ocd and me, or jerkface does the museum

So, Emily and Brandy decided to come down to Tallahassee and get us rather than us driving home in a rental. A fabulous lesbian mafia jamboree reunion was had by all, and we decided to go to the Tallahassee Junior Museum Wednesday morning. Anna and I have been there twice and love it. The animals are awesome, and the scenery is beautiful. Well, near the beginning of the trail, it splits off two ways, which are actually just the two ends of a big loop that takes you around to all the animals. In my universe, the one ruled by the evil king ocd, you must always travel a circle from left to right, or clockwise. (After all, they wouldn’t have named it counterclockwise if it weren’t counter to how you are supposed to do things, now would they?) As Anna and I always do, we missed the trail turn and ended up back at the beginning, so the four of us had to schlep back to the loop. Brandy went to the right past the incredibly adorable otters, and everyone followed suit--except jerkface the magnificent psycho (that’s me, by the way). I could not bring myself to step onto the boardwalk headed that way. I literally felt a panic attack welling up and started crying at the thought of having to go that way. So, because everyone had already trekked that way, I walked the path clockwise by myself. Anna offered to go that way with me, but wasn’t it already bad enough that I was so crazy as to not be able to walk with Em and Brandy? I wasn’t gonna create more mess, so I went alone. It isn’t a long walk, but that isn’t the point. I couldn’t make myself walk the freakin’ boardwalk from right to left. Something that simple and ridiculous.

The problem is that the only solution I can come up with is medication, and I don’t really want to do that. The last time I took Zoloft I felt twice as crazy as when I didn’t. I did get a lot of cleaning done though…Not to mention the side effects that I have heard horror stories about, especially if you get off the meds. Behavior modification therapy and therapy in general are not exactly the direction in which I feel I want to go. So what the hell am I supposed to do? There isn’t really a lesser of the two evils, honestly. I either deal with chemicals everyday, which aggravates and worries the crap outta me. This is not totally related to my ocd chemical thing…more of a distrust of the entire medical profession and pharmaceutical industry in general. I mean, I’m not going all Tom Cruise-Christian Science or anything. I still take ibuprofen and vitamins and stuff, but the idea of taking a mood-altering substance every single day for what would probably be the rest of my natural life is unsettling to say the least. There is also the problem of not really feeling like myself while on the meds. Now, it could be that I am just so used to feeling crazy that normality in my brain was bizarre and that’s what caused it, but I dunno. Yesterday was a pretty bad ocd day, and they seem to be getting closer together. All I do know is that I’m not sure how much longer I can deal with this.