Life Update

I decided to need to post something since I haven't posted anything in like, what? a month, maybe more? 

Something about me, I have OCD.  I'm not As Good As It Gets, Jack Nicholson or Monk, Tony Shalhoub but I do have OCD and when changes to my routine or unexpected stress comes along I have a really hard time adapting and moving forward.

The first of January I fell into financial trouble and then my mother had a heart attack.  Combine these things with me already dealing with the, "What are you going to do now?"  and doubting my ability to actually write sent me into a mental and emotional overload.  All I wanted to do was hide under the bed.    

The reason I mention the OCD is because for "normal" people when a series of bad things happens to them, they become sad, stress, cry and eat their weight in ice cream before they put on their big girl/boy panties/briefs and grab life by the balls.  For me, an OCD person, I become depressed, lethargic and I don't eat.  I blame and berate myself for not having foresight.  I tell myself that I'm stupid and deserve the bad "karma" I'm getting.  I take aim at my body, calling myself ugly and fat, sure that this is why everything is going wrong.  I basically obsessive compulsively over my faults, true or false. 

I have other ticks, nonstop counting in my head, drawing the same patterns over and over, organizing and reorganizing items and a whole myriad of things that I can usually control and even keep from doing when I'm having a "normal" day/week/month/etc.

But when I have a series of downs --as I have had-- everything goes to shit. Because along with the ticks and the personal self-esteem bashing comes the anxiety.  I get anxious, that I'm not going to finish counting before someone stops me and I'm upset when I'm interrupted.  I worry that I'll never come out of the black hole I know I'm in.  I can feel my skin crawling, there's a squealing in my ears and tears are ready to pour out of my eyes at the slightest provocation and I can't breath. 

I just want to sleep to avoid everything, the problems, the berating, the anxiety.  Because in sleep there's peace and I don't have to deal with trying to be a "normal" person. 

However, the past few weeks things have slowly turned around. 

The weekend of the 11, I presented at a conference and got a lot of positive feedback.  Last week, I got news that the financial stuff while not completely fixed it is better than it was.  Today I got news that I'm being put in a pool for a possible online teaching position and I've started getting emails about possible job opportunities in my field.   

I'm still broke as hell.  I don't have a job in my field and I haven't written anything expect this blog but I've stopped torturing myself, stopped counting and I can breath again.   

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