But he wasn't respectin' mah *authoritah*!

Hmm difficult choices. Do I continue to worry about Shrub, or do I go build the ultimate ham sandwich?

Hmmmm. Even the most mediocre ham sammich in the world would be better than listeniing to chimpy.

I'll post a longer entry later, but I was so very amused by this that I decided I must post it even though I've got to get up and go do something useful cos my mom says so. ;) fourlegsgood posted that gem on an Eschaton thread ("For I am the PREZNIT!". I was also highly amused by a South Park-ism fourlegsgood used earlier in that thread: "Good. It's about time someone respected mahh authoritahhhhhh!!!!!"

Cheery bye for now, Scarlett


Listening to: Fire on Babylon - Sinéad O'Connor
Currently amused by: Authoritahhhh!

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

Yep, I've made new icons. :)See the update note thing on the front page of Scarlett's Pile O' Icons for a complete rundown of the new icons. I haven't made any new icons in ages, but over the last few days I've whipped up a few. I'm slowly starting to get back to normal - y'know, making dozens of icons like a crazy person. I hate that my OCD hasn't let me be the insane icon-maker I once was... ;) But I'm getting there. Whoop! I amused myself by making this icon:
I've recently really gotten into Sinéad O'Connor's music. It's so different, and her voice is simply gorgeous. I don't give a darn at all about Sinéad herself, though - I know she has issues, but whatever. She makes great music. However, the pic I used for the icon was just begging to be made into an icon. Like I said, I'm not into reading about and adoring Sinéad (like I am with Sarah Brightman, or Ofra Haza, and of course Freddie Mercury - but that's a different sort of adoring altogether ;) ), but I do love that she's such a fighter and... strange. :)

I think I'm officially a Hitchhiker's fangirl. I tell everyone in my house to shut up whenever the commercials come on, and I can tell within a second that the commercial is one for the movie. I find myself fretting about where Zaphod's other head went in the movie. I'm irritated by the "The last man on Earth... is the only one who can save it" line or whatever. Arthur didn't save anything (well, he did once, by engaging the Improbability Drive, but that was a fluke)! That wasn't the point!

Another annoyance - apparently the director or someone thought the story didn't have a "middle" - it has a beginning and an end, but doesn't have a "middle". Er, I dunno, but that's one of the reasons why I love the book(s)/TV series so much - the characters are just mucking about the universe. There's no real point to it all. It's brilliant.

I'm worried that they've Americanized it too much. Lots of explosions, dumbing down of everything - I don't think I'm too wrong to think that we'll see a lot of that in the movie.

And if there's a car chase in the film, I swear, I will demand a refund.

They do get top marks for getting Stephen Fry as the voice of the book, though. Excellent choice. :)

I must get to bed. I'm sleepy, which is why I've rambled so much. Oy.

Cheery bye, Scarlett


Listening to: C'mon N' Ride It (The Train) [Because I'm hopelessly addicted to cheesy dance/club songs...]

Life's backwards, life's backwards, people turn around...

(Title - lyric from Sinéad O'Connor's Fire on Babylon)

Reading Eschaton comment threads today, and came across the best Pope joke I've heard lately:

"I'm surprised nobody's made the most obvious joke: since we just had a Pope John Paul, the next one should be Pope George Ringo." - Ridnik Chrome

My feelings on the Pope-a-palooza are expressed pretty well by this comment by GWPDA, Irate Scholar:

"See, as a Protestant I can't get really [excited] about something my people said 'so long' to five hundred years ago. But hey! Nice Poping!"

Or maybe not so nice... (I have no idea why I'm so interested in all this, although the round-the-clock Pope coverage on the news probably plays a part in it) - From timesonline.co.uk -

* "He made more enemies among other religions in 2000, when he signed a document, Dominus Jesus, in which he argued: “Only in the Catholic church is there eternal salvation”."
* "His condemnations are legion — of women priests, married priests, dissident theologians and homosexuals, whom he has declared to be suffering from an “objective disorder”."
* And here's the kicker - "He joined the Hitler Youth aged 14, shortly after membership was made compulsory in 1941." (I've been reading different opinions on this point - some say it really was impossible to not do it, that it was common and doesn't meant that he actually supported Hitler, while others say "bull". We'll have to see, I guess.)

