Ordered chaos (Or: To sanity, with love and squalor
My body is aching this night. I have the tense, cramped shoulders of someone too long hunched over the keyboard. I don’t even think about it as my fingers tap furiously against the keys at this hour. I’m too tired to think and too anxious to sleep…so I let it overcome me, I succumb to its inevitability, and I pour forth until the words in my head are silenced. The dark room is lit only by the soft light from the monitor and the flickering of a candle behind me. At dusk I thought of getting up to switch on a light. Suddenly it was midnight and darkness surrounded me, wrapping around me gently, bathing me in the familiar calm that dark silence often brings. The calm before the storm.
Stress, a cluttered mind, and a terminal case of cacoethes scribendi (an insatiable urge to write). These are the things that have brought me to this place tonight. Juvenal wrote that cacoethes scribendi takes possession of many, and grows inveterate in their insane breast. Yep, that about sums it up. Michael Chabon, in Wonder Boys, called it the Midnight Disease. Somehow it always takes hold at the latest hours. And somehow it always happens when I NEED some sleep!
This has been my pattern since high school. That’s when it all started. And for the first time I’m going to write about it here. Stress induces it, I’ve discovered. And trying to stop it only makes it worse.
My friends used to comment on it in high school when they noticed my annoying habit of lining my books up by size and placing my pens and pencils, tip down, to the side and directly centered on the largest book (usually my 3-ring binder). They’d laugh when I’d open my locker and they’d see the neat stacks of papers and books. The way my jacket hung perfectly from the hook, with the sleeves turned in and hanging down crisp as I could get them. The paper bag that contained my lunch was always on the top shelf, centered along the left side, its folded top not merely crumpled but rather folded three times over neatly, perfectly aligned. Even inside the bag my relentless ordering continued. When I packed the lunch I’d put the sandwich (wrapped in tin foil which I folded as though it were a present) in first. I’d stand it up at the back of the bag and then place in my drink (in front of the sandwich and over to the left) and an apple (directly next to the drink). Next, my napkin, folded in half with both halves perfectly equal, would go in front of the drink and apple. I’d lay it horizontally in order to preserve the symmetry. Symmetry…in a lunch bag!
When my friends wanted to drive me crazy they had only to walk by my desk and knock my piles out of order. Turning my pen so it pointed up instead of down was like turning my life upside down and it wasn’t long before they discovered that fact and used it to amuse themselves. They’d watch me intently to see how long it took me to fix the problem. Usually it didn’t take long. I couldn’t help it. But don’t get me wrong: I don’t blame them for torturing me for amusement. School could get boring and tedious…they needed an outlet. I’d have probably partaken in some lighthearted teasing as well if I weren’t the crazy one!
So it started with piles. And eventually I noticed other weird behaviors, things I tried to hide because they were even more embarrassing than my ordered stacks. Things like having to touch the light switch five times before I left a room. Things like having to walk out of a room with my left foot first, counting to five before I actually crossed the threshold (and, of course, touching the light switch five times). Things like checking to make sure the doors and windows were locked over and over again when I left the house or went to bed. Things like washing my hands over and over until they were red and raw. I had all kinds of weird habits. Back in high school I thought that’s all it was: weird habits. But in college it got worse. I found that whenever I was under a tremendous amount of stress--I had a paper due or a test to take--my “habits” got more intense and problematic.
College was when my fear of germs took hold and I started walking around campus with a small bottle of hand sanitizer. Shaking hands with people was unbearable. These habits of mine were really starting to interfere with my life.
When I entered the real world and got a job, the problem morphed. I developed physical tics when I was under stress, blinking my eyes wildly and cocking my head to the left two or three times in quick succession. I kept a stress ball on my desk and used it often when I found myself tapping my fingers against each other incessantly or pulling on my pant leg or my shirt sleeve to try to gain some relief from the stress I felt building up inside. I had my first panic attack after working a 10-hour day trying to beat an impending deadline. I thought it was a nervous breakdown it was so intense. The air in my lungs seemed to have turned to concrete and I gasped to stay alive. My body temperature rose sharply, my limbs strted shaking violently, and suddenly I felt the need to crawl out of my own skin. I don’t remember the attack stopping, but eventually it did. I’m pretty sure I drank my self into a stupor that night to drown out the fear and anxiety.
Eventually I noticed that when I was working and if I was under a tight deadline, I had a tendency to read and reread the same passage on a page over and over again. Not a good thing for an editor. It was taking me way longer than it should to get through projects and that only added to the stress. Finally after believing for so long that I was just plain nuts, I was told that my problem had a name: obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Great. It has a name. Now how the hell do I stop it? There are medications, I was told. Screw that. I’m not taking drugs so I can stop counting to 5 all the time. Surely I have greater will power than that. The thing is, when things get stressful and I start with the rituals, it’s like nothing around me is real; like it’s all made of sand, constantly shifting around me. It’s really quite disorientating. So I do have a bottle Xanax in my medicine cabinet which I will, from time to time, indulge in. Also, Miller Lite helps a lot. Heh.
