OCD

Yesterday I managed to aggravate the lower back pain that has been troubling me for a while. I was struggling first thing today to get it moving. This together with the cold virus thing, DC being only midway through his trip and the prospect of Christmas is making me want to retreat. It's interesting to watch how it all makes me feel and how it affects day to day choices.

In The world according to Garp, John Irving introduces the under toad. I think most of his books are about the under toad; the feeling or fear that things might be about to go wrong. The universe of course is perfect; it is all tied together and works. It moves when out of balance to correct. The movement filling the gap between any imperfections. I can't move that fast though, I can't keep up. I have my attachments, so I risk suffering. But I don't think I fear the under toad quite as much as in the past. It's not gone though. It's part of the OCD I just have to keep managing. Though I think that even people without this condition have some sense of the under toad. We all sense possibly threatening change to some extent. It's part of our inheritance I think. Because I am not seriously debilitated by OCD I sort of think I got over it in childhood. But really I just learned to get it under control. I did this more or less on my own with a bit of help from my dad in the days when no one had heard of it. We didn't know it had a name. Taxonomy of course can be problematic, remember those frames?

I hadn't planned to write about OCD, I picked the title after I started writing and I've touched on other stuff too, so I am going to leave it there.