Hmm. Y'know, I mentioned in another post that I'm fascinated by the Medieval period, but that doesn't mean that I want to actually live in the Dark Ages. (I know, I'm not Catholic, so what the Pope and the Catholic Church do doesn't affect me directly - but they affect a lot of people who are Catholic and they are definitely a big presence in the world today...)

Why is the world crazy?

On to other news... Yay Democrats! OK, so not a huge thing, but yay anyway! The vote for confirming Bolton as the UN Ambassador is delayed, thanks to some exquisite smack-downs by John Kerry, Joe Biden, and Christopher Dodd. (I didn't actually see this, but I read about it, and can't wait to see it on a replay on C-SPAN). Basically, Richard Lugar wanted to vote anyway, even though they all know that Bolton's an idiot. Then Voinovich said "I don't feel comfortable voting today" and *bam* no vote! Oh yeah! Athenae of First Draft posted a brilliant comment on an Eschaton thread that sums all this up perfectly:

Biden: Kicked Bolton's ass.
Dodd: Kicked Bolton's ass.
Kerry: Put on some sexy glasses, and kicked Bolton's ass.
Voinovich: Boy, this Bolton chap sounds like a douche.
Chaffee: Maybe we shouldn't vote.
Lugar: Fuck all y'all, we're voting.

Can't wait to see The Daily Show tonight. :D I've got American Idol on in the background, waiting for it to end so that House can start. *yay House!* Can't believe that that Constantine guy "sang" (I say "destroyed") Bo Rhap on one of the Idol shows awhile back. It was horrible! The guy's not fit to wash Freddie's leotards, let alone attempt Bo Rhap. I mean, *Bo* *Rhap*. It's not a song for just any eejit to sing, and most definitely not a song to be reduced to being sung on American Idol. Just - no. Uh uh.

Cheery bye, Scarlett

Oh yes - finally got rid of my Josh Groban site. I gave all the files and stuff to a fan online, they set the site up on their site, and thus I have deleted all evidence of Josh Groban from lunaestas.com. Oh yeah! Feels good.


Listening to: Jerusalem - Sinéad O'Connor

"OK, so ten out of ten for style, but minus several million for good thinking, yeah? "

(Subject title quote - Zaphod Beeblebrox, HGTTG)

Snooglehort Vranx - yep, that's me! According to the Hitchhiker's Guide movie site, that's my hitchhiker's name. :) That's what I've spent my day doing; important things like that. :)

I checked the original Hitchhiker's BBC TV series out from the library (I couldn't believe they had it) a week ago and now must locate it on DVD or summat. I love Hitchhiker's. I love it so very, very much. I adore the books, and I adore the TV series, and soon I'll be able to adore the movie. What a fantastic new fandom I've discovered! :D

It's rather... annoying... living in the US. First, it's the US. 'Nuff said, I should think! Second, we don't have new Doctor Who! It's so distressing to read about it online and not be able to watch it! Apparently it will be released on DVD, but even that's all a bit muddled up because there's a basic release and then a super-spangly release with extra bits and such. And of course they're not being released at the same time, so if you want the spangly bits, you have to wait to buy that. But if you want to see the episodes, you have to buy the basic release first. Then the spangly release will be available, so you'll have to cough up more money (which is fine and all, as it's for a good cause - Dr Who! - but golly! Those spangly releases tend to be a bit expensive!). Such is the life of a fan... :/

To any American networks reading this (bwa ha ha - cos it's so likely to happen) - puh-lease buy new Dr Who! Please?

On another note... anyone else notice how the right's getting even crazier? I've been keeping up with political things on Eschaton, and it's just... oh golly, how can this administration even exist? How can the people who support it be taken seriously? How? Why? It's... argh. (Thanks goodness for the Daily Show!)

