Fighting the Urge...

I think people are a little too quick to flippantly say, "I'm so OCD" when really they mean "I'm nit picky about that" or "I'm particular". OCD when it's real, is a pretty scary thing. We all have behaviors that we engage in to assert control over our environments or derive comfort. It's a healthy thing in fact, but in OCD those little behaviors become overwhelmingly important and failing to perform them can lead to a crippling dread that something awful will happen.

The scariest thing about it is that it can crop up in people who haven't previously struggled over much with mental health. That's rare though. In practice it seems like people who develop OCD have a predisposition towards anxiety and depression.

I don't have OCD, not even close, but if I did I'd have a form of hypergraphia. People suffering from hypergraphia have an uncontrollable urge to write. A sub-set is those who must write lists. I write a lot of lists. I have organizational lists and reading lists. I have lists of recipes that I would like to try and lists of goals. Some of my lists I keep and work on, some last only a few hours before I toss them in the trash. A person rifling through my desk is likely to uncover dozens of the things.

I mention this because I'm having a really hard time not writing monthly reading lists. They didn't really achieve much and yet I'm sitting here itching to write one. It's bizarre.

I will resist.

For now.