We're all a little weird!

 OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) is not always about constant cleaning and repetitiveness, those are just some things that some OCD sufferers focus on. Like many people, I thought obsessive cleaning was part of it until I was in my late forties and I started feeling like a stranger in my own body. My mind would race and little things that bothered me became big things. For about a year or more I was really battling myself. I thought I was going crazy. I started wanting to isolate myself as much as I could. I noticed an increase in my irritability and my emotions. I cried easily over what to most people would seem like nothing. Things I hid were harder to hide. I didn't really "hide" things per se, I just avoided things that I knew would bother me. Mike never caught on that I willingly did the grocery shopping in the fall and winter months and he'd do it in the summer months. The reason for this was that pre-covid, the grocery stores didn't have wipes to wash the germs off the shopping cart handles. In the cooler months, I wore long sleeves which I could pull down over my hands to hold the cart handle. This got harder as Mike's A.S. (Ankylosing Spondylitis) progressed and on many days, especially humid summer days, he was in more pain and didn't have the stamina to shop. Mike sometimes would point out my weirdness, I'm sure it was more annoying than he let on, but he just went with the flow for the most part. Eventually, he started noticing the increase in my idiosyncrasies. We didn't really talk much about them other than an occasional eye roll, sigh, or under his breath mumble. He never really complained that I didn't want him to make me an upside-down hamburger or I wouldn't drink out of a can. Then one day, on our way to go babysit, we went to the grocery store together to pick up some tortilla chips and salsa for our granddaughter (all she ever ate back then), we were looking for the kind of salsa she liked and I saw a South-Western style salsa with corn in it. There I stood in aisle 3, and I started gagging, doing all I could not vomit, tears running down my face. That moment, I believe was the last straw for Mike, he said "there is something seriously wrong with you, you need to call Mary Ann (my PCP). Another thing that increased was my need to be what people call a grammar Nazi, something I would never want to be, however with social media, texting, slang, and shortcuts, I have found the urge to correct incorrect grammar, impossible to ignore. Even the sounds of certain words have caused me to break out in itchy, embarrassing hives.

 As far back as I can remember, I had quirky little habits which were sometimes bothersome to me, but wouldn't leave my mind until I acted upon them. I remember when I was a little kid, I heard the bible story of Lot's wife who after being told not to look back at the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, didn't or couldn't resist the urge and looked back, which made her turn into a pillar of salt. I remember thinking that I was like her. Not that I was necessarily defiant but I often had silly urges that I just felt I needed to do. I often had to touch things that I shouldn't or things like (in my mind) the proper way to eat a ravioli, or in a store, always take the third or further back tv guide or magazine, because I just knew the first few were handled by other people. In early elementary school, all I wanted was to behave and please my teachers, but if they told us not to be silly, you know I was the first to giggle, I couldn't help it, I think it made me nervous and nervousness often made me laugh, still does. Makes me wonder if Lot's wife chose to be disobedient or if she had OCD-type urges and couldn't help herself.

With Mike's urging, I finally made an appointment with my doctor. After some conversation, crying, literally breaking out in hives right there in her office, and some testing, I was officially diagnosed with OCD. This was upsetting and a relief at the same time, knowing I wasn't really going crazy, that it was an actual normality in my brain that I was born with, no different than a gene that causes other conditions in other people. From what my doctor told me, at the time of my diagnosis, I was perimenopausal and the fluctuation in my hormones, caused my OCD tendencies to go into overdrive, which led to urges and reactions to things I would have normally been able to resist. I also learned that I have a derivative of OCD called Grammar Pendantry Syndrome (GPS), which explains why improper grammar, spelling, lack of punctuation, and the sound of certain words trigger a physical and mental response in me. I have since been put on medication to help control the responses to my condition and I have had a complete hysterectomy (for other reasons) which seems to have helped regulate my hormones over time.

GPS is a debilitating, off-putting, sociopathic syndrome. It has been found that people who have GPS/OCD have smaller Broca's and Wernicke's areas of the brain (Language center). Grammar rules feed the desire of OCD/GPS sufferers to impose normative order on language that seems to them to be out of control. -researcher L. Malevich Journal of Syntactic Cognition.

"OCD is often portrayed as a quirky, cutesy, bothersome, illness. This couldn't be further from the truth. OCD is a potentially devastating neurologically based anxiety disorder with the ability to destroy lives. There is nothing funny about it."

Many if not most people who have true OCD have a great sense of humor, quick wit, and the ability to laugh at themselves, however in my case, I often break out in hives, get stomach aches and tension headaches due to people, supposed friends even who find it comical to say what they think or know are words that will trigger my responses or will send me or show me pictures that they think will trigger me. They do this to humor themselves. It makes me wonder if they'd be as ignorant toward somebody with a visible condition or disability.

I am one to find humor in just about anything. I am not thin-skinned and I think this world has become way too extreme on political correctness. Too many people get offended by the slightest things. Probably sounds funny coming from someone like me who can't handle certain words or poor grammar, but I doubt every person in this world who gets offended is really offended or has a condition in their brain that makes it impossible for them to control. When I find humor or make a joke about people or situations, it is not specifically at a person with the goal of hurting them or embarrassing them. I am so grateful that my symptoms have become more manageable with the decreased hormones and medication, but I am still struggling with people I care about who try to trigger me for their own entertainment. I hate even saying that because as I said, I am not usually thin-skinned and I don't want to be a big baby about it. I am learning to put myself first, and if they can't take an illness seriously because it's invisible, I wonder if I should avoid these insensitive people whether I care about them or not.