Obsession

Ambiguous Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, that’s what I have.

Probably.

I’m not sure “ambiguous” is the right word or not but that’s what I’m going with. Maybe some of you suffer from it too, but allow me to describe it to you and see if it applies.

There are things around me in my house that I could really give 2 shits about where they are. In a pile on a shelf – it’s not neat but I know where it is. My roommate gave me a hard time the other day about cobwebs in the living room and I could not have cared less about them.

He’s 6’4″, he can get ’em.

Then there is the other side of the disease. The part where I am absolutely, 100% certifiably bat-shit crazy obsessive about things.

I’ll use the worst one for my example, the kitchen. It has to be clean, everything put away, counters wiped down, sink clean and everything in a certain place. Let me be clear, I did not say that I want it to be clean, I said it HAS to be clean. Yes, I cook in it quite a bit and I’m pretty damn good at it. I will absolutely wreck the place when I’m cooking, but when I walk into it to begin cooking, it has to be clean, organized and ready for me to prepare whatever cooking challenge I have chosen that particular day. I may then begin to trash the place. Neatly.

All of the ingredients will be pulled out and placed in a row on the counter, spices already measured out and put in little glass dishes. All necessary implements, pots, pans, devices are out and ready to go. Sure, stuff gets spilled, meats drip and get all over the place and I am convinced that anything involving flour automatically means that flour be everywhere after you’ve used it, whether it’s a teaspoon or 4 cups. It is the nature of cooking, but ….

When I am done cooking, the kitchen will return to the state it was in when I walked in to begin.

I recently took a stab (successfully I might add) at Boudin (or Boudain depending on who you ask). If you live or have ever spent any time in New Orleans or Baton Rouge, you know what this is. For those of you that don’t, it is a sausage with pork, rice and a bunch of other stuff in it. 18 ingredients total. Don’t glaze over the part where I said “sausage”, you are goddamn right I stuffed all that shit into hog casings. I have a KitchenAid and the sausage stuffer attachment and I successfully accomplished it.

I know, pics or it didn’t happen, Eric.

I got ya covered.

It’s a slideshow, so have fun.

This new WordPress may not be so bad.

The whole point is, it made a gigantic mess. I’ve never stuffed sausage before so I don’t know if it’s supposed to be that messy but it was.

That’s what she said.

The part I’ve just taken a very long time to get to is that when I was finished, the kitchen was returned to the state it was in when I first walked in. It looked like sausage never happened, because it HAS to be that way. Everything put away, counters wiped down with a Clorox cleaner, stove clean and shiny and coffee pot set for the next day.

I got up yesterday and my roommate had apparently got the munchies the night before and decided to make toast. He had already left for work. I walked in and there was a dirty butter knife resting on the edge of the sink, the toaster was still on the counter (it lives on top of the refrigerator) and there were crumbs all over the counter.

I cleaned it up while fighting back the urge to have a nervous breakdown.

That’s how you get ants, man.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRFpQuRF7YQ?si=UCqI7zdm5-dkozdF&w=560&h=315]

It’s getting cold, so it’s also how you get mice.

It also causes my right eye to twitch uncontrollably.

I let it slide because he’s been an incredible friend to me for a very long time, especially the last couple of months while I recover from the accident. He takes care of the stuff I can’t. Little shit you take for granted when you aren’t in a wheelchair like taking out the trash, taking the dumpsters to the street, and vacuuming. He’s also saved my life financially. He’s the only reason I am currently able to sit here in my office and just type away, so yeah, I let it slide. My reaction to it is my disease, not his.

There are some other things that I am that way about, but the kitchen is the worst. I like my office to be as clean as possible, but it’s a weird room. It was originally a bedroom when the house was built in 1954, but when they added a big master bedroom at the end of the house in the early 70’s, the room became a giant walk-in closet, so there are shelves and bars to hang clothes on three walls of the room, so it’s an awkward setup, but it has my giant desk, dual monitors and my inappropriate picture of Melissa Rouch (aka Bernadette from Big Bang Theory).