So the problem got worse, then it got better. I learned little tricks to try to keep the compulsions at bay. And because I was so embarrassed by them, I would try hard not to perform them in front of others. By this time, my friends and I were older and though they still noticed my “habits” and sometimes took pleasure in rearranging any piles they might notice, they didn’t make me feel like a freak by constantly harassing me about it. Most of my friends, the ones who know or those who are becoming aware now, are patient with my quirks, and don’t take any notice (or at least don’t let me see that they take notice). I have one friend I talk to about it. He’s known for years and he helps me keep perspective when I feel overwhelmed. When we recently saw the movie The Aviator, we renamed my problem Howard Hughes syndrome. Of course, I walked away from the movie thinking, Man, I’m glad I’m not that crazy!
So here I am tonight, and my compulsion now is writing. There have been times in the past when I’ve locked myself in my office for days, coming out only occasionally, and written until I ran out of words. I have mixed feelings about these episodes. On one hand, I feel so compelled to write that it can really interfere with real life and it drives my husband and others crazy. On the other hand, my creative hunger is fed fully at times like these and I can churn out a huge amount of work without draining myself mentally or physically. It’s like I step outside myself and the words take over and write themselves. It’s actually an awesome feeling.
Unfortunately this comes at a bad time, and my compulsion to write is igniting a certain amount of guilt for letting others things go at a time when I seem to be at my busiest. I’m crushed under the weight of deadlines right now. Work is busy, I have a couple of freelance jobs that are keeping me on my toes, and on top of it I’m taking my GRE next month so I can apply to graduate school. So you can imagine what havoc this is wreaking on my oh-so-fragile psyche. Oh, yeah…I’m counting to 5 all over the damn place. Then there’s the fact that we’re redoing our kitchen and the upstairs is in total disarray at the moment. Recent obsessions and compulsions include having to read and re-read the stories I’m filing before I hit the send button. I do this to ensure not only accuracy, but that I haven’t written anything stupid, like parts of a conversation I may have had on the phone while typing. Never in my life have I done this, but the fear exists that it will happen some day so I read the same words over and over. I even try to read them aloud to make sure, but it takes me forever to just convince myself it’s fine to submit. The whole touching the light switch thing is still a biggie. And I noticed lately that when I power down the computer when I’m done in my office for the night, I often find myself unable to leave the desk until the mouse is lined up just right on the mouse pad. (Before I power down, by the way, I have to make sure the cursor is in the top-left corner of the screen. If it’s not, I have to boot up and shut it down all over again.) After I get the mouse lined up just so, I have to tap it 5 times before leaving. Problem is I often knock it out of alignment when I tap it, so I have to go back and do it again. Then I have to make sure the chair is pushed in under the desk, almost to the back, but not quite. And it has to be straight, not crooked at all.
OK, maybe I am a little crazy…
Stress, a cluttered mind, and a terminal case of cacoethes scribendi (an insatiable urge to write). These are the things that have brought me to this place tonight. Juvenal wrote that cacoethes scribendi takes possession of many, and grows inveterate in their insane breast. Yep, that about sums it up. Michael Chabon, in Wonder Boys, called it the Midnight Disease. Somehow it always takes hold at the latest hours. And somehow it always happens when I NEED some sleep!
This has been my pattern since high school. That’s when it all started. And for the first time I’m going to write about it here. Stress induces it, I’ve discovered. And trying to stop it only makes it worse.
My friends used to comment on it in high school when they noticed my annoying habit of lining my books up by size and placing my pens and pencils, tip down, to the side and directly centered on the largest book (usually my 3-ring binder). They’d laugh when I’d open my locker and they’d see the neat stacks of papers and books. The way my jacket hung perfectly from the hook, with the sleeves turned in and hanging down crisp as I could get them. The paper bag that contained my lunch was always on the top shelf, centered along the left side, its folded top not merely crumpled but rather folded three times over neatly, perfectly aligned. Even inside the bag my relentless ordering continued. When I packed the lunch I’d put the sandwich (wrapped in tin foil which I folded as though it were a present) in first. I’d stand it up at the back of the bag and then place in my drink (in front of the sandwich and over to the left) and an apple (directly next to the drink). Next, my napkin, folded in half with both halves perfectly equal, would go in front of the drink and apple. I’d lay it horizontally in order to preserve the symmetry. Symmetry…in a lunch bag!
When my friends wanted to drive me crazy they had only to walk by my desk and knock my piles out of order. Turning my pen so it pointed up instead of down was like turning my life upside down and it wasn’t long before they discovered that fact and used it to amuse themselves. They’d watch me intently to see how long it took me to fix the problem. Usually it didn’t take long. I couldn’t help it. But don’t get me wrong: I don’t blame them for torturing me for amusement. School could get boring and tedious…they needed an outlet. I’d have probably partaken in some lighthearted teasing as well if I weren’t the crazy one!
