A Break from Caregiving Posts

Note:  This post has been on my mind, and so I decided to try and write it, though it might not really have a place in this blog, as it isn't about care giving. 

Dear loved one:

The other day, when I told you that I didn't want to go to the Dunkin' Donuts down the road because it was attached to a gas station, you told me that you didn't understand.  What does it being connected to a gas station have to do with anything?

I wondered if we could be bluntly honest for a few minutes. 

I know it doesn't make any sense to you.

Actually, I know that it doesn't necessarily make any sense at all. 

There's a secret about my brain which maybe you've never figured out, however. 

It doesn't have to make sense to be valid. 

I don't know if I would be diagnosed as OCD if I went to a therapist.  I don't know if technically I am OCD.  I suspect that someone might slap that designation on me if I put them in that position.  I can't say for sure though, because I never have (and I'd like to avoid it). 

What I do know is that for years, and we're talking at least since high school where I ran over lines instead of stepping on them, I have set rules for myself.  Are these compulsions in response to obsessions?  Perhaps.  They are part of me though.  A very real part.  They permeate daily, weekly, and monthly life.  They lend me an air of eccentricity, because I'd rather be thought eccentric than crazy.  They gain a special strength, an aura of power, when they get connected to religion in my mind. 

This tendency toward obsession isn't necessarily bad.  It's what made me a really dedicated runner.  It might very well help me pay attention to the fine details of grant requirements.  It's not necessarily a bad thing. 

It doesn't necessarily have to rule me either.  Look, for a time if I incorrectly typed God's name I would retype it seven times.  This doesn't mean that I absolutely had to do this.  As with the high school lines, when it was important, when I was racing, the obsession did not have to be obeyed, I could land on the lines.  It's just easier, when the stakes aren't high, to sometimes give in on the minor stuff.  It's like an unspoken agreement with my brain.

If I give it the easy things, then we just get along more smoothly.  When the stakes are high, then I ask it to give me a break- but for the little things it is easier to play a game of compromise.

So no, not getting coffee from that Dunkin' because it's attached to a gas station doesn't make any sense.  At some point though, that was a rule set for a reason in my mind.

It doesn't have to make sense.  It's still valid.

That's me.  That is totally alright.