Where's Skycap When You Need Them?

I really love to travel, so I fly a lot. I’ve become an expert at packing light and negotiating airport security. Unfortunately, when it comes to the rest of my life, I need a whole separate cargo plane for my emotional baggage. Most of it seems to revolve around feeling betrayed or misunderstood by people I trusted at various points in my life combined with a little OCD resulting in a generally angry, distrustful, defensive attitude that pops up at unexpected moments. OCD, for those not “in the know” on mental weirdness, is obsessive compulsive disorder. “Obsessive-compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder in which people have unwanted and repeated thoughts, feelings, ideas, sensations (obsessions), or behaviors that make them feel driven to do something (compulsions).” (A.D.A.M. Medical Encyclopedia, 2010.) Hence, my occasional visits to Bedlam and source of my snarky superpowers. Heh.

Now I don’t have the kind of OCD where I have to flip the lights 12 times in a row and start over if I’m interrupted and lose count, or use a new bar of soap every time I wash or anything like that. My OCD is mostly mild and internal, but still annoying as hell. My brain will latch onto an idea and run around in circles beating it to death. Something will trigger a memory of an event, sometimes twenty years ago or more, where I felt betrayed or misjudged, and I’ll have an imaginary conversation in my head with whoever the culprit was for hours at a time saying all the things I feel like I didn’t get to say then. By the time I can unhook my brain from the crazy train I’m feeling all the same feelings I had at that point in my life for no apparent reason. It’s not like this person can actually hear me, so I don’t feel relieved that I’ve expressed myself, and will often repeat the same conversation again and again the next time I have one of those moments. In fact, I would venture to guess that most times, the people I’m angry with don’t even remember me or think about that event at all, so I’m allowing them to remain and have power in my life while they’re off merrily living theirs without a care, the wankers. How dare they not remember and obsess about this event that has traumatized me for years? So frustrating! I demand equal obsession!

So, as I’m trying to make some major changes in my life I find this baggage is becoming heavier and heavier, contributes to the conditions I’m trying to change (primarily the whole extra person’s worth of body weight that I wear like a suit of armor to avoid detection. Fat is almost like an invisibility cloak I swear.) and I’m bloody well sick and tired of carrying it around anymore. I have a therapist, (I don’t know why, but I always hear that word in my head in a snooty, nasally voice like Mr. Howell from “Gilligan’s Island”…. theeeeerapist. Bwahaha! Squirrel! Perhaps I need to add Attention Deficit Disorder to my list of mental issues. Hmmmm……..) who recommends the letter writing/burning routine, which does help somewhat. Write, forgive, release, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repe…. Er yeah. You see my dilemma? I need a way to break the cycle and really let go of that suitcase full of crap and not keep picking it up from baggage claim. It’s probably the only time in my life I wish the airline would lose my luggage.

I have been able to unload some of my larger items, but it took years and also generally involved a conversation with the person who’d hurt me. That’s not a possibility in some of these cases, and I’m tired of waiting and working on it. I need a way to let go of this stuff now that doesn’t rely on the participation of anyone else and I’m not sure how to do that yet. It may be as simple as saying “Ok, enough! I’m done with you! Be gone and never trouble me again!” and really meaning it. No matter how much it whines or cries about airline food I just have to keep refusing to pick it up, and not let anyone tempt me with new ones, even if they are Louis Vuitton in red leather with lots of bling. (Oooh. Shiny!) AUGH! Don’t make me stab you with a knitting needle…….

A.D.A.M. Medical Encyclopedia (2010, February 11). Obsessive-compulsive disorder. PubMed Health. Retrieved April 17, 2012, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001926/

© Sarah Ultis 2012