Hi. I’ve stumbled my way here...

[Aac]

I don’t know what made me come here. Maybe it was the need to be heard... or the need to be understood.

I have always been highly strung and a little bit OCD- growing up I remember being the kid at school with the perfect pencils and the pristine books, nothing out of place. I never did anything wrong.

Then, when I hit my early 20s and I was carefree! I loved to dance and have a good time and travel! Boy was I living life.

But that’s also the time I started to notice little changes. I remember these changes seeping slowly into my life. The small things I had started doing that never used to bother me before. The getting anxious about a boyfriend not calling back, having a meltdown if the house wasn’t clean, over the top worry if my dog got sick, losing myself during a breakup. It was like anxiety was creeping into my life. I was hyper aware of my emotions and that was just the beginning.

From there, things turned bad. In my chosen career I saw some things and went through a lot of emotional trauma, more than I think I should have been faced with. Some dark stuff. This heightened everything I was feeling. I started obsessing. These obsessive thoughts ranged from the simple: like a dress I NEEDED to have, to the intense: believing I was dying of some disease. Then the hand washing started.

When I’m particularly stressed or uncomfortable, I wash my hands. I first realised this when my mother pointed it out one day after I’d gone to the kitchen sink for the third time in about ten minutes. The look of concern on her face told me everything. Something wasn’t right.

To this day the hand washing has continued although now I use a bottle of hand sanitiser. Most days I rack up about 20 squirts in the period of a work shift.

And it doesn’t stop there. I’ve been told I have OCD thought patterns particularly concerning my health. I’m always adamant I have some sort of deathly disease. A dark mole- melanoma, a sore underarm- breast cancer. Most of my health concerns gravitate around me dying of cancer. Ridiculous, right? Also very selfish. I am ACUTELY aware of how crazy I sound but when I am in “the moment”, nothing can make me believe otherwise. The anxiety is almost always there now.

You know the truly shit thing? I spend my time worried sick over duing yet all of this is taking me away from truly living. It’s a catch 22.

I guess I wanted to write to find some common ground. I haven’t found anyone yet that understands me. I don’t even understand.

[GenXburnout]

Hello Aac,

There are certainly some parts of your struggle that I do understand. I too get really caught in what I describe to myself as loops, I think to a greater or lesser extent most people do. But I hear that like me you are not always able to step back from these run-away trains like I guess most people might. On a good day, sometimes I see them/ feel them setting in and I am able to divert them and regain control of the ship, (through a significant ammount of training with some amazing therapists).

The thing that is difficult for others to understand, the thing that isolates us, is that often I am not able to find that observer within myself. The captain of the ship, as I think it, and without any knowledge of what is happening I can dissapear into a neurotic loop.

My wellness is a patchwork quilt that I have fashioned from things I've found. Maybe it sounds childish, the way I describe, but I did start on this quilt a long time ago. One thing I know to be true for me at least is that burning up time mourning burnt up time is the worst loop of all.

I would like to tell you to be gentle with yourself. I like to think of a line from a Kurt Vonnegut book, "We are just here to fart around", the fact that you woke up this morning is a victory. There doesn't need to be an A++ grade or a 10/10. For me, some days, I am happy to fail, if I can be mindfull the next, maybe I will pass.

PS: sorry about spelling mistakes!

Gen