Or was it actually a success?
I've cured myself of obsessive compulsive disorder I think. No really, I have. Seriously. I know people say oh I am so obsessive compulsive, but that's not the same as the disorder. I've had it since I was 7, and suddenly, after all these years, I think I am cured.
I did everything just right. I wore the right outfit and the right pair of shoes. I took the stuffed bunny in my purse. I had the letter that I wrote to myself that I just received in the mail the day before on Monday. I parked on the 5th floor. I didn't eat Skinny Cow. None of it mattered. None of it.
I did it all because I had a mammogram on Tuesday. And you know, if you don't eat Skinny Cow and you carry around a cat toy, you won't have breast cancer again right? I mean surely carrying the cat toy in your purse makes a difference. Not so.
My mammogram came back suspicious. There was a cluster of calcifications in my other breast. Shit. They wanted to biopsy them to see if they were benign, atypical, or one of two types of cancers. Shit shit shit. What am I going to do? What if I have breast cancer again. I took the bunny, I had the letter - clearly these things didn't matter. Poof, the OCD was gone. The food behavior/ outcome insanity in my mind suddenly seemed just as irrational as it actually is. But fuck, I still have to go through this fucking shit again.
My very good friend Nina and I sort of had a little deal that if my mammogram went wrong she would get on a plane. Well, true to her word, she did exactly that. She flew out here and stayed with me, distracted me, etc. until we knew everything was fine. The pathology report came back benign. Thank you God. I feel terrible that she flew all the way out here and I haven't figured out exactly how I am going to thank her, but I'll come up with something. Perhaps it proves that my theory isn't entirely all right all the time. Sometimes, people do show up for you. She is the only person I really wanted to be with while I waited.
So as for the OCD I thought well, I did everything I did and my mammogram came out bad, then fuck it right. My behaviors are irrational. Not eating a cookie doesn't mean I am not going to get an urgent email at work the next day and be really pissed off about it. Unplugging things is probably irrational too (though environmentally friendly). So we had to wait for the results for over 24 hours. That was agony for both of us I think. Then we went to my surgeon to get the results and I had also put in an urgent call to my oncologist to have her watch for the results to come in also.
But before we left for the doctor's, Nina was debating what color shirt to wear, adopting a bit of my OCD I think and it was freaking me out. Suddenly I wondered whether she picked the right color. And I had been wearing the same special necklace since Tuesday. I parked on the 7th floor when we went to get the results. Maybe 7 is just as good as 5? Then Nina asked me if I had the bunny, and I was like fuck, did I need to bring the bunny again? Because shit I forgot it. Maybe I will got a good pathology report because Nina wore pink and I parked on 7 and fuck the bunny?
This is the insanity that goes on in my mind on a daily basis. Are you glad you don't live in my head? So, was it a success, or a failed experiment? Now that the whole thing is over, I would say a partial success. I have proven to myself that bunnies and letters and necklaces don't affect the things that are entirely out of your control. I've always known this though haven't I? I've always known that my thought/behavior associations are totally irrational. But for some reason, this incident has flipped some kind of a switch in my brain.
Anyway, it doesn't mean I won't be carrying cat toys on planes anymore though.
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