My Brain is a Fearful Jerk

Hi, friends!

I have a secret to share: I'm a really anxious person.
Okay, yeah, you could probably already tell. What gave it away?

Anxiety is weird. Because I haven't ever gone to a medical professional to get formally diagnosed, I sometimes wonder if I'm just a neurotic, nervous person and calling it anxiety is an overreaction. I can get away with thinking that for a little while at a time, but then something comes up and reminds me that no, my brain does not behave normally when it comes to this kind of thing. Anxiety also runs in my family.

There are a lot of different flavors of anxiety. Phobias, social anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder... all kinds of things that can really mess you up. The internet likes to use these kinds of terms to exaggerate their feelings, like someone claiming that their OCD is killing them when they see a picture of several pencils neatly lined up with one askew. (No, that's just a reasonable thing to be bothered by.) Somehow, claiming to have depression and/or anxiety became a thing people would do in order to seem cutesy and on-trend.

Some might argue that because I haven't been officially told by a doctor that I have anxiety, I'm doing that same kind of thing. My counterargument: If you don't believe me, just ask Jared. He isn't a doctor, but he can definitely verify that my brain is frequently fighting against me.

Panic attacks are loads of fun. It's so great to not be able to control my breathing. I love full-on sobbing while continuing to breathe very inefficiently. It's such a lovely feeling to realize an attack is coming and then have to quickly try to isolate myself without making people nearby worry. I love handing my reins to the part of my brain in charge of worrying and getting a chance to focus solely on things that freak me out for a few minutes.
That was heavy sarcasm, in case it wasn't clear. I'm really glad panic attacks are rare for me.

I don't drive. While I do have my license, I haven't been behind the wheel since shortly after I passed the test when I was nearly 21. Being in control of a car freaks me out way more than it should. I'm constantly worried that I'm missing something in the rear-view mirror, a side mirror, or somewhere else. I'm worried about driving too slowly and being in the way of someone behind me. I'm petrified of changing lanes, turning left, not knowing where to go, or having anything unusual happen. Poor Jared has to do all the driving wherever we go. ("Poor Jared has to deal with ____" is basically the theme of this post. My dear husband is insanely patient.)

Before leaving the house, I compulsively check to make sure I have the things I need, even if I know for a fact that I just put my lesson plan in my church binder last night or put my keys in my purse five minutes ago. My brain needs to make sure that my lesson didn't somehow teleport itself out of the binder or that I didn't hallucinate putting my keys in my purse. Rationally, I know it's stupid to double and triple check my binder when I definitely have everything I need, yet I have to do it anyway just to be sure.

When my nail polish gets chipped or if there's an uneven, snaggy bit on a nail, it's really hard to leave it alone. I used to pick off the rest of my nail polish during school if part came off during a class and then redo them when I got home. Now that I know how bad it is for my nails, I've stopped doing that, but it still bothers me a lot when I notice a chip. My nails don't usually become uneven or scratchy anymore either, but when they do, I end up sacrificing the safety of another nail to try to file down the problem. If I'm lucky, I can fix it well enough that it won't drive me bonkers until I can use an actual file at home.

There are a lot of roaches in this town. It's just something that happens here, no matter how clean you are. Something I discovered when we moved here is that I cannot stand roaches. Dead, alive, just a picture on a screen, it doesn't matter. I can't handle looking at them. Something about roaches in particular just disables all rational thought in my head and makes me shiver until I stop thinking about them. My sweet husband has to deal with any and all roach-related things in our house, including sweeping a disturbing amount of dead ones out of our garage occasionally. He's started referring to them as blobs of fluff on the ground and not telling me how many he finds in there so that I feel better. He's an angel, I tell you.

Being late to things is mortifying. If I'm on time, I'm late. I need to be early. I start out by thinking, "Okay, it takes maybe ten minutes to get there, so I should leave at least twenty minutes before it starts, which means I need to wake up two hours before that...well, let's make it three hours just in case. That sounds reasonable!"
This is why I start getting ready for 1 o'clock church at 10 AM.

When I pack for a trip or a visit to Disneyland, I always end up bringing things that don't even leave the suitcase/bag. In my Disneyland bag, for example, I have several napkins, some Ziploc baggies, a plastic grocery bag, two granola bars, some fruit snacks, Ibuprofen, Dramamine, hair ties, a hair clip, nail clippers, moisturizer, Chapstick, Bandaids, hand sanitizer, and a portable phone charger. There's also a water bottle, my wallet, and space for my ears when they're in danger of flying off during a ride, but those are things that everyone should have with them. I know the likelihood of needing a grocery bag to throw up in isn't very high. I've been to Disneyland three times in the past year and never came close to vomiting, but my brain won't let me ignore all the possible scenarios in which that bag could be useful.

