Once I find something that brings be comfort and joy, I encase myself in it. Comfort, joy, must have. Must keep. This helps. This will help.
I get obsessive, easily. This applies to many things.
It's not just when something is of comfort or joy. It's even more so when something resolves some - especially the majority - of a negative emotion surrounding something. This can be fear, depression, a queasy, uncomfortable feeling.... many things.
For example, I 'have OCD about germs.' A fear of germs was instilled in me by my second grade teacher. It was the perfect environment for an obsession + compulsion to develop.
The teacher had always made sure that we wiped our desks with Clorox wipes after every assignment. Multiple times per day, maybe per hour - it was in elementary school, so I can't say per period.
We had to use hand sanitizer every time that we touched something, before and after getting a worksheet, everytime that we'd leave our desks for something, when starting a new activity - more often than we'd wipe our desks.
Often when we did this, she'd talk about the importance of 'staying away from germs', and how even though we're wiping desks, we're still in 'so much danger', seeing as there's still the '0.01% of germs', since they always say 99.9% of germs die. (Learning that this is a lie and it is less than 99.9% of germs killed was not fun.)
Being wary of germs became normal, it was okay. I understood it - I feared the germs, which, that's normal for a child! I wasn't really that scared. It was just an underlying thought.
But, the thing is, this very same teacher, didn't believe in washing hands. She believed it was a waste of time, and said that there would be hand sanitizer outside of the bathrooms waiting for us to use, and that it was unnecessary to wash our hands - it 'took too long'.
This was abnormal. It was strange. It didn't make sense. Germs are bad. Hand sanitizer doesn't kill all of them. Hand sanitizer is just a gel, it doesn't clean off your hands. It's just a gel. It's a coating, really. Wash your hands. It's better. It's cleaner. They aren't washing their hands. Wash your hands more. They need to be clean. Clean. Clean. No germs. They aren't clean enough. They feel unclean. They need to be clean. You're using the same sink as they did to rinse off their hands -- what if they don't use soap? Or not enough of it? Wash them. Different sink. Grab a towel, don't touch the handle. It's unclean. There are germs. So many people touch that. Don't touch it. It's dangerous. People die from that, you know. Don't.
Needless to say I did not follow that rule - uhm, I in fact did washed my hands. This is an obsession. I obsessed over my hands being clean. ...I still do. I still don't trust tables, I still feel uncomfortable touching sink handles, I still wash my hands every time I get anywhere near a sink because just in case.
The compulsion, of course, was watching them.
The thing is, haha, this didn't help me. OCD isn't just this.
OCD makes you obsess so much it's harmful. My skin cracks because of it. My dermatologist said that I needed to use lotion after every time I washed my hands to re-hydrate them, because all the hand sanitizer - that I had started to bring with me, and use so much more often - and hand washing had dried them out so much.
...Sometimes I obsess over things that aren't like this. Things that bring me comfort.
Movies. TV shows. Grades. Friends.
It's like a hyperfixation or special interest, kind of. But less talked about, I guess.
When I say I obsess over my friends I mean that literally, by the way. If I seem like I'm distancing myself it's because I am. I get scared that I'll obsess.
It happens. It's not like, a yandere thing. It's not a 'crush'. It's more like when I get too close to a friend and they are too much of a comfort for me, my brain goes haywire and thinks 'comfort needed. happy needed. if person = comfort, then must surround myself with person.' I think my brain thinks it'll bring me more joy.
It gets to a point where I value one person over my own life, I've had moments where I've ignored everything except for a person.
...but that's more extreme cases. please don't be worried, I'm in therapy now. I don't know. I'm sorry. I just feel like I have to say this.
