Thursday, January 12, 2017

Normal

A comfort after a cry.
I've been in a major funk lately, and not the cool Uptown kind that Bruno Mars sings about.

To top it off, I just discovered that my feelings of awful might not be OCD or anxiety disorder related.  They may just be normal.

What?

I go to my psychiatrist and I tell her about my current life situation... how my business has not been picking up and I may have to find a new job and how my boyfriend has moved to Dayton. (Her response to my boyfriend moving away was just one word: "Yikes."  I hadn't heard that word since like '96.) 

I also tell her how I've been feeling.  I explain how my energy is so low it's hard to get out of bed in the morning, how I have a lack of motivation to do basically anything, and how I've put on weight.  I just generally feel anxiety and eugh all the time. 

I expected her to recommend something different for my medication.  Instead, she reflected that there was a lot of "uncertainty" in my life right now, and then made no change to my drug regimen.

What?

So, I go to see my therapist yesterday and tell her all of this.  I explain how I thought it was weird that we weren't making any changes to the meds when I feel this bad.  Surely something should be done. 

That's when my therapist put things in perspective.

She told me she wanted to "normalize" what I was feeling.  This anxiety wasn't because of the OCD or other anxiety issues: This was anxiety that made sense in my situation.

I've read before and recently talked to my mom about how with OCD, or any other mental health issue, you tend to pathologize everything.  It's easy to blame the OCD for any anxious or bad feelings.  But the fact of the matter is that yucky feelings happen to everyone.  

Now, I don't often like the theory of "normal."  It can serve to make us feel like we don't belong, or we're crazy, or we somehow don't fit a made-up standard. But sometimes we need the concept of normality.  It keeps us in check.  Plus, we all have times where we need to just feel "normal."

So now that my problems have been qualified as not just in my head, I'm left to fight on and figure this out. Triumph or Tragedy? Still unclear.


4 comments:

  1. I just happened upon your post and very much appreciate the topic. I have to agree that sometimes there is very good reason for feeling "blue" or sad or exhausted other than the "illness" of OCD or other mental health problem. I hope you feel better soon. Thank you for sharing your story.

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    1. Thank you! I appreciate you reading and sharing. :)

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  2. I love this post because it is so darned spot on. Sometimes it's just life. For me, winter is the time of no energy, moderate motivation. It's why I picked Hygge as my word of the year. If you compound it with a departed boyfriend (even if just geographically) and job angst, it's no fun. But it's something each and every single one of us experience. So cut yourself some slack on this one, Laura. I think the shrink is spot on (they often are!) and just let it roll over you and feel OK about it. And THAT will be a triumph.

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    1. Thank you. I always appreciate your support! Hope you are doing well.

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