My Obsession

Most people will never know.

In fact, unless your brain works like mine, there is no way for you to relate. I know a few people who are like me, we are all around you, just pay attention to the people you see. We walk around work, pacing with our arms crossed. When you tap us on the shoulder, we jump. When you ask us a question, we kind of stare at you blankly and then say, ‘I’m sorry, did you say something?’

At times, it sounds as if we stop in the middle of our sentences and then start again. If you aren’t one of us, you will never understand. You will never know what it is like to have your brain run faster, and with more thoughts than it can handle. You will never know what it is to obsess constantly over everything and nothing at all.

Some of us go even further than obsessing. We have taken pessimism to a whole new level. We will, invariably turn a casual meeting that someone couldn’t make into an attempt to stab us in the back. We will, without a doubt, start imagining car accidents and funerals for friends that are ten minutes late. Mark my words, we can, and we will find a way to take anything and quite literally turn it into the end of the world.

The things we think about don’t make any sense. Quite literally, and quite often, they don’t make any sense to us. We are intelligent people who have overactive imaginations, and for some reason, a way of looking at the world that turns everything negative.

We spend a good majority of our time second-guessing what we want to say, what we need to say or what we are trying to say. We do this before, during and after we say it. Sometimes, we obsess about something we said a few YEARS after we originally said it.

Quite honestly, if I ever had a chance to THINK what anyone thought about these blogs, I would probably stop writing them. Things I have such a hard time saying in person flow so freely from my fingertips that you would never imagine that Jake the Writer and Jake the Person were one in the same.

I spend most conversations with people thinking, ‘well, if I say that, they will think…’ Over time, it has just become easier for me to assume that no one reads what I write. It takes a lot for me to open up either mentally or emotionally to most people. I have spent a good majority of my lifetime assuming that I am being indicted for the things that I feel or think. When people tell you that you are weird or crazy for thinking the way you do, or liking the things you do, or worrying the way you do, you stop telling them these things. It’s only human nature to try to fit in to the way of everyone else’s thinking.

As much as I have tried, I can’t help it any more than a cripple can help walking with a limp. The only thing I can do is to start thinking about other things, besides the thing I’m obsessing about. By this time, I am trying to stop thoughts by thinking about them, which literally makes no sense. It is for all intents and purposes, throwing gasoline on the fire.

There have been numerous instances when I have been in the middle of a few thoughts when someone asked me a question, and it has taken a few seconds of contemplation before I understood what was being said. There has been more than one occasion when I have had so many thoughts running through my head that I have forgotten to breathe.

At any given moment, I have so many thoughts running through my head, that I wish I could hide from them. I think about things, then wonder why I think about things, THEN think that I am crazy for wondering about thinking about things. My brain can develop scenarios that no one has ever experienced before. It is a melting pot of ideas, and they flow from me faster than I can handle them.

Reading about it can ill express what it feels like, but here is an example of some things that pass through my brain in an average second:

“What did I do this time, why wont they tell me about the job, god, I’m hungry, my head hurts, I’m tired, my brother needs to stop drinking so much, well at least the expensive shit, when are they going to realize how little actual physical work I do all day, why do all my black shirts fade when no one else’s do, dammit they shorted me on my check, they better fix it or I’m gonna raise hell, shrinks suck, every one I have called has the same office hours I have, they are going to fire me, my eye itches, my head hurts, why am I so damn hungry, I want a GT, I cant afford a GT, my cell phone sucks, I need to stop buying crap that I don’t need, how am I ever going to afford that car, god, I cant believe I said ‘I cant let you drink alone’ in that dorm room in ’98 what the hell was I thinking that was stupid it just made me sound like I was trying to be cool, I cant believe that I am obsessing about something that happened in ’98, at least I’m not obsessing about something that happened in HS, god I hate myself for yelling at Matt that one time, crap, I’m obsessing over something that happened in HS, why is my mom calling over and over again, oh god, oh god, my brother must have gotten in a car accident, that’s the only reason she would try so hard to get a hold of me, get a hold of yourself Jake, she would call you at work if it was an emergency, I need to stop worrying so much, commas slow me down too much what the hell are those little rubber things for we have them all over but they don’t seem to serve any purpose why wont she believe me why do I obsess so much about things I cant control my knee itches F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 Alt+F4 how come everyone else seems at peace and I feel like I am at war why do I assume only the worst out of people how come I can identify what is wrong with me but I cant fix it I don’t want to go to a shrink I’m not crazy I just need to reason myself out of this like I reason myself out of every other problem I can fix myself I can fix myself son of a bitch why do I feel this way do I tell people the way I feel or the way I want to feel I hate myself I love myself people don’t understand self loathing they understand narcissism everyone hates me why do I have to fight everyone to get what I want why do people lean on me when they need to talk about things and I cant get the same courtesy in return why does everyone feel the need to try to make me feel worse when I talk about my problems no one knows no one knows I am ashamed to have emotions my father says it is a weakness my mom starts crying over Folgers’ commercials I cant relate to anyone why am I so damn hungry I cant eat I feel like a pig when I eat I have to be perfect I have to be perfect no one wants me around it seems like I always have to be the one to make the effort to spend time with anyone maybe I am trying to hard maybe I’m trying too much billions of people on this planet how come I feel like they are against me maybe I am being to selfish what are you talking about you aren’t being to selfish asking to be appreciated once in a while how come I bend over backwards for people and I don’t get the same in return god those machines are perfectly symmetrical this pen sucks ass I need to know I need to know why am I so afraid and ashamed to be myself where did they get a red swingline stapler I cant fall asleep I cant fall asleep I am so bored I want to cry this is my own hell I feel like I am being stifled I am so afraid that I am going to say the wrong thing and she is going to hate me I need to try she doesn’t understand how much she has changed me and my life she is everything I have to show her I have to tell her I have to keep her I cant let her go not now not ever I have to make our lives better I have to be everything to everyone I cant wear glasses I look like a dork I know I am a dork but it doesn’t mean I have to look the part I wish I was never a kid and had to deal with some things how can she not know what she means to me I need to be more open with her is that a gun to my back I cant get fat I cant get fat these walls feel like they are caving in I just want to be normal I just want to be normal I don’t want to think anymore this is torment who names fonts anyway I feel so inferior that I need to paint myself as a narcissist to hide why hasn’t my brother called oh god he got in a car accident stop looking over my shoulder I should be designing aircraft not databases I’m a fucking loser why do I keep looking at my cell phone cant stop moving cant stop moving that doctor is a liar why aren’t I fixed I wish I could forget everything and not be this person any more I misspelled classes why do I always have to fight for people to understand why do I always have to yell for them to listen no one knows no one knows no one knows what its like to…”

If any of you are still there and you could read that in a second or two, you now know a little more about what it is like to be me.

Who's Afraid of...

In my experience, there are two flavors of people who suffer from problems with anxiety. The first, and most common would be your normal, average, everyday moron. These are the type of people who get anxious about everything because they don’t know enough about anything to really know what goes on in the world. They know just enough about what could happen in the world, and they think they know why, but they are so far off that the reaction makes no logical sense.

These are the type of people who don’t get their children inoculated for diseases because they believe that the government is going to use the shot to chemically control their children. Conspiracy theorists without proof, a great deal of these people invent situations in their head to make them feel as if they are more important than they really are. Don’t get me wrong, there is a need for conspiracy theorists, especially in this country, but some just straddle the line between thinking outside of the box and paranoid.

Then, there are the polar opposites. A group of people who are informed enough about most things that they know enough to be dangerous to themselves and the people around them. These people are rarely conspiracy theorists, and more likely than not to be hypochondriacs, spending a great deal of time with their heads in medical texts of some sort, trying to figure out what that scratching in the back of their throat is.

Admittedly, I am one of the later. In the age of information, born of the Internet, it has become ever increasingly easy for us hypochondriacs to gather information about the diseases we have this week. All we need is a small symptom, a sneeze, a headache, or a cough to make us start looking on the net for information, and at our wills to make sure they are up to date. All we need do is to pick a disease, and our brain will fill in the blanks, developing any symptoms that we don’t already have.

