Today has already been a long day, and it’s not even noon. 11:49 a.m. but not noon.

I am holding and caressing my necklace pendant, trying to will myself to breathe and take a break. I have spent most of the day hungry and “driven by a motor” (if you do enough anxiety assessments, you recognize the language.)

I woke around seven, after getting to bed at midnight because I left the restaurant after 10 p.m. I came home, showered, reheated dinner and watched the latest episode of Doc. I went to bed, and before I drifted to sleep, I actually cuddled the cat who lives under my bed. I cuddled him for the first time, despite the fact that he has lived in my room for about five years.

I vaguely remember checking my sleep stats, weighing myself, going to the bathroom, weighing myself again, and getting dressed. I clearly remember how disappointed in myself I was for having a big fast food dinner last night and no fruits or vegetables at all yesterday and I was annoyed that I ate potato chips, because my weight stabilized after a weekend of bad eating and I probably would have hit a new low had I not eaten junk yesterday.

I came down, started laundry so my uniforms are clean for tonight and tomorrow, poured coffee, grabbed my water bottle– and had to scrub my water bottle and rinse all the dirty dishes in the sink– and then went to my desk to take my morning muscle relaxers, at double the high dose, because my movement is struggling and I’m in pain thanks to my shift at the restaurant last night. (But they gave me a floral crown.)

Working late and having an 8:30 a.m. medical appointment definitely interrupted my morning routine.

I worked on my journal pages for the morning while sitting in the doctor’s lobby. Now… what happened AT the appointment might best be summarized by my follow-up note for my long-time psychologist. Edited but presented here:

This poor woman. Her job is supposed to be to help medication management for patients who need to be monitored by a psychiatrist but are managed well enough that they don’t need heavy supervision. That sounds like a nice way to phrase it.

Last week they gave me TWO HOURS of assessments. And as I told you, I was fairly confident the psychiatrist would say I was bipolar or had GAD issues and recommend an SSRI.

He did not. So kudos to him. (His name is Dr. REDACTED by the way, which makes me happy because my dad went by that name.) He asked for deeper assessments.

So today we started with a different bipolar assessment meant to see if I have manic episodes– to which I replied, “I don’t have that kind of energy. If I did, the first thing I would do is clean my house.” 

After that one, we moved to OCD. And I can see why he asked for that one. NINE pages. (In the end I was disappointed– it wasn’t nearly as in-depth and laborious as she made it sound. There is not nearly enough standardized testing in adulthood.)

I literally said, “Great. I love paperwork. My friend is DC invites me down so we can do our taxes together.”

And she read me the first page of the Yale-Brown Assessment. Which tried my patience. I read it twice waiting for her to finish. Did I ever tell you I hate to be read to? 

The test had two columns– one for current, one for past– and the directions said to circle anything that was upsetting or disrupting to life. Well, according to the textbook definition of obsession and compulsion, nothing I do fits those categories. I absolutely know, understand and can deal with the reality that my routines do not matter or change outcomes. They are self-soothing behaviors that prevent my frustration, anger, and help me feel like my environment is under control. And I told her so. I told her that I want to be sure when I come home at the end of the day, I return to a place that I don’t need to worry about, a place where I am safe and calm. 

And she asked if I performed behaviors to achieve a goal, and I told her everything I do connects to a goal. “I am sitting here right now reminding myself that when I finish here, I get to have a cup of coffee from Panera.” 

She asked me to track my mood and my sleep– and I told her I have done both, but I periodically stop tracking mood because all it does it confirm that I worry about everything all the time and that upset me. That I last stopped probably about six months ago. And that I track my sleep every day, examine my sleep tracker every morning, and record notes every day in my journal. She asked me to take a piece of paper and make columns for mood | sleep | energy | confidence and I replied, “So, you want a spreadsheet? I have spreadsheets for everything.”

Now, I don’t know if you realize how this is going to go down. I’m going to spend the next hour working on a blog entry, then I will probably spent two hours designing a spreadsheet on Google sheets so it can be shared, that will hold the most precise data on these topics she has every seen.

And now, I am wondering if the next assessment I have to take will be to see if I am on the Autism spectrum, because numbers and spreadsheets and ABC order bring me great joy. On a scale like, in the absence of good sex, the next best high would be organizing research/data/objects. 

Oh, and I now refer to this practitioner as “shrink-by-proxy.”

And I gotta say, I respect this doctor for not jumping to the obvious conclusion. And I am now firmly in the land of medical-professionals-who-must-rule-out-all-the-things-that-I-know-are-not-the-problem” which I like better than the medical professional who assumes he just knows the answer because he’s an educated white man of a certain age.

I was not entirely accurate in my depiction of how the next almost three hours of my life would go. I came home, wrote a different blog entry completely, put my laundry in the dryer, took allergy medicine, told my daughter several stories, read someone’s comments about one of my stories, visited social media, and finally– again almost three hours after I got home– started this blog entry.

Some other thoughts from the session:

• I will not eat or return to the run-of-the-mill activities until I design this spreadsheet.
• I will add my pain levels to the spreadsheet and probably additional info as well because I deem it important.
• I told them my biological siblings/father have shown evidence of ADHD
• I explained the difference between my obession/compulsion and their criteria:
  • I follow rules rigidly, but I also break them if I know my behavior will not effect the outcome
  • My rules and routines do keep people safe (food safety, emergency preparedness) but I do not participate in them to the extent that it impacts my ability to live.
  • Keeping people safe/ maintaining a predictable environment comes from childhood trauma
  • Pattens/numbers bring me joy
  • I do not “hoard” but I will save certain items for a special occasion to the extent that they will spoil or get lost or broken– because of a scarcity mindset from insecurity caused by childhood trauma
  • I do not filter what I say or worry about what I say to the extent that I will pick “true” over “polite.”
• Everything I do, I get done because I bribe myself with a reward when I reach the goal.

Things that didn’t come up but I wish they did:

• I would bet money that I react to red dyes. Ask me about my childhood and my experience with Jungle Juice at the local pizzeria.
• I have safe foods and food cycles. Same with music.
• I have issues with sensory input and occasionally have meltdowns from overstimulation.
• Does the world realize I have fictional characters existing in my head, telling me their story as I live my life. This alone may show how many things happen in my brain at one time.
• I am fiercely protective of my spots: my spot on the couch, my parking spot in front of the house, where I put my possessions, how my food is organized while stored.
• I drink my iced coffee out of old pickle jars.
• I eat certain foods off certain dishes and with certain utensils.

I am currently very hungry but too busy to eat. My daughter has so far fed me a stale macaron and a mini cheesecake/pumpkin/coffeecake cupcake. I have had about 50 ounces of coffee and 25 ounces of water and peed at least four times since I got home. This is the precise behavior that has led to my “urge incontinence.” I thought I was getting older and therefore peeing myself when I finally realized that instead I drink insane amounts of caffeine in tandem with ridiculous amounts of water.

Off to make the coolest spreadsheet I have ever made.