In Which the Artist Chronicles Life With OCD

The Cognitive Behavioral Therapy That is My Art

I suppose it's no surprise for me to admit right here in print I've had a lifelong problem with OCD. Not as in, "I'm a little OCD because I like a well organized pantry," but the kind of OCD that sees you spending hours a day doing something repetitively and it kind of ruins your life in small bites of hell.

I posted a snippet of this previously private essay here a short time ago, but here’s the whole lightly edited enchilada from May 2020.

OCD morphs. When I was a kid, it was one set of habits, then it became another set of habits, which I'm not going to belabor, because they're all weird and embarrassing. 

Early on I knew nothing about what was happening because who had ever heard of it, and no internet. I assumed it was a willpower issue, and  trained myself to turn my nervous energy into something productive, like channeling that prickly power into drawing comics.

I had no idea that this is a foundation of cognitive behavioral therapy, so go me.

For lucky people (me included) OCD can become easier to handle with aging. Impulses become less powerful.

When I realized my nervous energy could be plowed into art, that was great because HEY ART, which also means MORE MONEY, but I also realized that energy could be plowed into exercise, which is even better, because I could control my OCD with 40 miles a week of running and get a better ass while doing it.

I did a lot of running and yes, I had a great ass.

As of about fifteen years ago, I considered my OCD conquered. I was balanced in all ways. 

Healthy, fit, with good work habits. The money flowed, and so did my goodwill.

GO ME.

But...alas. 

My OCD morphed again, and now manifests itself as social media overuse. Which I've discussed before, but not in such gory detail.

Social media is especially horrific for people with anxiety disorders because the more you use social media, the more anxious you get. The more anxious you get, the more it triggers your OCD. The more you overuse social media. The more anxious you get.

That is the definition of Vicious Cycle.

My social media management issue is not addiction. I don't enjoy it, and when I am not on it, I feel nothing but a profound sense of relief. I get sick to my stomach at the thought of going on twitter. Last night I threw up in my mouth thinking of going on twitter.

Then I went on twitter.

I recently learned that OCD is directly tied to my auto-immune disease.

Um...yay?

When my illness is well-managed, I have little - if any - anxiety issues. The auto-immune disorder runs in my family, and can be managed for a little pill that costs $10 a month. 

If you're going to have an auto-immune disease, this is a cheap one to get.

But getting diagnosed and managing this thing is a lifelong struggle. And whenever you have a life quake, stress, or illness, or even weight changes, it throws your chemical balance off, and you need another tweak.

I suppose I need another tweak. 

Or maybe I just need to turn off social media.

The other day I read an article about how people like me cope with crises. The weird thing is we handle it better than other people do because there is focus for our free-floating anxiety. 

I came out the gate on the Covid disaster positively giddy, facing it with high energy and focus, because that's how I roll.

This is normal.

Weeks later, I feel like a plug pulled out of the energy of the world.

This too is normal.

The third phase took about two years to reach.

For one day a couple of weeks before I first wrote this, I figured it would be OK to turn off my social media block limits for just 15 minutes to read more incoming comments on the news.

I probably lied to myself when I typed that, I figured JUST ONE DAY WOULD BE OK - but it never is, just go with it.

For the next two weeks, I spiraled completely out of control.

Two. Solid. Weeks.

I disabled all my blocks, rerouted my systems, and went down the internet rabbit hole, feeling terrible, anxious, and stupid.

But mostly stupid, because I know better.

I called up my agent and had a long heart to heart. Which was good.

I never told him I had OCD before, but he just said, "I know, I've known for years," which is funny, because most of my loved ones don't know (don't get it) even though I've told them at least three times, but they seem to have this weird image of me as a Plato's perfect form for Colleen that has no resemblance to reality, the kind of person who always pays off the credit card balance every month and handles everything in life smoothly because I know how to use the automatic check-in kiosk at the airport, but inexplicably lost 5 lbs last two weeks, and not one of them thought that might be a sign of a bad thing.

So my agent, who does, in fact, know me in some ways better than most of my loved ones, (and who also has issues,) listened to me wailing about just how many HOURS of my life was going into the internet pit and how it was driving me CRAZY and I HATED it, and I wanted to STOP. And I thought I had it under control LAST YEAR and here I am again a BASKET CASE and LOOK at my stats, there went a DAY OF WORK because some ASSHOLES on Twitter maliciously misrepresented something I said and there I am spending HOURS addressing it and trying to be the nice guy when people are tweeting obscenities at me for something I didn't do and I HATE THIS and I haven't slept in THREE FREAKING DAYS.

My agent listened to my tale of woe.

And lo, he brought unto me this wisdom.

"Colleen, how much are you willing to pay to be right on the internet?"

I froze.

You see, before I always put my social media overuse in terms of work hours lost.

I don't put it in terms of MONEY lost.

Back when I started using social media too much is back when I started getting really sick.

Yeah, I know I said "lifelong struggle" but that was struggle when I didn't know the cause, before the struggle sent me to bed 4 days out of 5 - unable to function. I could lay there and click and click and click, I wasn't losing money because I couldn't really work anyway, and the industry wasn't beating a path to my door.

But a few years later I was losing money. I had work to do. GREAT work. I had plenty of things on my plate. Books I LOVE. WONDERFUL commissions.

