Odd duck, normal platypus.
Jan. 25th, 2012 10:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seanan_mcguire"Can I promise you that I'm going to get better? No. This is what you get, you know. This incomplete person, with toothbrushes, and with rubber gloves, and with so much love for you. But if that's not what you want, then you need to be honest with me, and with yourself. And the sooner the better." —Emma Pillsbury, Glee.
"When I was a kid, I always imagined I'd be normal by now." —Hannelore, Questionable Content.
Before I begin, I want to make it clear that this is not the first time I have talked about my OCD, and the way it impacts my life. I don't talk about it in depth all that often, because it's a daily thing for me. I'm not "normal" five days out of the week, and OCD on Mondays and Thursdays. I'm not cyclical. I am programmed in a way that doesn't quite fit the currently defined human median, and that's how I function all the time.
I started displaying signs of OCD when I was nine, although I didn't get formally diagnosed until I was nineteen. Because I'm not germaphobic (if anything, I'm virophillic) or a "cleaner," it was easy to write my insistence on following patterns and maintaining routines off as just one more aspect of me being a weird kid. And I was a weird kid, with or without the OCD. It's impossible for me to know who I would have been with a differently wired brain, but I like to think that I would have been a version of the self I am now. Just maybe one with a little less stuff, and a little less esoteric knowledge about bad B-grade horror movies.
My diagnosis was almost accidental. I was depressed; I went to see a doctor about my depression; one thing led to another; we arrived at a place that we both agreed matched up with the contents of my brain. (OCD is sometimes connected to depression. Hell, OCD sometimes causes depression, either because you can't keep up with your obsessions, or because your compulsions make you sad. I've had both these experiences. Neither is particularly fun.) I promptly told absolutely no one, because the OCD jokes were already common within my social circle, and I didn't want to deal. But I did start putting some basic coping strategies in place, and things got better. I didn't fly into a towering rage over people being late if we didn't set a start time. I learned to eat food without mashing it into an indistinguishable slurry. The beat went on.
As I've gotten older, my symptoms have matured with the rest of me, as have my coping strategies. I've finally reached the point where I can be less than two hours early for my flight, providing I have a printed boarding pass and priority boarding. I can travel with people who are more laid back than I am (although, to be fair, that's everyone). I can even go for dinner without having a pre-memorized menu (I don't get credit for this one; it turns out you can, with time, memorize a wide enough range of food combinations to be safe within a number of specific cuisines). And I mostly don't take it out on other people when things go wrong.
One in fifty Americans lives with OCD. I won't say "suffers from," because not all of us are suffering; I am not suffering. I am no more or less normal than anyone else. It's just that I start from a different position on the field. Some people with OCD do suffer, because it can be a crippling condition. It's the luck of the draw, the same as anything else.
The dominant idea of OCD is still Adrian Monk or Hannelore, or Emma from Glee. I've been in tears over her twice this season, because it breaks my heart a little when I see her struggling to control something she never asked for, never did anything to earn, and has to deal with all the same. Most people with OCD aren't these stereotypes. They're your friend who always has hand sanitizer, or your cousin who never leaves the house until seven minutes after the hour. They're the guy you went to college with who has a collection of lawn gnomes in his bathroom, and buys a new one every six months. They're your favorite football player. They're that composer you like.
They're me.
I made a comment on Twitter earlier today that I was an "odd duck," because I wanted to dance to a Ludo song at my wedding (no, one isn't planned, I just like to plan ahead). Celticora replied, "You're not an odd duck, you're a normal platypus." I think I'm going to roll with that. So the next time someone wants to be early, or can't leave the house without checking that the toaster is unplugged, or does something else you can't understand but that doesn't actually hurt you, remember, it's a big ecosystem. We have room for ducks and platypi.
Everybody loves a semi-aquatic egg-laying mammal of action, right?
"When I was a kid, I always imagined I'd be normal by now." —Hannelore, Questionable Content.
