen said he knows someone who can get some really good bud, but who knows how reliable this guy is? And it'll be more expensive. I have some salvia but I don't know if I feel like doing that. ES's home and if I freak out and do something crazy, I don't want her to hear. Plus, lately I've been kind of weird, emotionally. I don't know. One minute I'm content, the next I'm furious at the smallest inconvenience, then I'm overwhelmingly depressed, then I'm nervous and afraid, and then I'm in a complete fog, unable to fully believe that anything is real. I still think about suicide pretty frequently. I just can't picture myself ever being satisfied with my life. 7:04 p.m. - 2007-07-25 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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