I'm working on my Sarah Brightman site at the moment. PHP distresses me. I'm attempting to turn the site into a fully-functional directory-type thing, a sort of bare-bones search engine just for Sarah sites. The script is excellent (The Directory at dB Masters' Scripts) and customisable, but I'm having, shall we say, head-banging-on-keyboard difficulties with fiddling with the PHP. The HTML bit of it is a piece o' cake, and I've got that sorted. But I have no experience with PHP beyond extremely simple customisation and such (all of my fanlistings use PHP), so trying to edit a, to me, massively complex script, is just a wee bit tough. Ah well, just felt like venting about that. (Truth be told, I actually really like having a challenge. Takes my mind off... um... my mind.)

I'm also working on getting back to emails - I got back to a big chunk of emails that had been sitting in my inbox a few days ago, and I'll probably go about replying to more tomorrow. So if anyone's sent me an email recently, you will get a reply! (As I'm sure you're waiting with bated breath, right?)

Tum te tum... not much else to ramble on about. I've been having a rough week with the ol' OCD, but I just have to keep plugging away. (By the time I get over all this, I'll have used every corny cliche in the book!) I picked up an application for a job at my favorite used CD/DVD store, and can't wait to see how that turns out. I'm going to return the app this week, so that'll be neat. Ooh, a job (hopefully!)! I've also finally finished the process of confirming my enrollment at the University of MD, which is nice. ;) Turns out that I did, in fact, have to do something to confirm my enrollment, even though the deferment confirmation letter basically said to just sit tight until fall. Hello, bureacratic red tape! I've been assured by my mom and therapist (!) that this is par for the course in college, so, whee. :/ But hey, at least I'm finally in. *happy dance*

I also plan on taking a summer course, preferably in history. I just have to get official confirmation of my enrollment, like a letter or something, and then I can sign up for a course. I've narrowed down to two courses that I've got to choose between. There's Europe in the High Middle Ages, which is excellent. I love me some plague! :D Seriously though, I do have this fascination with the Medieval period, so that would be a great class to take. That course runs from May to July, while the other course I'm considering, Rise of the West 1500-1789, runs from June to July. It really just comes down to which time frame I'd rather have, and I'd actually like to be busy, so Europe's lookin' good to me. :) Of course, I do have to take into consideration that the professor for Rise of the West is one D. Sutherland, which makes me wonder about the nature of that course - is it just one big toga party? ;)

Cheery bye, Scarlett


Listening to: I'm Afraid of Americans (V1) [Radio Edit] - David Bowie (It's true, too! A lot of Americans are truly terrifying!)

"We are terrible introverts, really - always thinking that what goes on in our heads is so important."

While searching on Google for "HOCD" and "gay OCD", I was stunned to see this post of mine high up on the results pages. For those of you who have found this through Google (or another search engine), hello! You may benefit from a bit of a backstory before you read the HOCD part.

I'm currently 18, was diagnosed with OCD when I was 8, and have had symptoms of the disorder my whole life but was able to manage them with medication until my HOCD smashed me round the face when I was 15. I started cognitive behavioral therapy at 16 and the HOCD went into remission after about 5 months and one week of "intensive" CBT. I enjoyed a virtually OCD-free senior year of high school, but come fall, I fell into a depression. I had to defer my Spring 2005 enrollment at the University of Marlyand to Fall 2005, as I just continued to get worse. Then, to top it all, I suffered an HOCD flare-up that December. The following post describes my experiences - from the first bout with HOCD to my current dealing with the HOCD beast.

I posted an update on May 20th about how I'm gradually getting better. You may want to read that as well (I promise it isn't as long as this post!!).

To skip the blog-related ramblings and go straight to the HOCD post, click here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Subject line is from a post at an OCD bulletin board. I've got to go back and find who said it! :) It's true, too.

