hobbledehoy

Ugly Sweater

It's hard for me to adjust to new places. I remember the first time I moved, and the only thing we kept from our old house was an old rocking chair. I sat in that chair for two days, because it reminded me of home. It kept me connected.

Connection. Everything is connected to something or someone, right? Wrong. Not for me.

You see, I have a slight problem. I am a weird person. And not the good kind of weird, not the special kind that people think is cool.

See, the way I behave has effected the way people respond and act towards me.

I have a touch a OCD, you see. It use to be really bad, but I've gotten a lot better at hiding it. Despite popular belief, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder isn't just the constant need to reorganize my pens and clean for hours at a time. OCD is an anxiety disorder, okay? It's when one has unwanted and repeated thoughts, feelings, sensations and ideas; an obsession. A behavior that makes me feel driven to do something, the compulsion.

What? That doesn't sound that bad to you? Okay then, let me paint a picture for you.

Imagine that you have a never ending fear of being contaminated by germs or dirt, and a fear of contaminating others as well. Makes it hard to leave the house.

Imagine having a fear of causing harm to yourself or others. Get use to eating with only plastic utensils.

Hey remember that movie last night? The one with a ridiculously large amount of sex and violence that you can't stop thinking about? You'll never look anyone in the eyes again, let alone women.

Double-checking everything, washing, cleaning, counting, tapping, repeating words, doing other senseless shit just to reduce your anxiety.

You have no idea what it's like.

Now I don't have all of these problems, and like I said, I'm pretty good at hiding my disorder. But that doesn't make life any less difficult.

So when I first got accepted to Pine Parks University, naturally I was overcome with excitement. But when I actually arrived on campus, my whole body flooded with fear.

There were so many people. Trash everywhere. Inappropriate posters. Nasty music.

None of this was included in the brochure.

The first couple of days actually went pretty well. I unpacked all of my belongings in under an hour, and decorated my room to look a lot like mine back home; because I'm not one for change.

My Mother had stocked the fridge with six or seven homemade meals, and that lasted about two weeks; because I only ate one plateful for each meal of the day, no more than that.

But after a little while, the meals stopped coming. And I had to learn to feed myself. So it wasn't until then I learned how utterly pathetic I was, and how I desperately needed to change.

So I first got a job. The campus' mail-boy, south-side. Not exactly my dream job, but it pays surprisingly well, and I got to explore the campus without looking like a lost little freshman. I was a man with a mission.

Soon after getting that job, came a new obsession.

Ramen Noodles.

A twelve pack box full of delicious noodles for only five dollars? Of course I purchased them. But then I couldn't really stop...

I was sick for days, a common result from consuming so much MSG and other crap that ramen is full of; it was the worst headache I had ever experienced.

But oh, it gets worse.

I started eating Jello. Green Jello.

This is literally the worst diet I have ever been on, and trust me, I've had pretty bad ones.