tap.tap.tap.tap.tap.

03.01.09 - Third place, baby!

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Written for the cathARTsis IV contest held by *ItDoesNotHaveMe

(Whoa, the contest was extended an extra week, until the 23rd of January!)



I have a mild form of OCD.

The wikipedia article on OCD describes it as this:

"Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental disorder most commonly characterized by intrusive, repetitive thoughts resulting in compulsive behaviors and mental acts that the person feels driven to perform, according to rules that must be applied rigidly, aimed at preventing some imagined dreaded event; however, these behaviors or mental acts are not connected to the imagined dreaded event."

In my journal, after I found out about this contest and read a little more about OCD, I wrote this about my experience about it:

"I think I'm still obsessive-compulsive. I read a little about OCD so that I could enter a contest and realized I still have a lot of the symptoms. I thought I had it when I was younger because I had these little rituals or whatever, I guess they're called compulsions, and after realizing it was an actual disorder and not my own strangeness, I s l o w l y stopped by making myself realize what I was doing. It was hard, but I thought it was over it. It took that article to realize that I still have those compulsions. The only difference is they're different ones that I didn't identify as compulsions - like checking things over and over and over again. That's the big one. I feel like if I don't, something bad will happen. I also seem to have intrusive thoughts and fears. Any routines I have are set in stone; I once cried because my mom completely rearranged my closet and that completely overwhelmed me, I immediately put everything exactly the way it was. That's not normal. I hate people getting in my stuff because I have to rearrange them, I have some weird system for everything, I'm always scared that I'm going to lose things so I'm always checking them, and not giving into my compulsions immediately
gives way to panic, etc. I also think that my phobia of the dark (and maybe other things) are tied into my OCD also. I still check my closet every night before I go to bed, mulitple times. If I leave the room, I have to do it all over again. I can't sleep with it open. I have to sleep with my two small lights on. I check the clock about a thousand times a night - which I just thought was a symptom of insomnia, but I don't have insomnia really - but I start to feel panicky when I don't and checking it makes me feel better. I still like everything to be symmetrical and not random.

Wow. I really thought I was over with this thing."

I realize now that I will probably never get all the way over my OCD. I try to fight it when I realize I'm giving in to one of my compulsions or having those violent intrusive thoughts - I always thought there was something wrong with me because I thought all those bad things - by doing something to counter them.

I really tried to make my poem reflect my experience with OCD. Everything that's mentioned in it has actually happened to me or has been something I've thought.