Most people strive for a thrilling life always filled with adventure or excitement. Although I enjoy getting the heart pumping, I’m a pretty low key person. I truly enjoy routine.
This scares the bejesus out of me because one of my biggest fears is complacency. I suppose though there is a difference between monotony and complacency.
Lrudlrick doesn’t believe this is a big issue but in a way, it is. I’m not an extreme case but I am enough so that it causes certain hindrances. I’ve lived with this long enough that it’s a part of my life and I’m fine with it but others may not. For one, I don’t like when certain things are out of order. I can’t explain what certain things are or the order that things need to be completed. It can be as simple as setting a table. Items needed to be where they should be. It’s not about etiquette either. If I notice a knife facing the wrong way, I fix it. I’ll move things around until it looks ‘right’ to me. When something is ‘off-kilter’, I’ll politely move it while holding a conversation.
I know these are small things and I try to remember that mantra you see in every self help book display at Barnes and Nobles, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff, but to me it’s not that I’m sweating the small stuff. To me, it’s just the way things should be. This confuses my husband and he feels that I am running around filled with stress and tension when oddly enough I feel tenser when silly routines like putting the drinks out last aren’t performed.
The problem with living with this is that if you live within proximity of a ‘normal’ human being, you are bound to annoy and eventually stress them out.
It’s funny really. I’ve lived like this all my life and I see nothing wrong with it. I’ve gone to therapy for everything but this compulsion. Only now, I’m sad to say, do I realize how much I’ve hurt the people I love with my idiosyncrasies.
I suppose I should be grateful that I'm not an extreme or severe personality type. I believe I'm not letting these crazy ideals take over my life.
They used to be quirks but now I’m realizing that it leads me to the path where I’ll be in a rocker in Sunnyvale’s Home for the abandoned yammering about how my dentures are the last thing I need to put on before they wheel me to the dining hall.
How do people with more severe forms of this cope and protect their loved ones from the nuttiness? I just want to learn how not to drive people crazy. I’m fine with it. I’m just not fine hurting people because of it.
Related tags: ocpd, obsessive compulsive personality disorder, anxiety
