If I park on the fifth floor

I have OCD. It's been bad lately. It's not just that I am obsessive and compulsive about certain things, but I have actual OCD. Completely irrational thought and behavior associations coupled with anxiety.

I've never been treated for it because according to any doctor I've ever discussed it with, unless it really impairs my ability to live, then there is no point in even trying to treat it because it's very hard to treat. So I live with it. Sometimes it's better, sometimes it's worse. But I know how to deal with it. I can talk myself out of it because I know, if I can separate myself from the anxiety feeling, that it is completely irrational. The way it works is that I get anxious, sometimes about something, sometimes about nothing - then I start to associate relief from the anxiety with a completely unrelated activity. Like if I double check the stove my anxiety about work will go away.

When I am under stress, it's worse. Like I said, it's been bad lately. And instead of talking myself out of it, I've been giving into it. Because who wouldn't want a little relief from this unrelenting anxiety.

My irrational thought/behavior associates usually involve food. But I've realized over the past few weeks that I am doing things repetitively again. Like doing things in the same order every morning as I try to get out the door. This is what I did as a kid, besides washing my hands until they were bloody. I would do the same things in the same order every night before going to bed, and if I did something out of order I would start over. It's not the worst that it's ever been, but I am noticing more and more that I am having problems with it.

In particular, I have been stressed about work lately, and extremely stressed about the follow-up mammogram that I had today. Who wouldn't be anxious with that going on. Beyond trying to negotiate my way out of having breast cancer with God, I've been playing all sorts of OCD games trying to deal with it and alleviate it. Like if I eat the cupcake, I will have breast cancer again (so I can't eat the cupcake). Not eating the cupcake makes me feel better. This is so completely irrational. But I threw the cupcake away. Another example, if I go to the AA meeting I won't have breast cancer again. So I better go. I skipped it and I felt really bad, like this could have been a dire mistake. This morning, as I arrived for my mammogram, I had the thought, if I park on the fifth floor, I won't have breast cancer again.

I didn't eat the cupcake and I parked on the fifth floor - and I am still cancer free!

My mammogram was clear.

Puzzle pieces

I've been saying that I'm unhappy. Not depressed, just unhappy. I think I have figured out why. Or part of the reason anyway. A piece of the puzzle. I don't think I want to live in Chicago anymore. I've liked it here, but I don't want to live here anymore. I feel alone here in some ways. I feel like I want my life to be somewhere else. Like my life needs to change, it needs to go in another direction, and that direction is taking me literally somewhere else. I want to live closer to where my brother and sister-in-law and nephew live. I want to be closer to them. I know I know, don't look for happiness in your external circumstances. I know all that. But I think I would be happier and feel less alone if I lived closer to them. I'm not sure exactly why I'm feeling this way but I've been feeling intensely sad and lonely lately. It's making me want to move. And no, it's not taking the "geographic cure" as they say. I just really really want to be closer to part of my family. Especially if I am going to have a baby on my own.

It's about that time again

Doesn't it seem like I just went through this bullshit of having a mammogram? It does, doesn't it? Well it's been almost 6 months because I have another one two weeks from today. It's about that time when I start freaking out and my days start to be ruined in anticipation of it. I am trying not to have that happen, but to no avail. I know the odds are in my favor, I know all of the statistics, it's not making me feel better. My oncologist is way too overly confident and flat out says that it's not going to happen again. Her confidence does not make me feel better at all, it makes me nervous actually. After this mammogram, they switch to once a year. I am not sure whether I feel better or worse about that. On the one hand maybe it is easier to put it behind you, but on the other hand - are you really being checked and watched closely enough? I just don't know how I feel about it. Sometimes I wish I would have had a double mastectomy so that I wouldn't have to go through this. Did I leave myself in a position to get it again when I could have prevented it? I don't know. I know that it's still an option but my doctor doesn't recommend it at this point. Partly because of my age, partly because I had radiation and partly because the odds are in my favor. But weren't the odds in my favor in the first place? Meaning this never should have happened to begin with.

Climb on

Today I went climbing after work. I guess I haven't been in two weeks. It was awesome. I need to go more often because it is the only thing that makes me feel okay lately. I like the mental and physical challenge. And the fact that it shuts your whole brain down. I guess I really needed an escape from the constant noise and crazy in my head these days and the constant sadness. For two hours anyway, I was relieved.

With slightly less dread and not a lot of motivation

This morning (well and yesterday I guess), for the first time in a long time, I did not feel overwhelming dread about going to work. I can't remember the last time I felt okay about going to work. Usually at about three on Sunday the reality and the dread set in. Not yesterday or today though. Trouble is, once I got here, I was completely unmotivated to do anything. The partner is on vacation. And on Friday when I left, it seemed like I have tons to do while he is gone, but, I guess because I feel no time pressure, I am totally unmotivated. I am definitely more efficient when I have tons to do and the pressure of deadlines. As it is, I have stuff to do by next Thursday, therefore, that gives me a few days to waste until the time pressure builds up a bit and I get motivated to do something.

Other than that, I've just been feeling generally sad lately, crying a lot for no real reason other than just a completely overwhelming feeling of sad.

Gone sailing

Fine but not like I expected

So I walked in the Relay for Life cancer walk in Dexter Michigan on Sat. Remember before I was worried, would I be upset, would I be fine, no idea? It turns out I was fine. There was one moment during the survivor walk that I could have cried if I had allowed myself to, but of course I didn't. Overall it was kind of weird actually. I was on a large team of people and it felt sort of awkward because the only two people I really knew were the organizer of the team and my cousin. I didn't know anyone else. Everyone else around my age on the team were coupled and all had kids who were there for all of the kid activities. And then there was me. Feeling mostly uncomfortable and very much like an outsider as much of the activity and conversation surrounded children. And even when it didn't, I still felt like I didn't belong there. I'm a pretty quiet person - not necessarily one to strike up conversations with random people. The result was that not that many people talked to me at all really. I just sort of felt like I was there. By the end of the night I really just kind of wanted to go home early. I just sort of felt like I was done. It was emotionally draining even though I didn't have much emotional reaction to it, if that makes sense at all. And it's difficult sometimes to be surrounded by people with children like that. It's hard to pretend like the conversation is interesting sometimes and you have nothing to offer to it. I didn't mean to seem disinterested I just didn't have anything to say.

In some ways I am not surprised that I didn't have a strong reaction to it, it's just not really me to publicly display emotion. The whole thing felt sort of weird to me. It wasn't what I expected it to be, either good or bad. It was something entirely different. Despite what it felt like or how it seemed at times, I was happy to be a part of something so important even though it's not really my kind of thing. I wish I could connect with people more over having been through something similar, but I can't seem to. Like I had said before, maybe I have processed it already in the only way I am able to. And maybe the way I deal with it is the right way for me, or the only way for me. Not sure.

And yes, I know, it wasn't about me or how I felt, I'm just reflecting on how it felt to me to participate in something like this for the first time. I don't know how to describe it really except that it wasn't what I expected in any way.

This isn't the first time recently that I've been reminded about expectations. I feel like something is pointing me towards changing them. More on that later.