Before I begin, I want to make it clear that this is not the first time I have talked about my OCD, and the way it impacts my life. I don't talk about it in depth all that often, because it's a daily thing for me. I'm not "normal" five days out of the week, and OCD on Mondays and Thursdays. I'm not cyclical. I am programmed in a way that doesn't quite fit the currently defined human median, and that's how I function all the time.
I started displaying signs of OCD when I was nine, although I didn't get formally diagnosed until I was nineteen. Because I'm not germaphobic (if anything, I'm virophillic) or a "cleaner," it was easy to write my insistence on following patterns and maintaining routines off as just one more aspect of me being a weird kid. And I was a weird kid, with or without the OCD. It's impossible for me to know who I would have been with a differently wired brain, but I like to think that I would have been a version of the self I am now. Just maybe one with a little less stuff, and a little less esoteric knowledge about bad B-grade horror movies.
My diagnosis was almost accidental. I was depressed; I went to see a doctor about my depression; one thing led to another; we arrived at a place that we both agreed matched up with the contents of my brain. (OCD is sometimes connected to depression. Hell, OCD sometimes causes depression, either because you can't keep up with your obsessions, or because your compulsions make you sad. I've had both these experiences. Neither is particularly fun.) I promptly told absolutely no one, because the OCD jokes were already common within my social circle, and I didn't want to deal. But I did start putting some basic coping strategies in place, and things got better. I didn't fly into a towering rage over people being late if we didn't set a start time. I learned to eat food without mashing it into an indistinguishable slurry. The beat went on.
As I've gotten older, my symptoms have matured with the rest of me, as have my coping strategies. I've finally reached the point where I can be less than two hours early for my flight, providing I have a printed boarding pass and priority boarding. I can travel with people who are more laid back than I am (although, to be fair, that's everyone). I can even go for dinner without having a pre-memorized menu (I don't get credit for this one; it turns out you can, with time, memorize a wide enough range of food combinations to be safe within a number of specific cuisines). And I mostly don't take it out on other people when things go wrong.
One in fifty Americans lives with OCD. I won't say "suffers from," because not all of us are suffering; I am not suffering. I am no more or less normal than anyone else. It's just that I start from a different position on the field. Some people with OCD do suffer, because it can be a crippling condition. It's the luck of the draw, the same as anything else.
The dominant idea of OCD is still Adrian Monk or Hannelore, or Emma from Glee. I've been in tears over her twice this season, because it breaks my heart a little when I see her struggling to control something she never asked for, never did anything to earn, and has to deal with all the same. Most people with OCD aren't these stereotypes. They're your friend who always has hand sanitizer, or your cousin who never leaves the house until seven minutes after the hour. They're the guy you went to college with who has a collection of lawn gnomes in his bathroom, and buys a new one every six months. They're your favorite football player. They're that composer you like.
They're me.
I made a comment on Twitter earlier today that I was an "odd duck," because I wanted to dance to a Ludo song at my wedding (no, one isn't planned, I just like to plan ahead). Celticora replied, "You're not an odd duck, you're a normal platypus." I think I'm going to roll with that. So the next time someone wants to be early, or can't leave the house without checking that the toaster is unplugged, or does something else you can't understand but that doesn't actually hurt you, remember, it's a big ecosystem. We have room for ducks and platypi.
Everybody loves a semi-aquatic egg-laying mammal of action, right?
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Date: 2012-01-25 06:16 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2012-01-25 06:29 pm (UTC)A friend of mine said something similar about the duck vs platypus comment: she said that Asperger's people have QWERTY thoughts and not alphabetical thoughts because of the way we process information.
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Date: 2012-01-25 07:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2012-01-25 06:52 pm (UTC)Also, your comment about 'your favorite football player' reminded me of this USA network show, "Necessary Roughness," about a psychologist who starts treating football players. One episode is centered on a guy with OCD that has gotten increasingly maladaptive. Still, of course, the more extreme side of disorders, but at least it shows a variety of people. You can't look at someone and always tell they are living with something like OCD.
