So where were we when I finished up Part I? Did I tell you about how I conquered my OCD and became a model of mental health? No? Well, that's because it never happened. Actually the OCD just up and left me in my thirties. I don't know why because I wasn't taking any meds at the time that would diminish the constant rattling going on in my head. In fact the shrink who I was seeing couldn't explain it either. He mumbled something about getting older, and your brain is now coping with other more critical problems like what you're going to do for the rest of your life, but I really think I just couldn't hack the OCD any more. It made sense. Self-esteem wasn't my strong point, so I concluded that this was just another one of my growing list of failures. And without the OCD, I would be close to normal, whatever that was, and I'd have to give up my shrink and the other amenities of my lifestyle that I had gotten used to. Why was the OCD fading. I obsessed about this endlessly and came up with this explanation:
My memory was not keeping up with all my mistakes, so I couldn't keep reliving the past and correcting them obsessively because some of the mistakes would fall through tiny cracks in my grey matter and never resurface. So I couldn't think about them without running the risk of falling to sleep. In short, my inventory of mistakes was depleting itself without any help from my conscious self. It wasn't like I was trying to stop the thoughts even if they were evil ones like wishing my sister had gotten the OCD gene, not me. My brain was getting more and more like a well. I could go to it for tap water but if I wanted something special (read mentally sick)--like a pinot noir or margarita--it would just shut me down. A nasty voice would say something like, I told you right from the beginning that OCD wasn't the best mental illness to get Why didn't you listen? You won't get some of the good meds and no one will feel sorry for you like they do with manic depressives or bipolars. You'll end up replaying mistakes until you drive yourself and any friends you may have stark raving mad, and then one day just when all the talk shows and book publishers begin to recognize OCD for the impressive mind-blowing bitch it really is, it'll up and leave you. So, now where are you? Just because of lousy timing, you missed starring in the Howie Mandel OCD Crazy Celebrity Showcase and now you're just a run-of-the-mill neurotic. No one is ever going to take you seriously now or give you a part in an after-school special. And what about all that money your family sunk into therapy? What are you going to tell them when they ask you why you're suddenly smiling and shopping at Bloomingdale's?
It was just my luck to get cured when my mental disease was finally getting trendy. I couldn't get anyone to believe that I had OCD because of my horrifying lack of repetitive activities. If I couldn't document it visually, preferably with a video cam or smart phone, it was like I didn't have a problem. I didn't do the hair pulling or stove checking thing so no one ever knew my brain was going through the bends and I was suffering in silence. Wouldn't you know it, it was too late to play the pathetic card. OCD was gone and I knew it was never coming back.
I was destined to be a neurotic nobody for the rest of my life. Which was when I decided to go to graduate school and get out of the classroom forever. You wouldn't think that third-graders could mess with my head the way they did, but I'm sure the principal gave me all the obnoxious cases. One kid would come back from lunch and just slide down the hall to my classroom. Sliiiiiiiide, like he was sliding into first base. I didn't much care if he hurt himself, but it was embarrassing as hell. Here I was an accredited elementary school teacher who wrote A-plus lesson plans, and the kids were running the classroom.
All the other teachers had these perfect little kids who walked nicely down the hall and sat quietly at their appointed desks. I, on the other hand, had the class from hell. No one listened to me, no one even looked at me, and I was not covering all the skills. The kids would be lucky to get out of my class literate and able to add--not subtract--numbers. Some of the smart ones already knew this stuff from visits to their grocery store to purchase Twinkies but the others were treading water. They barely knew how to tell a quarter from a nickel, much less count up what was left of their allowances.
The truth was that I sucked at discipline and the whole teaching staff probably was laughing up their sleeve at my ridiculous threats:
I'd be close to tears, looking out at a sea of faces of which 50 percent were probably going to wind up in prison. I'd position my finger on the intercom and hope I could scare this gang of outlaws into listening to me or at least quit emptying their desks onto the floor.
