Love as a form of OCD

I have been thinking a bit about OCD - since a friend's son suffers very badly with it.   All the "useful advice" I have been giving her to help him cope with this, is the product of my own experience, but not with OCD.

Attentive readers may be aware that since before I started this blog in 2011 I have been trying to get over a dose of unrequited love, which has been quite disruptive.  I think I have got "over" it now, to the extent that I do not feel it much any more.  If the said love turned out to be requited and active, that would be another story - but I am no longer sick with it.

Looking back at how I got over it, I see, that, as is so often the case, it happened through time and circumstance.  Chiefly, time passed and I found other fulfilling and distracting things to do.  It helped that I was no longer working on the novel that related to it, so I was not constantly being "triggered".  It helped more when I was deeply involved in something else, work, dealing with students and domestic issues, Christmas is always a big distraction, going out to work, seeing groups of friends and NOT talking about it helps.  Doing sociable things with my husband which enable me to see him in a more positive light help.

These things are pretty similar to the advice I have been giving my friend - telling her to get her son out of the house, remove distracting stimuli, reminders of the obsessions, get him out seeing other people, doing something, working.  And in his case, keep medicating!   I don't think there was a medication against the LO - the citalopram certainly helped the depression but didn't seem to remove the desire to see him, be with him, talk to him etc.

I realise that in some ways psychiatrists might regard unrequited love as a form of OCD - it has many of the same traits - there are triggers which immediately provoke the thoughts (mention of the city he lived in on the radio for example, or a country he worked in) - as one of the favourite songs says There is always something there to remind me.  Of course, it isn't as stuctured as OCD, it doesn't have its rituals... but it definitely has that sort of sense of being in a loop of stimulus and response, where you cannot escape.  I have "automatic memories" - for example seeing a harvest moon in September over a newly cut field in the dusk ALWAYS makes me think of one of the last walks James and I had before we began to talk about divorce. However, that scene can also fade into the more generalised nostalgia  I suffer, where certain scenes provoke a non-specific sense of longing.  This non-specific longing turns back to become attached to the LO... and then, crazily, things that have nothing to do with him, are attached to him, and I sigh.

Rationally unpicking one's responses is helpful - but like therapy, it is not a quick fix.  As in therapy, you may know why you feel a certain undesirable way, but it does not necessarily stop you feeling it.   The answer is, keep analysing, keep unpicking.  If you find yourself slipping into it, find yourself at it and say "No, you are only doing that because you read about someone with the same name" (or whatever).  Getting rid of these feelings is difficult, not straightforward, especially if you are of a romantic, idealistic disposition.  Those feelings seem to suggest something better, finer, than grim, sweaty reality, one wants to cling to them, they seem to be a tenuous contact with the numinous, or a higher sense of oneself.

Is this higher sense of self a delusion?  Does our reach exceed our grasp - we can never have this thing - this life-improving objective which will make everything so much better.  Is this what OCD people are trying for - the completion of their system that will give them peace.

Anyone who has lived into middle-age and thought about the world knows that there is nothing that comes into your life without a new set of problems attached - even a £13m lottery prize!  Age makes everything a little less efficient, especially our idealism.  I ought to feel glad I have recovered from love, but in a sick way, I miss it, the brief contacts with a higher form of joy... will I ever experience them again?  Is that why people long for grandchildren and like pictures of cats on FB.  Life is duller without unrequited love, but it is certainly less sickening and depressing.   Perhaps it isn't quite the same when people recover from OCD.

Summer blogging...

Well, for a start no one reads blogs in summer.  Not many people read mine under normal circs. and now they've all gone out into the sun and stopped - even the ones in Singapore. 

I would like to wind down my activities, but until the great financial crisis is under control, there is little prospect of that.   Also, my involvement with the Summer Squall (ramsgatearts.org) means that there is no prospect of a really relaxing time until September.

We have won a trip to Belgium, thanks to Mark's photography - this is exciting.  Don't know what to do about it, but we have 9 months to enjoy it - best bet is hoping for a couple of days there in October half term.  It's a 4 hour ferry trip.  The weather is likely to be better now than in October - or is it?  The fact is that we are finally getting back onto our feet again - but a trip to Belgium could easily eat £1,000 if we spend two nights in a hotel.  How?  Well, 2 nights in a hotel and 2 evening meals for 4 people - and then a lunch or two, some entry tickets, some coffees and drinks, and buying a few foodie items to bring home... true no travel costs, and not much petrol (just the drive down to the harbour - and Ghent is apparently about 30 mins from Ostende).  I believe the euro is a bit weaker now, but not back to the happy days of it being about 63p.  What to do?   I suppose it's a relatively pleasant dilemma - the first for a while.