But there I was.

On Twitter.

"How much are you willing to pay to be right on the internet?"

Twitter has been one expensive, endless, stupid bar argument. With people who won't buy me drinks later, or ask me to dance.

After my convo with my agent, I spent the rest of the night - until about 4 AM actually - resetting my block apps again, and adding new ones. I figured out long ago how to disable everything, so I had to install backups to make installations and workarounds harder than ever, and a block to block me from going to the website that allows me to download uninstallers.

It's all kind of hilarious.

If I've got a block running, it takes me nearly 2 hours to disable all of my systems and break in to Twitter. The impulse that plagues me lasts about 15 minutes, and pushes at me once or twice a day. If I can last through that 15 minutes without giving in to it, it fades. I feel relieved and happy to not follow through. 

The next day, it is easier to resist.

If I can go a few weeks, then I can go for months.

The itching impulse to tweet - O happy relief! - left in the past because twitter, as you know, is dumpster fire culture, and after awhile even a conflagration gets boring.

I went for a whopping 9 months straight last year without going outside my limits.  

That felt amazing.

But when I went outside my limits, it took me months to get back on the path of righteousness. 

That felt terrible.

Unfortunately, the world artists are in today requires social media exposure: advertising and promotion is essential. I would not have Patreon without it. I would not have a mail order business without it. Publishers hire creators who have solid social media followings, looking for artists who are more likely to sell a book with a tweet.

Because it's cheaper than paying a marketing department. But the labor cost to the creator (especially someone like me)? Boy howdy.

They call it engagement, which is a cute word for what advertising people used to do for which they received a salary.

If I can stick to my guns and limit my use to short, prescribed exposures of a few minutes per day, I'm good.  I write my agent now to tell him if I've done OK that day.

There was one week made of hilarious mess.

I'd agreed to do a video interview, but forgot it was supposed to be live...on Facebook.

Holy crap.

This meant turning the restrictions off of one computer in order to get to FB for the interview.

If I'd had any sense at all, I'd have simply said no.

I took the time to turn off ALL THE THINGS, and sat down for the tech test to make sure my system would work. 

And what do you know, my IP was refusing internet connections to the video app.

Shit.

'Scuze my language.

This meant I had to rush to another computer, TAKE DOWN THOSE BLOCKS and get it set up for that interview. Which I did.

By then I had wasted god knows how much time, and since my graphics computer is 137 years old, it could not handle the app. So even though they could hear and see me, I could see nothing. So I had to watch the interview on my laptop and listen to it on my graphics system. It was kind of funny.

And I sincerely, most sincerely doubt I will ever get as much publicity money out of that FB interview as it cost me in time sink.

On the plus side, I was so scared of going down another internet rabbit hole, as soon as the broadcast was over, I immediately reestablished all my blocks and walked away from networld as fast as my little legs could carry me. And I didn’t go back to social media for 24 hours.

It felt like winning the lottery.

It's tricky admitting in public you have an issue like this as people weaponize it, and I am loathe to name a couple of bloggers and an ex publisher who have done exactly this for years, sniggering about how neurotic I am, because if I return fire for fire they’ll get to claim they're being bullied by a big, evil pro (and you have no idea how tempting it is, and I may have an anxiety problem, but you're kind of shitty, 'scuze my language,) but this post is now public, and we all have problems, so whatever. 

And as problems go, still, this is a manageable one if someone has my back and keeps an eye on me, because I can't always do it myself, obviously.

I used to have family come in to my office and take my ethernet cord out. But we took it in and out so often, the cord would snap off in a matter of weeks.

And let me just add one thing that also drives me a bit nuts, and that is the social media pressure to Speak Out On Every Issue Ever.

Not only can I Not Speak Out INTELLIGENTLY AND IN AN INFORMED MANNER on Every Issue Ever, I cannot risk getting into an internet kerfluffle that is going to make me spiral. So sometimes, I say nothing. And then I look at my feed, and there is someone coming at me to rail at me for not Speaking Out.

I'm glad there are folks out there who have the focus and energy for this, but I am 100% not one of them.

I can't do it.

The combination of worldwide pandemic, performance anxiety, serious health issues in my family, caregiving, and world on fire made me a bit twitchy.

I suppose all of this could be an indicator that my TSH levels are off. When that happens, concentration is impossible.

So I tested myself this way:

I read a book.

In the past, when my TSH levels were off, I could not read well, and could not remember what I read 15 minutes after I read it. 

But last week, I sat down and read a book. Cover to cover. Five-hundred-twenty pages of big fat book. In one sitting.

I not only read it, I enjoyed it, and I remembered it. 

So...likely not a TSH problem.

When I overuse social media, I cannot concentrate. I am forgetful. I get clumsy, and I feel very down.

Off social media, my anxiety drops, my concentration returns, and I get back to work. 

I feel fine. 

I remember things. I do things.

So, right now, I feel fine.

The world doesn't need me as an activist anymore. I can't fix things when I'm ruining my own life.

I need to do my art.

Not long after I originally wrote this, my ancient computers began to fail, and so did my social media management apps.

It was a nightmare.

I got a new computer, installed Cold Turkey, and happily, I spend very little time on the net now.

Anyway, that's all.