Monday, March 1, 2010

Too True Tues(day) #15 Secret Compulsions

It is time for Too True Tues(day)! Your day to tell it like it is. Take a load off. Speak your mind! This week SanitySrchr at The Short Bus (love that name) had a suggestion. Her idea is to let out your secret compulsions. Your obsessions. The private little things you do not because you want to but because something bad, possibly involving VooDoo and world decimation, could happen if you don't. Yes indeed, those little maneuvers you participate in to save yourself from a horror beyond the imagination of Steven King.

At first I thought, well that is a great idea but I don't really have any compulsive things that I haven't already blasted across the world. I am not really an obsessive person. But that is only because my compulsive behaviors are rational. Yours probably aren't. For our purposes here today, we'll use "obsessive" to refer to an unwelcome pattern of thought and "compulsive" to refer to an unwelcome pattern of action. Just to clarify. I will use both. Ahem.

I hereby do confess to being a "checker". Not of the stove, because it is so rarely used. Not of the door locks because I know for a fact if any burglar came in here they would leave and put $20 bucks in the mailbox for us. Not of buttons adjusted, zippers up. Not of lightbulbs on--- or is it off? I scan. I scan every room I enter and I scan again several minutes after entering a room. I scan the ceilings and high corners of every room every day all day for bugs.

Especially spiders.

ICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had a couple of severely traumatizing experiences as a child that have led to this perfectly rational fear of spiders and the corresponding logical compulsive need to search for them rather constantly in order to save the world from something really bad. It is considerate of me, really.

See when I was a kid my parents had a cabin in the woods of The South of Wisconsin. There were farms and stuff around and lots and lots of nature. Even though it had been invented, my parents refused to get a phone installed. Even though I loved it dearly, my mean  parents also refused to have a TV set. Yes, the squalid deprivation is something I still work to overcome thank you. You better believe I hated it there. What were we supposed to be doing, talking to each other??? It's not like we did. My parents read books and my sister and I fought and read books.

Anyway, one Friday we went up and upon entering the house was a nightmare that the movie Arachnophobia failed to even consider. Wolf Spiders. Brown, the color of faux wood paneling, and hairy, with a body the size of a small fist. Pointed bony legs of 3 inches or more. And thick. And fast. Dropping from the ceiling and hanging from the walls. Everywhere. It was an infestation and it was horror.

I'd like to say we did the sensible thing. We doused gasoline around the exterior and using my Dad's lighter from his hidden stash of smokes, burned down the stupid cabin and raced back to Chicago where all the civilization and concrete is, and the city sprays pesticides from airplanes and trucks the way nature intended. And spiders only live in your basement which explains my fear of basements and that I now live in a home without one. Not what happened. Instead my parents did a crummy job of smashing most of the vicious gun- toting leather jacket-wearing spiders. However they missed a few. And don't you know what I woke up to the next morning. IN. MY. BED.




My er, need to check things or, well, it goes, oh, ummmm, a bit ummmmm, further than that.

I sort of also check the toilet seat. I never, even in my own home sit on a toilet seat without checking it for spiders. The sink. The shower--- especially the shower. It's not obsessive either because the spiders are there, I just may not be seeing them. So it makes perfect sense to check consistently and often. One would not want to be surprised. But be certain, they ARE there. And one last thing.

Although I give all glassware a visual inspection first, I also do a fist inspection. Wherein I shove my hand into the glass really fast and jam it upside down roughly shaking it, so that if anything thinks it is going to hide from me or blend in, it is not. I do need you all to know that it is not a compulsive thing though. It is a service to society. My special way of protecting all of the world. My contribution. Yes I do it every time even if it is a clear glass. Yes it makes perfect sense and no, it is neither obsessive or compulsive. See my definition above.

Here is the Mr. Linky thing. Go home and tell your story of compulsiveness or obsession. Link to my blog and explain that you are playing Too True Tues(day). Then come back over here and fill in the spots for Mr. Linky. It is helpful if you pull up the actual address of your post and paste it in. Also if you are busy but still want to play you can tell your true tale on Wednesday or even Thursday. Heck I have seen people enter themselves a month later! (but try to stay within a few days really, this is not an excuse to procrastinate).




27 comments:

  1. I also happen to have arachnophobia . . . .I will seriously be freaked out for days after glimpsing the picture of a flippin' spider in your post. . .. ugghh. Therapy.

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  2. Oh. My. God. I would have died. DIED. ICK! *shudders* I am so not going to be able to fall asleep now...

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  3. And I'm the first to post my link - probably because I already had insomnia, and now I won't be able to sleep because of that disturbing spider picture.

    :D Jen

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  4. Lord above Essie!!!! Where do you get off traumatizing me with an actual PHOTO of a spider on your blog?! I had to skip by it with my eyes closed and then slowly go back upwards...so I missed part of your writing.

    I practically failed a college class because it had a photo of a spider in the textbook, and I never knew when somehow the book might fall open to that page. Eventually, I figured resale value be damned (and you know I don't use that word lightly) and I tore the page out. Finally - I could study!

    I never (praise God) had a real-life traumatic spider experience unless it is yet to be discovered in therapy, but my phobia could match yours any day. However, thankfully I now live in not-very-many-spiders-Michigan (should be part of their publicity campaign) so I am less crazed than in my previous environs.

    I Oregon, I hate to say there were a LOT of spiders. Especially in Eastern Oregon, but I had literally some sixth sense. I really didn't need to scan all that much (though I DID) because I just KNEW. One time Craig and I were watching TV in a dark room, and I suddenly said "I think there is a spider in here." And I turned on the light and went unerringly to the far side of the living room where there was a brown spider on the brown carpet that he couldn't even see when I pointed it out with my shrill screams (as he is the one who has to "deal" with them, in the absence of the vacuum cleaner.)

