Ups and downs

WARNING: Introspective, depressing, somewhat whiny post ahead. Please ignore if you don't want to read that kind of thing.


So again I took a long "vacation" away from blogging. The problem I have is that with my tendency to obsessiveness, once I get in the habit of checking this thing daily, I spend more and more of my time going around reading various peoples' blogs and occasionally get into an argument just for the heck of it. Clearly, this is unhealthy, so I step away. Unfortunately, I have a couple of other sites that I go to and do basically the same thing at when I'm not here. Why would any person with any intelligence or self-respect waste their time this way? In my case, at least, it's because bouncing around the internet getting involved in the occasional pointless argument is vastly more enjoyable than my other OCD-related activities. My other most common OCD related activities are:

1. Frequently worrying that I've run over animals, and sometimes people, in my car. This obsession has progressed to the point where I no longer totally trust my own senses, and worry that I've hit things even when I have no evidence for it at all, not even a bump.

2. Experiencing wild mood swings in which I alternately repeat certain abstract thoughts that make me happy, and think of reasons why those thoughts are nonsense and why I really should not be happy.

3. Generally coming up with reasons why I am a poor excuse for a human being who has utterly wasted his entire life.

I realize that these descriptions are incredibly vague, but describing the details of my thought process would take a lot more room and, more importantly, would be largely nonsense to anybody else. Still, these brief summaries should probably give a clue as to why wasting time on the internet is actually the most enjoyable aspect of my OCD. Of course, excessive internet usage is not the only unhealthy activity that I engage in as a way of trying to get relief from my OCD. I've also been eating lots of junk food and gaining some weight back. It sucks, but if you're a stress eater like I am, a jumbo box with a pound of Cheez-Its or Doritos or popcorn is surprisingly effective at calming the brain down after a bad day of recurring negative obsessions.

Anyway, on the brighter side of things, I have finally got my butt moving enough to start looking at houses. I went looking at a half dozen with my realtor last Saturday, and will go looking at some more this Saturday if I can figure out which ones on the list I want to look at by tomorrow (well, later today, actually). It's unfortunate that what should be my highest priority, along with other priorities like work, finances, life, etc., are fighting an uphill battle with my various facets of my OCD for attention in my brain - but that's the story of much of my life. After a meeting with my psychiatrist today, we agreed that it would be a good idea to look for both a support group and new prescription. Hopefully this will work well.