Ah... so, here's a new layout. Whoop! This isn't the layout I was talking about in my last post here, where I said:

In fact, I've been working on a new layout for this here blog. It won't feature Queen, but I like to think it will look pretty spangly-tastic.

No, I'm saving that one for when I feel a bit better. A "victory" layout, I suppose. :) I do like this layout though - very spring-y, and I think the piccy of Freddie I chose is particularly gorgeous. ;)

I posted the following *novel* on my LiveJournal two days ago. I finally decided to talk about my obsession, but as I wasn't too keen on allowing the entire world to read about it (because, of course, the entire world reads my blog, right?), I chose to post it as a "friends-only" entry on LJ. That just means that only the people who have your LiveJournal on their "friend list" can read it. Nifty, really. The next day, though, I "unfriended" it, because I don't really care who reads it now. The responses I received from several good friends gave me a big confidence boost, and I feel like it's kind of silly to keep the post (novel!) hidden away like it's a bad thing. So, here it is (and here's the actual post itself; I edited out a few things before posting it here, like my "Cheery bye" and "shout-outs" to my LJ friends :) ):

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Coming out... [this was the title of the post]

... as a person with Homosexual Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. (Gave you a bit of a start there, huh?)

I must state this: I am NOT homophobic, I have NO issues with homosexuality. Although, if I say "I am not homophobic" too much, it will begin to sound insincere...! But in all honesty, duh. I'm about as homophobic as I am clever, which is not at all. ;)

I'm tired of this. I haven't talked to or seen any of my friends from high school since a birthday party thing in June. (It was June, wasn't it?) I've been going downhill since graduation and I haven't made any serious attempts at getting together with anybody. I'm going to try to arrange a get-together sometime in the near future, and when I do, I'm going to have to explain what I've been doing all this time.

I'm tired of thinking "Well, no one will get it. This isn't an obsession you talk about easily, because it's so easy to take the wrong way or be misunderstood.". I'm hoping that I'm wrong, and that I'm just very pessimistic, but... well, the obsession *is* hard to explain coherently. It's an obsession - you live in your head. You create your own logic. When you try to explain it to someone else, words tend to fail you. I write a bit better than I talk - I can articulate my thoughts more fully and can make more sense than if I were just chatting.

I've told myself that I wouldn't talk about the obsession until I got it under control, until I could claim victory and say "Well, I've beaten this thing into submission. Here's my story." It's never going to happen like that. Every day is a victory. Not a big one, but a victory all the same. I'm damn proud of myself for putting up with the shit my head comes up with. I'm going to talk about the obsession *now*. When I'm doing a-OK and feel very confident that I have a good handle on it, I'll post about it. But I'll post now, too. I'm going to post when I feel like nothing can get better. I feel like that a lot, but every day something's better. Not much is better, but little things. I can be myself again - I can be the Scarlett (well, ok, Deanna, as that's my *real* name for those who don't know!) I was a year ago. I can be the same Deanna who got the British Comedy Club going (I can only assume it's petered out now...). I can be the same Deanna who designed the Art Department section of my high school's website (it was pig doots, but you know). I can be the same Deanna. I'll just have the added knowledge that I can get through anything and that I'll always have to deal with OCD, but I can do it.

OK, enough ego-inflating.

I wrote this in an email to the wonderful and spangly Egret, fellow Freddie Mercury fangirl:

"This form of OCD is commonly referred to as Homosexual OCD, or HOCD. It doesn't actually have anything to do with one's sexuality - it's an irrational fear and can be managed, not cured, with proper medication and therapy. I started therapy for the obsession with my current therapist (I have a psychiatrist and a therapist - my psych can prescribe meds, my therapist can't. My therapist is trained in CBT, my psych isn't. It all balances out. :) ) in the fall of 2002 and went through a week of intensive CBT in February of 2003. I welcomed every "bad" thought that came into my head and did the things I wasn't able to do before therapy - get into bed while thinking of a girl and just shrugging it off and getting my mind on something else. Without medication and therapy, it's debilitating, because you spend every moment of your life doubting your own thoughts and becoming convinced that you're gay. You're not able to step back and be objective about it - you're not able to see how irrational you are and how your thoughts and compulsions are classic OCD. The only thing you can think is "But it might be real, what if I'm gay and I'm just figuring it out now? What if I've just repressed it my whole life? What if? What if? What if?". Your thoughts seem so real and you can't figure out what's real and what's not."