In an age when we are bombarded by information about diseases from sources such as Web MD, Discovery Health Channel, and various other sources, there are very few sites or informational programs that wont tell you what will kill you in your sleep tonight. For those with Internet addictions, and a compulsion to learn more about ourselves and the world around us, this is a curse.

September 1999:
I had to be excused from a late morning Latin class because I thought I was having a heart attack. After much, much retrospection, I determined that the 6 cups of coffee I had that morning, nervousness I had due to an upcoming test, and an upset digestive system caused by my breakfast had caused me to have an acute anxiety attack with heartburn. I took four Tums and two Tylenol PM and the heart attack ended.

August 2000:
After staring at my red, itchy hands for an hour at work, I convinced myself that my hands were swelling up, and I was breaking out in hives. This was something that actually happened to me in high school, but not once since. At the time, I was a 411 operator, and when a customer was kind enough to ask me how my day was going, I replied:

“I think I am breaking out in hives, my hands are all itchy and swollen…”

This turned out to be a bad idea. Unbeknownst to me, a classroom of 35 new-hires was sitting in a room 30 feet away listening to every word I said over a muted speakerphone. This was only pointed out to me after I passed 15 people chuckling and pointing at me.

My dermatologist suggested I obtain a bottle of what he called ‘moisturizing lotion’ and use it on my hands. Within three days, my hives were gone.

Late 2001:
Sitting in a training class, after a long lunch and a news report about the latest anthrax scare, I started writing an email to my parents about what ‘arrangements’ I wanted to be made. This included, what songs I wanted at my funeral, who my pallbearers were to be, and who was to be invited to my rosary service and funeral reception. Interestingly enough, I had no symptoms whatsoever until I started to read a synopsis on Web MD.

February 2002:
After waking up with sharp, stabbing pain in my right hip off and on for a while, I was convinced that I either had a bone spur or some sort of ligament or cartilage problem in my hip. Interestingly enough, the problem stopped immediately following when I started to make sure that my keys weren’t in my pajama pants pocket before crashing for the night.

November 2002:
Could not sleep for three days before finally going to the doctor. Even though I had already started feeling better, and I was quite certain that I had never been to Asia, I was convinced that I had somehow contracted SARS. After a multitude of tests, and arguments with my physician trying to convince him of what I knew, regardless of the results of the tests, it was determined that what I had was, as he called it, ‘a common cold’.

June 2003:
After noticing an oddly suspicious red mark on my right forearm, I was determined that I had necrotizing fasciiatis, or as the common folk would call it, flesh-eating disease. After further inspection, and pacing about my apartment for 5 hours, I realized that the red mark was caused by accidentally bumping into a brick wall earlier that day. My killer bacteria was, in fact, a simple scrape.

November 2004:
After watching a Discovery Channel special, and feeling under the weather for a week or two, I somehow managed to convince myself that I was the first American to come down with the avian flu. I kept imagining myself giving interviews to various news sources from my hospital bed, with the eyes of the entire country on me, wondering if I was going to pull through or if others would come down with the disease. As it turned out, my fever and headache were caused by nothing other than sinusitis.

July 2005:
After awaking with my left arm numb, my heart started racing, and I believed that I had been in the middle of a stroke. My first instinct was to go online and double check the symptoms of a stroke before I called for an ambulance.

In a panic, I was unable to find any sites with stroke symptoms listed. After ten minutes of still being alive, with my arm getting less and less numb by the second, I started to calm down. Considering I was starting to feel better instead of worse, my vision wasn’t closing up, and there was no blood shooting out of my nose, I came to the conclusion that my arm was just asleep from lying on it all evening.

March 2006:
After bringing all of this to the attention of my shrink, plus a laundry list of psychological ailments that I thought I once had, including Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, ADHD, and Tourette’s Syndrome , she determined one thing. As she put it, I am a reasonably intelligent individual who knows too much about what can go wrong and has an overactive imagination, or as I like to call it, a dude with too much free time on his hands, or a fucking nutjob, for simplicity sake.