As long as I can remember, people have been telling me how I think. Telling me how I feel. Offering advice under the false assumption that they know what’s going on in my head.
This document is from my fifth grade school files. I vividly remember taking the test it speaks of. I knew it was some kind of “let’s figure out what’s wrong with him” shit. I probably even attempted to sabotage the results by doing things in a different way than I normally would. That’s how I rolled back then and, let’s face it, that’s how I roll now.
Of course, I was only eleven, so naturally an adult psychologist was able to easily spot such subterfuge if in fact there was any to be spotted.
The results are pretty accurate.
And yet, no mention of OCD was made by her or any other mental health professionals that I visited with until I was 19. And that’s because I asked a psychiatrist if he thought that’s what I had. I’d seen an episode of Sally Jesse Raphael about it. One of those daytime talk shows, in any case. Higher than springer, lower than Oprah. One of those.
He administered a test, the results of which confirmed, he said, that I was obsessive-compulsive. And I don’t dispute that. I mean, duh. But why hadn’t anyone else identified said disorder prior to that?
In the attached document, it’s even stated that I exhibit compulsive behavior. Was it just not as much of a thing back then? Not enough of a thing to steer the diagnosis in that direction, maybe? I don’t know and I don’t care. It’s irrelevant at this point.
In any case I’m kind of glad that no one figured out what the problem was and I was able to grow up with out being doped up on some primitive 1980s horse pill crazy med. I was forced to find out for myself who I was, and I’m still learning.
Sometimes, however, I may get mad or upset or sad and it isn’t because I “haven’t taken my pill” and it isn’t “my disease.” It’s because I’m fucking mad or I’m fucking sad. Or I’m completely neutral on the inside with no malice towards anything, and no anxiety eating me alive, only to be falsely accused of hostility because I’m acting cold.. This has always been the case throughout my life. I have to act cold sometimes.
It’s my way of gaining and maintaining control over myself.
All my life people have told me “You need to take this pill” or “you need to go here” or “there’s something wrong with you.”
Look, I’m not insane, and I’m not retarded. I’m a rational person who is fully cognizant of his demon muse. I live with him. We get up every morning at five AM and knock back five hour energy shots together with our arms intertwined and then I have to blast Napalm Death in the car to drown his ass out because he never shuts the fuck up. When people are talking to me, he’s right there yammering away in my ear about something completely nonsensical and impertinent to the conversation I’m attempting to focus on. So yeah, I know him well. You can’t tell me shit about the motherfucker that I don’t already know.
I don’t need any coddling, I don’t need anyone speaking to me in hushed, careful tones so as not to upset me, and I don’t NEED. YOUR. ADVICE. BECAUSE. YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND WHERE I AM COMING FROM, CAPICE?
OCD is like multiple radio stations playing at once. One of them is NPR and it’s something interesting that I’m trying to hear, but then there’s a Megadeth song over here that I also want to hear. Meanwhile country is boldly making its unwelcome presence known, as well as whatever bullshit novelty song is popular at the moment chilling in the corner in an obnoxiously oversized t-shirt with a blurred-out logo, occasionally tossing its head back to get its red-dyed raggedy Andy dreds the fuck out of its eyes for one fucking second, sipping lean, popping Xanax like tic-tacs and mumbling incoherently.
Oh shit, and there’s Rando thought, over there at the bar eating a plateful of deep-fried severed baby limbs. Never know what he’s gonna do. Ol’ crazy ass sumbitch lol.
Can you fucking understand that?
In the midst of this, all sorts of outside stimuli are clamoring for my undivided attention.
I think I manage to hold things together pretty well considering all that shit is going on in the background. It ain’t as bad as it sounds. I’m used to it.
Sometimes, though, things are much simpler than they seem. Sometimes all I want is a Pepsi. And I’m not on drugs. And normal people do act this way. However I think I’ll grab the Pepsi myself instead of asking someone else to do it for me.
Patrick Walts 