Part-Time OCD & Comma Fury
Does your anxiety ever get so high that it literally gives you short-term OCD? I don’t know if I’m making this up, but I swear it’s happening to me. I’m starting to get really weird about things, but that’s nothing new. I have these odd, bizarre little OCD patches going on throughout my life. It gets worse when my anxiety is at its highest. Like, right now. Is that normal?
Take last night; I got myself ready to go to bed with Bear, but I realised I’d left my new iPad on the couch.
Black iPad + black throw on the couch = blind-Bear-butt-disaster at 6:30am tomorrow.
So, I had to move the iPad to my desk but then I had to find the proper stand for it. I can’t just lay it down on the flat surface because I’m pretty sure I have a ghost in my house. Things keep randomly sliding off of smooth and flat surfaces for no reason, and without any warning. It’s all very odd. It’s also quite unnerving. I don’t even believe in ghosts.
*Must remember to write up my ghostly tales.
Not quite looking crazy enough in front of Bear just yet, I then had to position my Mac in such a way that it was straight on my desk, but not too straight that it knocks the power lead out against the edge of my desk. The battery in the Mac no longer works after the Bear-sock-coffee incident, so it needs to be plugged in all the time. Admittedly, I probably don’t need to leave it plugged in overnight, but I like to give my electronics a thorough beating during their time with me, just to make sure that they really work.
I then noticed that there was a mug next to my Mac, with a bit of tea still left in the bottom of it. I had to move that and, while I was there, I might as well just move the empty glass too. Any liquids around my Mac make me nervous after the above mentioned Bear-sock-coffee incident.
Then, when I thought all my craziness was done, I had to straighten up my camera on the unit on the other side of the room, just in case my cat knocks it off. I also had to move my light rig thing (that I probably should have just broken down and put away) away from the cat tree, just in case of fire.
This is happening every single fucking night, and it’s starting to drive me fucking mental.
WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME?!
It’s not just bedtime that this weird routine is happening either. It happens with commas too.
I know, right?
I will scrap an entire blog post, just out of comma fury. I need someone to come and train me how to write. I seriously don’t know where to put commas so I just stick them everywhere. A past client told me that I didn’t use enough of the little bastards, so then I started using more. Then, a brand new client told me that I used far too many commas. So yeah, I just throw them about a bit now. Potluck where they end up really. But, if I’m writing something that I’m really passionate about, or if I’m worried someone will have something to say, I will re-write an entire sentence and, if necessary, the whole damn paragraph just so I don’t need to make a comma decision. Don’t even get me started on semi-colons. I know I actually know this stuff. I got A*’s in English lit and lang. Like, writing was always my thing. I think I’ve gotten complacent. Or dumb. Maybe I’ve been a shit writer for my entire life?
I’m the same with photos for websites too. If the photo isn’t perfect, I won’t use it. I don’t even know if my photos are as shit as I think they are, or if my mind just doesn’t work right. Bear thinks the latter is the case. He thinks I have body dysmorphia. Plus the type that applies to everything I create – my appearance, my writing, my photos, everything I touch or put together …
Get back to the subject, dear.
I think I’m developing OCD or some weird part-time form of it. This current bout has been getting progressively worse over recent weeks. Things are really starting to annoy me when they’re not how I think they should be.
Pens in a pot. Cans on a shelf. Pants on the laundry-hanger-thing. The way things are set out on my desk.
Worse than that, things are really starting to worry me. I’m starting to freak out about everything.
Is the door locked?
Are you sure?
Can you double-check all the windows in the front room, please, even though we haven’t opened them for about two weeks? Cheers, thanks.
Oh, can you just check the post? I know you only checked it, like, five minutes ago, but the postman mighta been since then, you know?
My makeup hasn’t gone right today. That means I can’t leave the house for at least a week.
I can’t find my other shoe, which clearly means the whole event is off. I don’t care if it’s a cute coffee date with my fella, it’s off. I can’t find my other shoe. Don’t you know what that means? The day is ruined. My life is over.
It’s pathetic. Bear pretends it isn’t, but I know it is. And it’s taking over my fucking life. Do you know how many blog posts I have written up? 112. There’s a fucking folder on my desktop with 112 blog posts that I once wrote to share on this blog and then never did. Mostly because of commas. Occasionally semicolons. Sometimes just because I’m scared that people will call me a cunt, disagreeing with my opinion, and there are times I just can’t/don’t want to deal with that. Sometimes I just write some real shit words on a page, not even a blog post at all. If I can’t make sense of my mumbo-jumblings, how’s someone else meant to? Most of them are half blog posts. I’m like a half-person. I half-do stuff. Half-finish stuff. Half-blah.
Jeez. Maybe I need therapy again?
Oh, I *so* get you on the random bouts of acute OCD.
And commas and write-but-not-publish distress. I have Oxford Comma OCD-itus and nope-not-gonna-post-that syndrome.
Also: categories and tags. I never know what the fuck to call anything or how to classify and label it so it makes search-able, read-able congruous SENSE to anyone.
:: tearing at hair ::
I feel ya.
Ahhhhhhhhh! This is honestly why I can’t finish my novel. I’m about 30,000 words into my latest piss-poor attempt but this time, I’ve gone with a totally different genre. Still the same goddamn comma fury though. It’s so bad. I need a full-time editor to just look over my shoulder and tell me where I’m going wrong. I went to a GRAMMAR school. A GRAMMAR SCHOOL! How can I not understand basic grammar?!?
P.S. The Oxford comma IS a thing. I will ALWAYS use it (hopefully in the right places), and it should not be eradicated. A friend of mine failed an exam to get into care work stuff because he used the Oxford comma (because I told him to). They didn’t recognise it as a real comma. Rude.
Send help.