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  5. I'm not really crazy about spiders but wasn't really terrified until I read your post. Thanks Essie! :D

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  6. Did you read my post a little while back about our Spanish Exchange student from Spain and his fear of bugs? We have lots of "Jorge" stories about bugs in our house. When he first arrived he would avoid any room which he'd seen one. By the time he left, I'd convinced him to "man up" and take care of them. Those stories are even funnier. The ones of him hunting down bugs. I feel I've done my jog in promoting world peace. One day his wife will thank me.

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  7. OMG!!! I can sooo relate to this post. I am terrified of the evil Wolf Spider and I could do my own TTT post on them...in fact I might. I had to cover the disgusting picture with my hand though, while I read your post..now I am having flashbacks. ick.....you might not want to read mine, just a warning.

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  8. well. you certainly ARE a checker. i think it was the fist pumping the glass that really had me questioning the necessity of that much checking.

    where on earth do you live where there are so many spiders?

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  9. More people should play along with this prompt, the stories are fun to read..in a sick, disturbing sort of way...

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  10. I'm much better with spiders than I used to be, but centipedes are my compulsion. We once lived in a basement apt that was infested with centipedes. I have not lived there for 11 years and have NEVER seen one in this house that my hubby built, but I still check my towel every morning, I check the shower drains, sink drains, ceiling crevises...all that.

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  11. OH my gosh. I'm still shuddering. Ewww!

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  12. Yeah, I can barely look at my own blog so I may take that pic down. It is freaking me out.

    See- basements are bad, all bad!

    Corrie I did read those posts- you did a great job with the boy and the future Mrs Jorge's will be thankful!

    That nasty house has been sold and is no longer in the family but my sister lives about a mile from there now. In Wisconsin too.

    Lisa you referred to snake season coming in three weeks there in someone elses comments. I don't want to know what that is.

    Annie how can Michigan have minimal spiders? It's right there, to the right of me. I'm actually more disturbed that you tore a page out of a book than using the word damned.

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  13. OMG, OMG, OMG!!! I was slammed all stinking day and almost missed my own TTT!!! Mine will be posted tomorrow!! :)

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  14. OMG, OMG, OMG!!! I was slammed all stinking day and almost missed my own TTT!!! Mine will be posted tomorrow!! :)

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  15. I can't believe you don't check your shoes before you put them on! I am WAY better with my spider phobia since my youngest, Bugboy, got obsessed with the creepy things, but I still check my shoes. Imagine sliding a bare to in and......Ewwww!

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  16. The picture? Did you have to?! ICK!!

    There is a fine line between driven and perfectionistic and obsessive and compulsive. I tip-toe that line sometimes. So, I may have a compulsion to 2 I can fess up to. But mine are (all) logical too!!! =)

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  17. Only a day late and a dollar short, sounds about right! :-)

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  18. That spider picture gave me the heebie jeebies!

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  19. Ok I did not like spiders before but after reading this and seeing that picture.... I am totally freaked out!!

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  20. Don't feel too bad about spiders. I had a teacher long ago that told me about a frog jumping out of the toilet bowl and onto her butt when she was going once. Ever since then, I ALWAYS scan the bowl before I rest my cheeks upon the seat! :)

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  21. Don't feel too bad about spiders. I had a teacher long ago that told me about a frog jumping out of the toilet bowl and onto her butt when she was going once. Ever since then, I ALWAYS scan the bowl before I rest my cheeks upon the seat! :)

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  22. Don't feel too bad about spiders. I had a teacher long ago that told me about a frog jumping out of the toilet bowl and onto her butt when she was going once. Ever since then, I ALWAYS scan the bowl before I rest my cheeks upon the seat! :)

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  23. Don't feel too bad about spiders. I had a teacher long ago that told me about a frog jumping out of the toilet bowl and onto her butt when she was going once. Ever since then, I ALWAYS scan the bowl before I rest my cheeks upon the seat! :)

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  24. Wow, now I need to be OCD about my toilet, in addition to my fear of ANTS! bleck.

    As a child, my alcoholic father would get a bee up his ass and decide to remodel (tear down a wall, open up a floor, etc.). He never finished these projects, saying he didn't have a dad to show him how, even though he owned every Time Life Home Remodeling and Project book they ever published. But I digress. Anyway, my dad "remodeled" my bedroom closet into a desk space and built in bookcase. The bookcase amazingly was installed above the desk area, but the floor was never put back in. Oh yea, My bedroom floor was open into the crawl space. Growing up with the disfunction as such a mainstream part of life, it did not ever dawn on me that this could be a problem. Until I woke up one day with an ant infestation all over my room, including on me and my bed, and in my bed. You know the drill. I screamed and literally blacked out. I have no memory of what happened after that moment, other than later in the day my mom shut the door and put a bug bomb in there. Problem solved. Except for the part that my dad never covered the floor.

    sigh. As I imagine you can predict, we left my dad when I was 16, due to many problems that ensued of his (I'm assuming) mental illness.

    We are thankful our children do not grow up with these horrors.

    I would have done a blog post, but I'm virtually non-existant in BloggerLand currently.

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  25. You could fire up your old blog- I looked for it when you "reappeared" and it is still there.

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  26. Yes my blog is still there, but I haven't posted in almost a year. Sometimes I'm on the cusp of posting, and then feel I have so little to say that I don't write anything. Now that my kids are getting older too, I wonder how much to put out there. Even though it's all anonymous names on my blog, I still struggle with how I feel about it all.

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