Ready, steady, stop.
By the time this blog drops (metaphorically speaking) we will be well into March. This is partly due to my obsessive tendency to be “ahead” of the game as it were. Thinking about it, I’d say it’s entirely due to this! I write blogs and must work my magic in between two jobs and looking after my children. That said, one of them is 29, so unless he needs to go back in nappies, he is fairly low maintenance and my other two, 13 and 14, are such good children that it’s almost effortless.
I have come to recognize that I often need to amend my blogs, because I write them and there is a delay before they are published. Otherwise, I would be wishing you a happy new Year while wearing a Halloween mask. Although, admittedly, I am not that far ahead yet! Nevertheless, it got me to thinking. Why do I have a tendency towards always needing to be prepared, to be ahead, to have a plan A B C and Z for all eventualities.
I have, of course, talked about this with my therapist, having recognized the trait, if that’s what I can call it, in other areas of my life. I explained to her that when I am at work, I am very obsessed with time. I “need” to get to work early, to be ready. We questioned what I was getting ready for. This opening up a wider exploration of my childhood. For those of you who have visited my website for the first time, my childhood was very chaotic. That is the kindest work I can find to describe it.
From birth until leaving home my mother battled motherhood with Bipolar. This is not the best cocktail for a harmonious childhood. My siblings and I spent numerous “holidays” in children’s placements, or at our grandmas, some ninety miles away. Our father was either emotionally absent, or physically. Even when our mother was present, she was often under the influence of alcohol, or whichever boyfriend she had at the time.
There are so many children who grow up in toxic environments, and this can lead to problems in later life. Before I started therapy, there were so many behaviours, and tendencies that I put down to “nature”, personality. One of these was my obsessive character. As a teenager I became fixated on my weight, losing a lot by the age of nineteen, such that my periods stopped. As far back as I remember I have been obsessed with being “on time” usually for work or showing up for authority, but this manifested into my personal life too.
I worked in a residential home, doing shift work, and would start my shift (early of course) and ensure that every resident was up, dressed and ready (what for I’m uncertain!) by 10:00am. I would work methodically so that all duties assigned to me were done ahead of time. Now, residents living in care, are almost always old (can I say that without being ageist)? Anyway, most but not all, don’t have any work to go to, or responsibilities except the odd visitor, or doctors’ appointment. So, they didn’t need to be anywhere, for me to be setting goals to have them washed, dressed, coiffured, polished, hoovered, and upholstered twenty seconds after I got them up.
More recently, I can see the trend in my current role as an advanced nurse practitioner. I start work at least 30 minutes before I “start” work. Last week I set off so early I’m sure I saw myself driving home from the night before. I blame the traffic, or the weather, or the statistical probability that my car will break down, or that there will be a diversion, or a tree blocking the road, or that a road blocking a tree. My therapist helped me to challenge all the reasoning, holding me back from self-understanding, and self-compassion.
She suggested that my nervous system had a sophisticated ability to have me armed and prepared, like an army embarking on a battle to save their country. She helped me to see how important this skill was for me when I was a child, and there was no guarantee of safety. This created a shift in understanding. It allowed me to explore possibilities to change, to let go of some of the control that added to my daily stress. Let’s face it, half an hour every day over a 25-year career, is a lot of unpaid work! I could be writing this from a yacht on my own private island with the money.
Understanding complex post traumatic stress disorder requires the support and education that only comes with time. Having a therapist to support this process is incredibly powerful but there is such pressure on mental health services that so many people don’t get this support. It’s part of the reason I dedicate my website to informing and exploring and educating.
For so long, I have found myself fixating on time, and tasks and deadlines, and being ahead and following rules to the letter and having no in-betweens. Until I spoke with my therapist, I hadn’t realized that there is a tendency with complex-ptsd for binary thinking. For example, I held a world view, applicable now as I reflect, to so many of my relationships that people are either good or bad. There is no grey area. There are no nuances.
This is still a default process of thinking that, of course, I challenge, now that I have awareness. For so long I have even held this view about myself. If I made a mistake, whether it be in work, financial, or matters of the heart, I was “bad”. At least that was how I “felt” about myself. There wasn’t an in-between, a modicum of self-compassion. Until the feeling passed, I had to surrender to the feeling of shame (another feature of childhood trauma and complex-ptsd).
If I had a friendship and I felt “wronged” oftentimes I ended the relationship. Emotionally there were only either friends or not friends. I wasn’t emotionally capable of experiencing the nuances that make up a partnership. It wasn’t safe to look beyond black or white, yes or no, good or bad. I had this conversation with my therapist who facilitated a different perspective. She showed me how important it was to create rigid boundaries for my nervous system to enable me, as a child, to very quickly determine safety from danger.
For so long, I was self-critical, reflecting on decisions throughout my life, the obsessive need to control my environment, my tendency to end relationships if there was a sign of weakness, or flaw in the other person. It was learned behaviour, old patterns of survival that, without therapy, I would never have recognized. I have clock watched my way through life, having an eternal need to be “early”. You can imagine how many hours then, that I have spent “waiting”!
Being ready for life is, of course, important. We need to anticipate, prepare, organize and plan. But when we must exercise an obsessive battle against the clock this leans towards fixation, a need to control what cannot be controlled. Of course, as my therapist always reminds me, these strategies I created so long ago kept me as safe as I could be, in an environment of chaos. Over the years I have spent in therapy, I have developed a greater sense of compassion toward myself.
If you resonate with any of the discussion, there might be conversations you want to have with a trained therapist. If this is not an option, you could do some research of your own and find out more about the psychology of obsessive behaviours. Everyone is unique and we all have characteristics born from experience and genetics. If you are struggling with any of the issues raised in this blog, please reach out to either your GP or via 111.