As a child, I was overly aware of lines and patterns on floors and sidewalks. If one foot stepped on a sidewalk crack or a line between two pieces of tile, the other foot had to step on one, too. I'd sometimes walk a little weirdly if it meant both feet would stay "even" in regards to how many times they'd landed in a square or on a line. A lot of kids like to hop from line to line when in a crosswalk, but I was focusing on making sure both feet took the same number of steps within the stripes of white. Thankfully, this isn't something I still do. Little kids can walk weirdly and nobody really thinks twice about it, but I probably couldn't get away with walking around like Adrian Monk during the part of the theme song when he's struggling along on a cobbled walkway.

The Twilight books came out when I was in their prime target audience. As a high schooler, I remember going to see Eclipse in a theater and being concerned about the fight scenes making me feel queasy. (This was, of course, ridiculous. The creatures fighting were vampires and wolf dudes. There's really not a whole lot of blood going on.) Worrying about feeling sick and having to throw up made me even more anxious, which made my stomach feel worse, which made me even more stressed out about potentially throwing up. Before I even got into the room to sit down, I sprinted into the lobby bathroom and threw up. That seemed to calm everything down and I watched the movie without any issues. Great job, brain.
Thank goodness for IMDB's content guide. I check it before going to see any movie in a theater now just to be safe. If I'm prepared for the blood and know what to expect, it's generally a lot easier to handle.

Despite being freaked out by fights and injuries, I used to have a really bad skin-picking compulsion. (My own blood apparently doesn't bother me as much as fake blood used on actors.) I couldn't leave ingrown hairs, pimples, or scabs alone because they made my skin bumpy and I wanted everything to feel smooth. There are still scars visible on my legs and arms from repeated scratching and "fixing" that happened years ago. This is another thing that I've gotten a lot better about. It still bugs me when there's a bump of any sort, but my desire to avoid scars has mostly overtaken my need to temporarily smooth out whatever skin problem is bothering me.

The shirts in my closet and socks in my dresser are kept in the order of the rainbow. Our non-Marvel movies are alphabetized. Marvel movies are kept in chronological order. The set of My Little Pony lip glosses I have are in order of the ponies' solos in the theme song. I've organized Jared's collection of fun, colorful dice alphabetically by name. My Pinterest boards are sorted alphabetically according to what the board is about, which is not the same as alphabetically by board title. Some of my favorite puzzles in the Nancy Drew games are the ones where you're required to sort things. I need organization. I can't seem to casually put a group of things together without sorting them somehow.

Jared and I have been rewatching the TV show Monk recently, since we realized there are a lot of episodes he hasn't seen or has only seen a few minutes of. Monk, for those who aren't familiar with the show, is a former police detective who has extreme OCD and a lot of fears. Monk's issues are much more severe than mine and I'm not nearly as dysfunctional as he is, but I do still empathize with him a lot. He and I both realize that our compulsive behaviors and fears are unnecessary, and yet we're unable to just force ourselves to act normally. We do things that others find ridiculous because we have to. Sometimes during an episode, Jared will look over at me with a "Does that seem familiar?" face. He also does that with Twilight Sparkle and Leslie Knope. If you're a Friends fan, think Monica minus the extreme competitiveness.

One of Jared's favorite moments from the show and one that he reminds me of frequently.

If we kept emergency s'more supplies in our car, they would definitely liquefy in the heat. I do keep emergency fruit snacks in several places, though.

Me explaining my method of doing something

Jared pointing out that my method is unnecessarily complicated and/or organized

I'm not really sure what the purpose of this post is. It's kind of a cross between "this is what it's like to have anxiety" and "here's a list of some of my weird problems." Hopefully it was at least somewhat interesting, even if it was a bit depressing.

I promise I'm still a happy person. These issues don't usually mess up my life too badly and I've (mostly) learned how to deal with it when they do. It would be nice to be able to drive and get a pet cat and not overthink everything, but I'm doing fine anyway. Sometimes anxiety wins. Most days, though, I'm still in charge of my life and anxiety is just a permanently wet sock that's always there to be obnoxious without totally ruining anything. You're not the boss of me, wet sock!

Love,
Lizzie