Having OCD is a funny thing sometimes. And I mean that both as funny strange and funny ha ha. After all, if I couldn’t laugh at myself, then things could be much worse than they are. As it is, sometimes I even find it useful. I mean, I can organize the heck out of anything when I set my mind to it.

Most of the time I don’t even really notice that there’s anything different.

Of course, I’m not sure I’d know what it would feel like if I wasn’t different.

For me, it’s mostly little things. I don’t have obsessive hand washing, however, I do know how my hands feel dirty when I touch something my mind believes to be unclean.

But the things that really drive me nuts are 3-way light switches. Not all of them mind you, but the ones with multiple switches. I cannot stand it when the switches go in different directions. It bugs the crap out of me. I will walk across a darkened room or up an unlit stairwell so that the switches will be in the same direction. (That’s a fun one. I usually run up the stairs, because I imagine things in the dark corners of the basement. Things that come out when the lights are out. [This is why I don’t watch horror movies. My imagination doesn’t need the help.])

Meanwhile, the whole thing kinda defeats the purpose of having 3-way switches in the first place.

I wonder, sometimes, what is it like to go through a day and not be worried about things like that? Not to be bothered by mismatched light switches or floor tiles that are different colors. (That’s a fun one too. Because there is something “wrong” with the mismatched tiles, I can’t step on two different colored tiles at the same time.)

What is the point of this mutation I have? Why did it develop? What has allowed it to survive? What is it’s evolutionary significance? It must have some adaptive use. I mean, how else has is survived? Because I know for damned sure that just as living with OCD can at times be hard, I’m sure that living with me must often be harder still.

Don’t get me wrong though. Most days I don’t even think about the things I do. They don’t bother me, they just are. And when I do think about it, I usually laugh it off. Because there is something hilariously stupid about acting against my own self-interest.

But sometimes I do wonder, “why me?” And today was one of those days.

Why? Because Michael just repaired the 3-way switch in the kitchen. So that’s one more for me to worry about.

On the bright side, think of all the extra exercise I’ll get, walking back and forth across yet another room, to put the switches in the correct direction!