Saying it out loud. Quietly

Crossed wires

So, I posted about my OCD.

Then a kid whose blog purports he’s ‘17 & trying to help the world’ tells me that my knives are crooked and I should take the picture down and re post it.

Firstly, if my picture sets off your OCD I apologise. I don’t post on my blog with the expectation of anyone actually reading it. This is my way of taking the things making my head too loud and quieting them down (hence the whole ‘Saying it out loud. Quietly’ thing. I am constantly surprised that anyone takes the time to read, let alone comment, on the jumble that comes out of my noggin.  

Now, I’m 31 (far too soon to be 32) and have had my OCD since I was a teenager. I say ‘my OCD’ as that what it is, mine. I don’t claim it is better, worse, or the same as anyone else’s. I have never been officially diagnosed but I know what it is; an anxiety disorder that causes uneasiness, apprehension, fear, or worry. Causing repetitive behaviors, obsessions and the uncontrollable urge to do certain things.

I have control of my OCD now, but for a while it had control of me. I used to feel the need to have everything in order; and felt uneasy if it wasn’t, or I couldn’t change it so it was. To this day, whenever I clean, tidy or organise I go above and beyond what others call ‘neat’ and occasionally (usually when stressed) I go into uber tidy mode. I also counted syllables; any sentance, song lyrics or conversation I heard had to be counted for their syllables. I counted them out on my fingers; left to right, thumbs to little fingers. I had to have it end not only an even finger, but it had to end on my little fingers. If I didn’t, I would start again, on a different finger, until I did.

Where a person is now is not always indicative of where they have been.

Order in the house

You know your OCD is acting up when, after tidying the kitchen you realise:

The knives are organised by size…….

…..and the spice rack is organised not just by type of spice, but by container type AND alphabetically….

The fear factor

Fear.

For years my wife has be trying to find something that scares me. She finds it odd that I’m not scared of anything and has made it her mission to try and prove that I’m actually human.

There is no animal that I will not handle (I’m always the one that removes spiders, bees and bugs from the house), no height I will not jump from (she bought me a parachute jump for my 30th just to check) and pretty much will eat or drink anything (that is veggie friendly of course). Our hag (hen\stag) do was spent at a go ape course crawling over an assault course 100 foot in the air and she had to tell me off for being so happy (some of our friends  bottled out when they saw how high it was).

The truth is, there IS something that scares me. Something that scares me SO bad I don’t know how to deal with it sometimes. I keep it inside though, I make sure I can control it and not let it affect any decisions I make.

Fear is what limits us, it holds us back, and prevents us from living every day to the fullest. People say some fear is good, that it keeps us safe, but I believe these people mistake fear for caution. Caution is checking both sides of the road before crossing the street, fear is not crossing the road at all.

Never let fear be in control of your choices, use caution and common sense, but never use fear.

Watching Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.

Purely for Rebecca revealing her love for Bridget and then kissing her at the end.

I love that it was actually done rather well and not just as a gag.

Jacinda Barrett is far hotter than Colin Firth!