"I'm going to send someone to the office"-I would say in what I presumed was a scary tone of voice. This threat made no impact whatsoever. I'd then threaten to take away their outdoor playtime. This had all the force of a sneeze. What did they need outside playtime when inside was so much fun! One kid was sharpening his pencil to use as a weapon, and another tow-headed munchkin was muttering nonsensical gibberish into his left shoe, which he had removed and was using as a radio.
Yes, graduate school was an easy decision for me. It would get me another degree I could post on my bedroom wall and shield me from the horrible realities of teaching eight-year-olds. More on this to follow.
My memory was not keeping up with all my mistakes, so I couldn't keep reliving the past and correcting them obsessively because some of the mistakes would fall through tiny cracks in my grey matter and never resurface. So I couldn't think about them without running the risk of falling to sleep. In short, my inventory of mistakes was depleting itself without any help from my conscious self. It wasn't like I was trying to stop the thoughts even if they were evil ones like wishing my sister had gotten the OCD gene, not me. My brain was getting more and more like a well. I could go to it for tap water but if I wanted something special (read mentally sick)--like a pinot noir or margarita--it would just shut me down. A nasty voice would say something like, I told you right from the beginning that OCD wasn't the best mental illness to get Why didn't you listen? You won't get some of the good meds and no one will feel sorry for you like they do with manic depressives or bipolars. You'll end up replaying mistakes until you drive yourself and any friends you may have stark raving mad, and then one day just when all the talk shows and book publishers begin to recognize OCD for the impressive mind-blowing bitch it really is, it'll up and leave you. So, now where are you? Just because of lousy timing, you missed starring in the Howie Mandel OCD Crazy Celebrity Showcase and now you're just a run-of-the-mill neurotic. No one is ever going to take you seriously now or give you a part in an after-school special. And what about all that money your family sunk into therapy? What are you going to tell them when they ask you why you're suddenly smiling and shopping at Bloomingdale's?
It was just my luck to get cured when my mental disease was finally getting trendy. I couldn't get anyone to believe that I had OCD because of my horrifying lack of repetitive activities. If I couldn't document it visually, preferably with a video cam or smart phone, it was like I didn't have a problem. I didn't do the hair pulling or stove checking thing so no one ever knew my brain was going through the bends and I was suffering in silence. Wouldn't you know it, it was too late to play the pathetic card. OCD was gone and I knew it was never coming back.
I was destined to be a neurotic nobody for the rest of my life. Which was when I decided to go to graduate school and get out of the classroom forever. You wouldn't think that third-graders could mess with my head the way they did, but I'm sure the principal gave me all the obnoxious cases. One kid would come back from lunch and just slide down the hall to my classroom. Sliiiiiiiide, like he was sliding into first base. I didn't much care if he hurt himself, but it was embarrassing as hell. Here I was an accredited elementary school teacher who wrote A-plus lesson plans, and the kids were running the classroom.
All the other teachers had these perfect little kids who walked nicely down the hall and sat quietly at their appointed desks. I, on the other hand, had the class from hell. No one listened to me, no one even looked at me, and I was not covering all the skills. The kids would be lucky to get out of my class literate and able to add--not subtract--numbers. Some of the smart ones already knew this stuff from visits to their grocery store to purchase Twinkies but the others were treading water. They barely knew how to tell a quarter from a nickel, much less count up what was left of their allowances.
The truth was that I sucked at discipline and the whole teaching staff probably was laughing up their sleeve at my ridiculous threats:
I'd be close to tears, looking out at a sea of faces of which 50 percent were probably going to wind up in prison. I'd position my finger on the intercom and hope I could scare this gang of outlaws into listening to me or at least quit emptying their desks onto the floor.
"I'm going to send someone to the office"-I would say in what I presumed was a scary tone of voice. This threat made no impact whatsoever. I'd then threaten to take away their outdoor playtime. This had all the force of a sneeze. What did they need outside playtime when inside was so much fun! One kid was sharpening his pencil to use as a weapon, and another tow-headed munchkin was muttering nonsensical gibberish into his left shoe, which he had removed and was using as a radio.
Yes, graduate school was an easy decision for me. It would get me another degree I could post on my bedroom wall and shield me from the horrible realities of teaching eight-year-olds. More on this to follow.
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