So, here are the facts:
- I believe in food equality. For example, if I’m eating a salad, I need an entire miniature salad in each bite. Fuck if I’ll eat a fork full of pure lettuce! If I’m eating cake, every bite needs some frosting. Unfrosted cake is preposterous! If I have Skittles, M&Ms, or any other colored candy, I divvy them up into colors. I eat the outliers so that there is the same amount of each color. Then, I proceed to eat one at a time, in rainbow order; one red, one orange, one yellow, one green, one blue, one purple/brown, and then I repeat until they are all gone. If I’m in a movie theater, I do my best with the light from the screen, but usually I just buy Twizzlers and bite each end off evenly. “Miti-mota” as they say in Chile, or “even-steven” in the states.
- My voice and hands shake comically when I am forced to talk to almost anyone on the phone, when I am faced with an authoritative figure in a uniform, or when I need to ask for or give important information. The customs officials in airports scare the crap out of me, and I just know that the cop car behind me wants to pull me over, despite never having been pulled over because I am obsessive about speed limits. When I sent important documents to the U.S. recently, the lady behind the desk couldn’t tell which direction I was pointing at on the paper because my hand was shaking uncontrollably. My husband had to step in. No joke.
- When I’m nervous or anxious, I instinctively peel away at the skin near my thumbnails, that is, if I’m not shakily pointing at something at the time. I can’t remember if I’ve always done this or not, but the other day I noticed that my thumbnails are a bit wonky. Apparently, this is called, “excoriation“, and the formality of that word makes me feel weirder about it than I’d like to.
- Who puts artwork on the wall and just lets it exist crookedly?!?
- I still feel guilty about stupid things I did when I was a child, such as convincing a classmate that I was colorblind. Even now I feel terrible about not-so-terrible offenses, such as not putting things back where they belong in the grocery store. This does not stem from a religious upbringing because I was devoid of one, so who knows? Every once in awhile I like to defy myself and leave pasta in the cereal aisle.
- Being locked in a room with a loud chewer after having just woken up, without coffee!, would be by far the most inhumane punishment I can think of. Apparently, this is “misophonia“, but I’d argue that it’s just my disapproval of human interaction before I’ve had coffee.
- Any given day can be thrown into a destructive spiral of internet health investigation. I have been sure of having cancer more times than I can count, and I have been pregnant at least 40 times in the last four years according to my paranoia. I may actually be pregnant right now, as a matter of fact.
So, clearly, I have a few disorders, or at the very least I’m a wee bit neurotic. My mental health lies somewhere between the face my cat makes when he gets his claw stuck on something and his instinct to eat tape and dust bunnies. Although, it’s probably worse because I just related my mental health to my cat.
Somehow, I’m really not all that worried.
C’Est La Vie!