So it started with piles. And eventually I noticed other weird behaviors, things I tried to hide because they were even more embarrassing than my ordered stacks. Things like having to touch the light switch five times before I left a room. Things like having to walk out of a room with my left foot first, counting to five before I actually crossed the threshold (and, of course, touching the light switch five times). Things like checking to make sure the doors and windows were locked over and over again when I left the house or went to bed. Things like washing my hands over and over until they were red and raw. I had all kinds of weird habits. Back in high school I thought that’s all it was: weird habits. But in college it got worse. I found that whenever I was under a tremendous amount of stress--I had a paper due or a test to take--my “habits” got more intense and problematic.
College was when my fear of germs took hold and I started walking around campus with a small bottle of hand sanitizer. Shaking hands with people was unbearable. These habits of mine were really starting to interfere with my life.
When I entered the real world and got a job, the problem morphed. I developed physical tics when I was under stress, blinking my eyes wildly and cocking my head to the left two or three times in quick succession. I kept a stress ball on my desk and used it often when I found myself tapping my fingers against each other incessantly or pulling on my pant leg or my shirt sleeve to try to gain some relief from the stress I felt building up inside. I had my first panic attack after working a 10-hour day trying to beat an impending deadline. I thought it was a nervous breakdown it was so intense. The air in my lungs seemed to have turned to concrete and I gasped to stay alive. My body temperature rose sharply, my limbs strted shaking violently, and suddenly I felt the need to crawl out of my own skin. I don’t remember the attack stopping, but eventually it did. I’m pretty sure I drank my self into a stupor that night to drown out the fear and anxiety.
Eventually I noticed that when I was working and if I was under a tight deadline, I had a tendency to read and reread the same passage on a page over and over again. Not a good thing for an editor. It was taking me way longer than it should to get through projects and that only added to the stress. Finally after believing for so long that I was just plain nuts, I was told that my problem had a name: obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Great. It has a name. Now how the hell do I stop it? There are medications, I was told. Screw that. I’m not taking drugs so I can stop counting to 5 all the time. Surely I have greater will power than that. The thing is, when things get stressful and I start with the rituals, it’s like nothing around me is real; like it’s all made of sand, constantly shifting around me. It’s really quite disorientating. So I do have a bottle Xanax in my medicine cabinet which I will, from time to time, indulge in. Also, Miller Lite helps a lot. Heh.
So the problem got worse, then it got better. I learned little tricks to try to keep the compulsions at bay. And because I was so embarrassed by them, I would try hard not to perform them in front of others. By this time, my friends and I were older and though they still noticed my “habits” and sometimes took pleasure in rearranging any piles they might notice, they didn’t make me feel like a freak by constantly harassing me about it. Most of my friends, the ones who know or those who are becoming aware now, are patient with my quirks, and don’t take any notice (or at least don’t let me see that they take notice). I have one friend I talk to about it. He’s known for years and he helps me keep perspective when I feel overwhelmed. When we recently saw the movie The Aviator, we renamed my problem Howard Hughes syndrome. Of course, I walked away from the movie thinking, Man, I’m glad I’m not that crazy!
So here I am tonight, and my compulsion now is writing. There have been times in the past when I’ve locked myself in my office for days, coming out only occasionally, and written until I ran out of words. I have mixed feelings about these episodes. On one hand, I feel so compelled to write that it can really interfere with real life and it drives my husband and others crazy. On the other hand, my creative hunger is fed fully at times like these and I can churn out a huge amount of work without draining myself mentally or physically. It’s like I step outside myself and the words take over and write themselves. It’s actually an awesome feeling.
Unfortunately this comes at a bad time, and my compulsion to write is igniting a certain amount of guilt for letting others things go at a time when I seem to be at my busiest. I’m crushed under the weight of deadlines right now. Work is busy, I have a couple of freelance jobs that are keeping me on my toes, and on top of it I’m taking my GRE next month so I can apply to graduate school. So you can imagine what havoc this is wreaking on my oh-so-fragile psyche. Oh, yeah…I’m counting to 5 all over the damn place. Then there’s the fact that we’re redoing our kitchen and the upstairs is in total disarray at the moment. Recent obsessions and compulsions include having to read and re-read the stories I’m filing before I hit the send button. I do this to ensure not only accuracy, but that I haven’t written anything stupid, like parts of a conversation I may have had on the phone while typing. Never in my life have I done this, but the fear exists that it will happen some day so I read the same words over and over. I even try to read them aloud to make sure, but it takes me forever to just convince myself it’s fine to submit. The whole touching the light switch thing is still a biggie. And I noticed lately that when I power down the computer when I’m done in my office for the night, I often find myself unable to leave the desk until the mouse is lined up just right on the mouse pad. (Before I power down, by the way, I have to make sure the cursor is in the top-left corner of the screen. If it’s not, I have to boot up and shut it down all over again.) After I get the mouse lined up just so, I have to tap it 5 times before leaving. Problem is I often knock it out of alignment when I tap it, so I have to go back and do it again. Then I have to make sure the chair is pushed in under the desk, almost to the back, but not quite. And it has to be straight, not crooked at all.
OK, maybe I am a little crazy…
posted by M at
1:58 AM
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