Some of my malfunction is just bizarre. I kind of don’t give too much of shit about the living room, but I’ll line things up on the coffee table, neatly and in some kind of order that makes sense in my brain. This is also the same room where my roommate gave me shit about the cobwebs, but I used a laser level, tape measure and hired a German engineer to hang a bunch of my favorite vinyl on the walls.

With all that insanity, my bedroom is a shitshow. I have a king size bed and I’m single, so half of my bed is a giant table. That’s where the TV remotes are, along with a notepad and pen, back scratcher, bag of earplugs, hydrocortisone cream for my unexplainable and invisible randomly occurring persistent itchy places (which are also random), and the empty cookie bag that I finished a week ago.

No, I’m not showing you a fucking picture of that and it was rude of you to think it. Because I know you did.

I’m thinking now that “ambiguous” was the right word but the affliction does have its uses. When I stop obsessing about the kitchen and it starts to get messy, like dishes piling up in the sink rather than into the dishwasher, crumbs, more dishes and unidentified sticky places on the counter and pots and pans still on the stove – this is a sign, to me and my roommate, that depression is rearing its ugly head and I’m slipping back into dark places in my brain.

It’s the very reason I’m back writing again, for a little self-therapy to enhance the professional therapy. I’ll say this about Wellbutrin, when it works, it works great, but there are times, for whatever reason, it just stops working. I don’t know if it’s a chemical change in my brain due to particular stressors or what it is, but when it happens, it’s bad and seems to get worse at times.

Prior to the accident, that is precisely what happened. The accident only made it worse and my brain went somewhere darker than it has ever been. I can say, with great confidence, that was absolutely the lowest I have ever felt in my life. I felt lost, abandoned, ashamed, worthless and any other negative thing you can think of.

My entire house looked like a homeless camp and I pretty much lived on the couch or my bed in front of the TV. I didn’t shower or change clothes and I poured alcohol on the pain while simultaneously not taking my meds because I could not work up the energy to refill my pill box. The only thing I was doing correctly just by the nature of depression, was not putting any weight on my hip because all I did was lay around.

I still had enough money in my bank account to get a Lyft to take me to the VA hospital in Durham and I worked up just enough energy to shower, put on clean clothes and get in the Lyft. She dropped me off outside the Emergency Room. I hobbled in with my walker and the waiting room was unusually empty.

I begged them to help me.

Turns out I didn’t need to beg them, they just did it. I was on a bed in the ER almost immediately. My time in the waiting room was less than 5 minutes. A couple of hours later, I was in a bed on the 7th floor where I spent the next 4 days.

They dried me out, helped me with the pain in my hip and got me a consult with a psychiatrist. They made damn sure I was taking my meds too. When I finally went home, Veterans Transportation Services gave me a ride. I had and continue to have appointments with counselors and my primary care doctor to keep a close eye on my wellbeing and medications. There are also the follow up appointments with the surgeon to gauge the healing process of my hip.

Now here we are. Me, writing again, opening the front door to let some light in at my brother’s suggestion and I’m doing ok. There are still some residual effects.

I cry at the drop of a hat. Yesterday, a little late to the party, but I finally kicked back and watched Bohemian Rhapsody. If you haven’t seen it and you’re even a little bit of a fan of Queen, you must watch it. Rami Malek was Freddie Mercury reincarnated. I don’t know how many times I cried while I watched it, but it was a lot.

Other than that, I’m ok. We’ll hold back on “I’m great” just yet, but I’m moving in the right direction.

My obsessions are back. I get an aneurism when I awaken to shit left out in the kitchen by my roommate, but again, I let it slide because he does so much for me. Just this morning he gave me a ride to my second follow up appointment with the surgeon and when he gets home from work, he’s going to take me to the grocery store to grab a few things.

He’s a good dude for sure and like I said, my OCD is my problem, not his.

I apologize for taking a dark turn at the end of this post, because I promise, I will end this post.

I just thought it was fair for you to know why I’m here.

And why you are here.

Just knowing there are people out there listening, helps.

Thank you.

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