SEVEN KINDS OF CRAZY
I often try to describe the anxiety part of what it's like to have ODC, OCPD, ADHD, a severe anxiety disorder, depression, trichotillomania, and body dismorphia. I try to describe the intensity, the catastrophic focus of this anxiety. "Gods, this is CATASTROPHICALLY WRONG and the air is just thrumming and charged with DISASTER and I'M a HOT MESS and it's all just about to get SO MUCH WORSE." It's not just worry. Not worry measured out with logic in proportionate scale to the object of worry.
Instead, it's the feeling you might have if you were strapped into the seat of a plummetting airplane, on fire, emergency alarms blaring, useless emergency masks bouncing, careening in out of reach as you scramble for one, turbulence tossing steward into the air so their bodies flail by, everyone screaming, YOU SCREAMING as you plow straight down into the hazy hot heart of an erupting volcano.
That feeling is close to bursting you ALL OF THE TIME unless you can manage to mute it a few minutes or hours with a pill, or unless you are pulling (calming obsessive self-harm). or maybe you're talking really fast and doing well at it or EXPLAINING ALL THE THINGS or SENDING ALL THE TEXTS to address a perceived PROBLEM.
So when I tell you that "I'm seven kinds of crazy" yes, I'm supes hilarious, but also I'm trying not to vocalize the constant background screaming and flailing of the hapless crew of my brain's starship bridge. I'm laughing so I won't start screaming, or maybe explode. (EYEBALL SPURTS BLOOD.)
On Social Media...
OCPD+ADHD+Severe Anxiety Disorder:
EVERY post in your feed wants YOU to reply to it thoughtfully and with care! And it should be funny! The time you spend in replying expresses your regard for the poster! The poster might be SO SAD if no one engages so you should act quickly to head off their potential devastation! (EYEBALL SPURTS BLOOD, TONGUE WORRIES LOOSE TOOTH OMG ALL OF THEM ARE LOOSE WHY ARE THEY LOOSE)
Neurotypical Response:
I can keep scrolling. I don't need to check FB every five minutes. No disaster will occur if I fail to engage any posts at all for days. Weeks. Months. People do it all the time without erupting into spontaneous self-immolation!
OCD scrupulousity loop+OCPD+ADHD+Severe Anxiety Disorder:
I SCREWED UP! I said a WRONG THING on FB and now everyone knows the HIDDEN TRUTH about me that I've worried so much will suddenly be true and it was true all along. All those hours of lost time caught in worry-spirals were RIGHT! I'm a binary and absolute certified (IDIOT/JERK/BIGOT/SINNER/TERRIBLE PERSON/PEDOPHILE/MURDERER/SERIAL KILLER) and here's the evidence! I've always worried that I would suddenly turn out to have always been this cartoonist caricature of monstrous harm, AND NOW IT'S TRUE (EYE SPURTS BLOOD, TONGUE WORRIES LOOSE TOOTH OMG ALL OF THEM ARE LOOSE WHY ARE THEY LOOSE, MUSCLES TEAR FREE FROM BONES).
Neurotypical Response:
Oh, I screwed up there! Shoot! I should apologize, thank them for telling me, and commit to learn how to do better and put in the work to make amends and then actually do better. It's not about me.
ODC+ OCPD+ADHD+severe anxiety disorder+depression+trichotillomania+body dismorphia:
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! (EYE SPURTS BLOOD, TONGUE WORRIES LOOSE TOOTH OMG ALL OF THEM ARE LOOSE WHY ARE THEY LOOSE, MUSCLES TEAR FREE FROM BONES, SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION)
It has taken me a long time to understand that not everyone is running an unstoppable internal monologue of GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
(Half the time that I express this people say "hahaha oh, you should write a book!" So maybe this would be a good monologue to strip down and work into the opening scene of my YA contemporary novel in progress about a seven kinds of crazy girl like me! More later, when I untangle the plot!)