A few people in my family (including myself) claim to have OCD. And they/we probably do. Nobody has been officially tested, and nobody’s seen a doctor about it. Sure, we’ve all done the “do you have to check that the stove has been turned off five times before going to bed/do you have to eat ALL the peas on your plate because you don’t want one to feel left out/do you worry that you might accidentally shop lift one day when clearly you wouldn’t because you don’t think that shop lifting is a socially acceptable thing to do” online quizzes, and the answer was yes, bloody hell, yes.
A few of us (well, one of us) can’t even eat his supper and would rather starve “if there are tomatoes, or tomato sauce, or pieces of tomato skin (that’s the worst), or the suggestion of tomato products anywhere around, on, or in the near vicinity of his dinner plates, the stove, or the kitchen counter in general” and he’s not two years old. He’s twenty-four. To him, tomatoes are like the devil and should be banned from this planet, apparently. Ah, good old first world problems.
Yes, we are all a little neurotic around here, and sometimes – just sometimes – we like to give that neuroticism a name, so we label ourselves OCD, and it makes us feel better; it makes us feel like we are NOT alone, like other people do and think crazy shit as well.
OK, so we all have problems, but some of us can take this OCD behaviour to a whole other “holy crap, are you really like that?” level.
I like to call it “you are acting just like the groundhog that your father and I ran over with the car that one time” syndrome. Now, before I go into this further, let me just say that we didn’t run over the groundhog on purpose. Actually, I didn’t run it over at all; I wasn’t driving. It was my crazy “if an animal darts into traffic, I’m just going to keep going because I’d rather that, than swerve into an oncoming truck and get killed myself” husband. He does have a point. I’d be the woman stopping on the freeway to save a brood of baby ducks who were abandoned by their mother, or something else that could land me in jail but that I think is a really unfair situation because if someone doesn’t look out for the baby ducks, who will? Ten car pile-up, shmile-up, I say.
Anyway, back to the groundhog. FYI, this actually happened. We saw him at the edge of the road, poised to cross when we were driving to visit my in-laws one sunny Saturday afternoon some years ago. He was making this “heaving forward and back, forward and back” motion with his body, like he was contemplating if what he was about to do would end his life. Sadly, it did, because as soon as we got close enough to him that we couldn’t stop even if we wanted to, he made a break for it. With four lanes of busy traffic and everyone going at least eighty kilometres an hour all around us, it was an unfortunate inevitability. For us, there was no slowing down, no moving over, and no calling out to the hundred or so cars speeding this way and that to “watch out for the groundhog, he needs to get to the other side of the street, maybe to see his family, or maybe because the grass over there looks greener (it always does), who knows”. It was just splat. I closed my eyes. I can’t bear it when a helpless and innocent animal gets hurt, or worse, killed. I yelled at my husband for three days after about it, even though it was more the groundhog’s fault.
Poor guy. He never stood a chance. His simple groundhog brain just wasn’t smart enough to know that turning around and going back to wherever it was he was coming from would have been the better option. Evolution just hadn’t taken place fast enough to work in his furry little favour.
Now, for humans, that’s not the case. We have bigger brains – most of us do anyway – and we have the capacity to not only think before we act, but we have the capacity and foresight to change our minds about something if what appears to be coming next doesn’t seem all that advantageous. Let me give you a real life example. This is my blog. You can’t stop me.
Let’s say for instance that you want to buy a car. You are just out of university, working hard, and starting to make some really good cash. You also have an image to maintain – your job requires it, or so you say. Now, the car you have your eye on is a nice one. It costs over a hundred thousand dollars – yeah, it’s that nice. Undoubtedly, this car has a lot going for it, like it has lots of power. Passing little old ladies on the highway will be no problem. Plus, it’s flashy – it has red leather interior, a great sound system (that could blow your mother’s eardrums out if you were to play some really loud rap music for her), and lots and lots of confusing electronic gadgets. It’s very cool. You REALLY want it. And you have the money to buy it, so why not? You don’t have any kids, or a house with a mortgage, or any kind of real responsibility. If you are ever going to buy a car like that, now would be the time.
But there is one problem. It’s rear wheel drive, and you live in a place that gets a lot of snow. So you ask your parents what they think, because you value their opinion. They are smart. They raised you to be the great person you are, after all.
So you say, “Mom, don’t comment. I’m buying this car whether you think I should or not. You drive a beater, so what do you know?” Then you turn to your father. “Dad, you’re a car guy. Is this nice or what?”
Your father says, “Yes, it’s nice,” but he reiterates your main concern with this particular car. “It’s rear wheel drive though. Aren’t there any other options?”
“I’ve looked,” you say.
“You may need to look a little longer to find the right one. When you are making big decisions such as this, you don’t want to rush.” Your dad is very intelligent. He is a surgeon.
“But this is the car I like,” you say.
“Yes, but it’s not practical,” yells your mother from the kitchen. She always needs to put her two cents in, and it’s annoying, especially when she doesn’t agree.
You are getting mad. “When I get something in my head, it’s just there and I can’t get it out,” you say. What are you, five?
“Tell yourself that you need to consider the options a little longer. You don’t have a good choice at this point.” Your father knows what he’s talking about.
“Can’t,” you say back.
“Try,” he says firmly.
“It is what it is,” you add. “I’m gonna buy the car.” And then you leave, despite what your family has advised.
Less than two weeks later, when you realize that you cannot drive the stupid thing in the snow because you tried and almost slid into the ditch five times, and you almost spun into oncoming traffic once, nearly killing yourself and your sweet girlfriend, you say, “I’m done with this fucking car.” And you trade it in for something that is all wheel drive – the kind of car you just hadn’t considered yet, because you didn’t give yourself enough time. You take a nice little (and by “little” I mean “big”) financial hit in the process.
It’s hard – like really fucking hard – to watch your children make mistakes, but I guess my parents let me do it. Come to think of it, the worst mistake I ever made was getting a mohawk, but lucky for me, hair grows back. Problem now is, when I say to my husband, “What the hell is wrong with the children?” he shrugs his shoulders and replies, “They get it from you.” In this case, he’d be partially right. They get it from him first. He is the one who can only – and I do mean ONLY – ever scoop ice-cream with an ice-cream scooper. See the meme above for further explanation.