The OCD Monologue

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is an anxiety disorder characterized by intrusive thoughts that produce anxiety, by repetitive behaviors aimed at reducing anxiety, or by a combination of such thoughts (obsessions) and behaviors (compulsions).The acts of those who have OCD may appear paranoid and come across to others as psychotic.

However, OCD sufferers generally recognize their thoughts and subsequent actions as irrational, and they may become further distressed by this realization. (Wikipedia; I am aware of the bias of many with regards to wiki but I don't think I need a BMJ certified journal article to define OCD in this context).

The definition of OCD as described above could be said to be a general rule to OCD, whereas, there are bound to be people on the end of the scales i.e. mild and extreme forms. My aim isn't particularly to consider OCD sufferers but to consider the possibility that we might suffer it in our thought processes which do not necessarily convert to compulsions.

Even though these thoughts would not count as OCD, for the lack of a better word, I have chosen to parallel such thoughts to the afore mentioned condition. For example, the 'Internets' provides us an opportunity to vent our thoughts with mediums including twitter, facebook, blogging, linkedin amongst others. However, we end up with so much online presence that we can not be anonymous and the people we want to hide our thoughts from are right there. But alas, if we do choose to be anonymous, we can't really because our ego thrives on the opinion and thoughts of other people but the opinion of those that count are the ones we want to hide our thoughts from anyway.

Now, here in lies my obsession, how do I say what I'm thinking, what am worried about or what's tearing my heart apart in a clever way without being too cryptic for those that matter to decipher it and without being too open for the other three hundred facebook friends to figure out what I mean (I guess your answer to that would be to delete those insignificant three hundred but no I won't because I like the feeling of having 100 more friends than my brother does).

So I get tangled into this dilemma till what I really wanted to say looses its value and I end up saying absolutely nothing. Only it doesn't end there because the next minute, hour or day comes by and the same cycle is repeated.

Why are we so wrapped up in the fear of saying what we really feel? Why often is it difficult to say: I am sad, I can't go on or this is too much? Perhaps we think ourselves weak when we bear our minds, may be we feel that breaking barriers leave us vulnerable for after all our thoughts can never be known save we speak them. Therefore, the darkness of our heart is our weapon, our own secret weapon.