I feel like almost every time I sit down to write an Everyday Thursday post, I suddenly forget what happened in that last week, becoming overwhelmed by the responsibility of remembering.
These last few days, I have been working on my book edits. I also got my headshots taken (a harrowing and exhausting experience). I had a baby shower to attend and a funeral luncheon to plan and execute. Of course, I also had my normal church and family responsibilities. One of the days found me literally doubling over in pain from what I assume was either an endometriosis or pelvic congestion syndrome flare up.
And then OCD also invited itself to the party, as it tends to do.
OCD and Illness
My OCD this week was primarily concerned with sickness and copyright. I had heard about various people at church being sick (or their children being sick). In fact, it seemed like people couldn’t stop themselves from telling me or announcing publicly that they were or had been sick recently. My husband accused me of having a stigma against physical illness, which I guess a lot of people who have illness-related OCD probably do. I wondered why people feel or felt the need to make their illnesses public. Why even bring it up? Just quietly deal with your illness and don’t broadcast it, okay?
My husband said people might think the same thing about me and my OCD. Why do I publicize it? Why don’t I just keep it to myself? He implied that maybe I should try to empathize or at least sympathize with people who say they are or were (or have children who are or were) sick.
Maybe. But it’s still difficult. I wanted to avoid people or situations. I continued taking my vitamins and drinking fruit juice. Maybe I should have made more of an effort to expose myself to the sicknesses and the people who professed to have them. Either way, I hope that spring brings more health and less illness to those with whom I interact.
Copyright Worries
As far as copyright goes, this is an old, familiar OCD topic for me. My OCD loves to convince me that I have violated someone’s copyright. I have been known to read most Terms of Service at one point or another, checking for potential areas of violation. (Reading Terms of Service makes updating software or downloading certain things really long and tedious, just FYI).
So I have had some issues there this week, related to images and even ideas in my book. I’m mostly trying to work through them and not freak out too much, though my husband would say I’ve lost some of the battles.
Winning and Losing
Sometimes I feel like I lose a lot of the battles. Some days are way worse than others. But there are days when I lose some battles but win overall. I make one choice that changes the tide. It happens, and I guess that’s the goal with OCD. Fight back. Don’t give up, even when something goes awry. Keep going.