Meanwhile, Simon has decided suddenly to go back to Greece; we were getting to the 8 emails a day stage and his were coming more frequently than mine.  I suggested we meet because emails are just more time-consuming than proper conversations - and they make discussion difficult.  I like him very much, not least because he writes rather similarly to me and is often considering similar issues, but I detect a certain bitterness in him.  Not really surprising perhaps given what he's hinted at about his upbringing, but I imagine that one might get bitten occasionally if one got too close.  What I expected would be our first occasional meeting is now likely to be our only one.  I hope he didn't misconstrue my interest in him, it was purely friendly - I am having a slight feeling of deja vue - I think I dreamed about a meeting with someone on the Sandwich by-pass in full summer and saying something about not meeting again. 

This leads to the ever-interesting topic of male-female friendships.  At present I am not really interested in anything more than that with anyone (and I am sure the feeling is mutual).  Given my past romantic propensities there has been a tendancy to fall in love with anyone who was a remotely kindred spirit.  If I had met Simon 20-30 years ago I certainly would have fallen in love with him, but not now.  Whether it would have been mutual then is another question of such a speculative nature that it need not detain us now.   But I do remember when I was about 30 going out to dinner for the first time with Nick B - and almost as soon as we sat down he rather awkwardly said he wanted to make it clear that he did not regard this as "going out" with me.  I remember being amazed by his presumption, as he was (to me) deeply unfanciable (although attractive to others I should say).   I generally assume that if you don't fancy someone they probably don't fancy you (the reverse is not invariably true) so Nick's helpful start was amusingly offensive - but he was conversationally gawky.  A bit aspergic? I now think.

Some great French writer said that there had to be a degree of physical antipathy between a man and a woman for a friendship to exist between them.  Could it have been dear old Stendahl?  I'm sure that's true.  But it is also true that all the male friends I saw frequently before my marriage had been objects of varying degrees of sexual interest before the relationship had settled down.  And some of them had shown no especial physical antipathy to me...

We were younger then though.  What happens now?  Past life re-emerges occasionally, like the return of Ian into my life around early 2009... he was writing frequently and sending me photos.  Why did he send me photos of himself looking so uninspiring?   I have only about 3 reasonable photos of myself and I wouldn't distribute them to my male friends promiscuously (or indeed at all).  Why do people do this (Ian isn't the only one).  Or rather, why do men do it?   Is it just the Facebook era we live in?  That we must make everyone aware of our every move and expression.   Keeping a blog hardly makes me a woman of mystery (although of course, no one really knows about it) but I feel a bit of privacy cannot go amiss.

Then why do I happily write my innermost thoughts where they can be seen by a casual passer by?   Of course I wouldn't want my nearest and dearest to see these things - well, no, most of it is OK, but there is stuff in here that was described as "near the knuckle".   It's the privacy of the crowd where one is anonymous, but secretly wants to shine.   I sometimes write because I am bored - and if it is true that only the boring are bored, then - well, oh dear!  Boredom is a good spur to creativity, and much as I love living here I am much more bored than I have ever been.  I really miss good conversation, of course, I may no longer be capable of giving it.   I was a junior member of the chattering classes once - I feel as if I failed to renew my membership when I came here, and now find it really impossible to get back into the swing of it.  Of course, I am a bit bored with myself, just as M's observations and so on are predictable, I daresay mine are.

This morning at breakfast he asked me how Britain had benefitted by not being in the Euro.   I was gobsmacked, I used to know what I thought about things like this, but this morning I was unable to think of one benefit, except that we didn't have to contribute quite so much to the Greek bailout (although we gave a lot to Ireland - despite not being in the euro, because of our economic links).  I doubt whether there has been much benefit in not being in the euro, but perhaps there wouldn't have been much advantage in being in either, apart from exchange rate stability for business, which is always longed for by UK managements.

Enough, I am boring myself again.