OCD

Pretty much no one I know in real life was surprised when I was officially diagnosed with OCD a few weeks ago. My mom’s reaction was simply “duh.” The most common among close friends was some variation of wanting to know if this is actually news.

Indeed, I was more taken aback by my psychiatrist’s proclamation than they were, though I shouldn’t have been. After all, I have a marked tendency to be, uh, obsessive (and compulsive about my obsessions), even if the behaviours that led to my diagnosis aren’t those broadcast in most stereotypical portrayals of OCD: my hands remain only averagely clean, most sectors of my apartment aren’t exceptionally well organized.

I’m not someone who’s normally overly bothered by labels. I figure that recognizing a problem allows one to start working on managing it; that’s the theory, anyway. I nonetheless responded in a rather nonsensical manner to this new bit of information about myself: by alphabetizing my book collection.

Yes, my instinct upon being told that I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder was to try to become better at it. I’ve since re-reminded myself that all of life’s not a competition (yeah right).

Interestingly, the internet tells me that there’s some evidence that OCD tends to occur with epilepsy, the link between the two being most frequent with temporal lobe seizures. I’ll devote hours to obsessive research later this week and report my findings at some future date.