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Date: 2012-01-25 07:13 pm (UTC)It could be a lot worse. You could be a normal person. And we all know what assholes they are.
For most of us, that thing that people call a "maladjustment", is the very thing that makes us Awesome.
A lot of my lousy childhood was due to the way I was ashamed and sensitive about my "maladjustment", and the way I let the bullies get under my skin about it. Once I decided to wear my "maladjustment" as a badge of honor, to revel in it, to have fun being who I was, not only did the bullies fail to get at me, a good many of them no longer wanted to. The difference between being a misfit and a cool kid is often attitude. I wish more of us learned that at an early age.
Your mind, personality, identity, self is a creation of great beauty and power, and I'm proud to consider myself as one blood with you.
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Date: 2012-01-26 03:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-25 07:15 pm (UTC)My aunt, though, had shock treatment at Napa in the 60's and came out of it with a Certificate of Normalcy.
"I bet you don't have one of these!"
True, that.
I'm not exactly a normal person, although I play one in everyday life.
OCD?
I suspect so.
Mostly it's hiding behind acceptable levels of rigidity, and general nerdy stereotypes, and a tendency for people to become engineers.
And everyone in sight has either serious clutter issues or utter empty sterility, so structurally the same issue, some kind of bad relationship with stuff.
(But really, sticking my visiting teenaged daughter out in the backyard in a tent - in the winter - because she couldn't be put in the "guest" room?
That seems like some kind of red flag for a serious over-concern with people not touching your things? Just saying. Not that there's anything wrong with that....)
In any case, me, I've always suspected that normal is overrated.
It seems to me that the spectrum of possible human types has perhaps been of functional value in different circumstances.
You'd probably make one heck of a flint tool.
Perhaps this is more so with the OCD than the depression, though, since depression hurts.
I'd add to the list of quotations the bit from Annie Hall:
[Alvy addresses a pair of strangers on the street]
Alvy Singer: Here, you look like a very happy couple, um, are you?
Female street stranger: Yeah.
Alvy Singer: Yeah? So, so, how do you account for it?
Female street stranger: Uh, I'm very shallow and empty and I have no ideas and nothing interesting to say.
Male street stranger: And I'm exactly the same way.
Though this, of course, could just be sour grapes on my part.
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Date: 2012-01-26 03:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-25 07:15 pm (UTC)also, busted a gut laughing at "Everybody loves a semi-aquatic egg-laying mammal of action, right?"
yes yes we do!!!
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Date: 2012-01-25 11:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2012-01-25 07:23 pm (UTC)Thank you for being open about it. It helps remind those of us who feel like odd ducks that there's a whole population of platypi that we fit in pretty well with.
* Especially with food. Everything had to be on a separate plate, and when we went out to restaurants, the food couldn't come with anything Ben wasn't going to eat (cole slaw, pickles, applesauce), even if it was in its own cup and not touching the food.
** My least favorite thing about early flights; my sleep is always horrible before them because of this, despite having text messages and emails and alarms and everything to make sure I get to the airport on time. And it's only early flights from home: if I can get up at 7 AM (or later) for them or am with someone (or at a hotel), I'm fine***. My brain is a weird place...
*** Despite the fact the two times I've shown up late to an airport and missed my flight, I was flying to home, not from it. Go figure.
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Date: 2012-01-25 07:52 pm (UTC)ETA: I always leave very early for appointments, and bring a book in case I have to wait. Doesn't everyone?
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Date: 2012-01-26 01:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2012-01-25 07:57 pm (UTC)And, the platypus has poisonous spurs, as well. Very apt! (Hi, I'm Australian, it's Australian, we all make a hobby of knowing which things are going to kill you. Tip for non-Aussies: most of them.)
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Date: 2012-01-25 09:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2012-01-25 08:25 pm (UTC)I hope you are a furiously happy platypus!
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Date: 2012-01-25 08:38 pm (UTC)And has sharp poisonous spines that will get you if you're not careful.
That is why I love your work.
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