OCD – The quirky mental illness

Okay, I have OCD, the cutesy acronym for obsessive compulsive disorder. Actually I like the moniker "OCD." Growing up, people would call my "anal" and it did not seem very lady-like (or girl-like). "Anal retentive" I guess was what it was short for, and I just did not like the idea of retaining anything in my arse. Know what I mean.

I am not going to tell you all of the particulars of OCD – there are actually some aspects of this disorder that are not that pleasant.

I have been diagnosed with OCD – actually, it happened after I started counseling. I had a lot of the classic symptoms. I actually did not even know about the disorder before I entered counseling. And you can take medicine to lessen the symptoms – but I will tell you that the medications are particularly influential on your thoughts, and to some extent, your personality. I am glad that I took these drugs, but I am now off of them. I would rather deal with my OCD than the side-effects of the drugs.

I don't want this entry to be clinical; I am an OCD patient, not some sort of counselor. But I have learned a lot about OCD – and I definitely don't want to talk about the demons.

So instead of saying something clinical, I will let you know what happened the other day at the gym, and it is because of OCD (not that I should blame OCD for this, but if I did not have OCD, it would not have happened; I blame myself, but part of me, all of me, has OCD).

Anyway, so I am in the gym. And I go to the gym 5 days per week – and have a different routine each day of the week. Tuesdays are swim days. I am at my locker, after opening it, and I am getting into my very plain-looking "Olympic" one-piece bathing suit (actually, it is made by Dolfin – and I think it may be a Speedo knock-off). And as I am carefully placing some of my clothes in the duffle-bag, I notice a small hole in my panties. Without really thinking, I toss them in the nearly garbage. I continue placing everything very carefully in the locker, and I am off to hit the showers before swimming.

I am a clean person – but I still don't really understand getting wet before swimming. It is a rule, and as a person with OCD, I salute, shower, and then hit the lanes. So after the swim – in an indoors pool that is 5 degrees too warm to really swim well in, I og back to the locker, grab my shampoo, hit the showers.

Then I come back to my locker – and get ready to dress and leave. I search through my duffle, and I can't find my freaking panties. They are just gone. Then I trace my actions back to me tossing them in the garbage. So I dress without panties. More uncomfortable than sexy, and I am a little surprised actually. That is little embarrassment #1 because of OCD. The other was as I was dressing.

I heard a cel phone go off in a locker. And my first instinct was to find a piece of paper to take a message – you know, something like, "Hey, I heard your cel phone go off while I was dressing. It went off three times; it could be important." Then I thought, "Man, this is ridiculous. It was a compulsion to perform that menial task.

Not terribly insightful of witty today, just writing words. Oh, and the next day, I brought an extra pair of panties to put in my desk drawer, "just in case."