I had a fantastic senior year with only mild OCD symptoms, all unrelated to the HOCD. If I did have thoughts of the HOCD, they were along the lines of "What if I start worrying about that again?"

Then I graduated from high school.

Also from the same email...

"Transitions are hell for people with OCD or any sort of anxiety. I started going downhill after I graduated from high school, and it makes a lot of sense that this obsession has flared up again - I'm nervous about college and I don't have anything to occupy my mind like school. (After I get this under more control, I'm going to get a part-time job.) I thought I was cured of the obsession - I didn't think it could ever come back. Come to find out that's the worst thing you can think - it will only make any relapse you have more difficult. It will hit you harder than if you just kept it in the back of your mind that your OCD could flare up. That way you'd be able to recognize the thought/anxiety as OCD-related and handle it with techniques you learned in therapy. My therapist hadn't told me about this... that it's a lifelong thing (I know OCD is a lifelong thing, but I hadn't realized that the gay worry form was going to be there forever), and that the HOCD could come back, and that during extra-stressful times I need a little extra help so that the OCD doesn't catch me in a bad moment.

The week before Christmas (this year), I woke up terribly anxious, with the thought "Well, I may not be OK, but at least I'm not worrying about being gay again!". Cue anxiety attack. Since then I've had OK days and horrible days. Having been through it once before helps a little, but not enough. Studies have shown that people with Tourrettic tendencies (I have a touch of Tourrette's) tend to have far more vivid imaginations than most people. That's what made this bout of the obsession very difficult in the beginning - I was (am) able to vividly imagine graphic situations with women (touch, sensations, images) and that scared me. I hadn't been able to imagine such things the first time around, probably because I was still relatively young and hadn't seen very many "naughty" things (R-rated movies and the like, not porn!).

(I'm explaining the thoughts because I just want to make it clear that this really isn't a sexuality crisis, but a mental thing. One of the worst things, if not THE worst thing, to do with this obsession is to reassure yourself (or to seek reassurance from others) that it's just OCD and that it's not real. You have to learn how to function through the anxiety and with the thoughts. I'm not asking for reassurance, so please, don't post back with assurances that it *does* just sound like OCD or whatever. It would relieve my anxiety for a few minutes, but as my therapist says, "we want to stretch it to hours!" - which is only possible by not seeking relief from anxiety. I have to learn how to just let it wash over me (I was able to the first time around) and to recover from the anxiety by just getting my mind on something else, and not from an "artificial" source - someone telling me it's just OCD, me telling myself it's just OCD, etc.)"

My imagination is very vivid and in fact continues to be a big factor in any difficulty I have at this point. I can distinguish between Tourrettic tics and OCD thoughts, but that doesn't help. It is a huge leap forward though - now, instead of being in fear of the thought "What if it's REAL?", I'm just terribly, terribly frustrated that I have to deal with this crap. Yes, I do have anxious moments when the OCD takes hold and I start doubting everything, but I get through it. It sucks. It sucks mightily. (I'm making progress though, and the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel is in sight. Things are getting better.)

Why is this all so bad? Take a look at the Brainphysics OCD Bulletin Board and read what other people are going through. They're experiences aren't too far off from my own. I've done my fair share of posting there.

Again, why is this all so bad? Why can't I just get over it? I'm sure these sort of thoughts are running through your mind. I simply can't. It takes work and time. I hit rock bottom two months ago. I mean *rock bottom*. I was in such a bad way that I experienced depersonalization - "... a feeling of detachment or estrangement from one's self . The individual may feel like an automaton or as if he or she is living in a dream or a movie. There may be a sensation of being an outside observer of one's metal processes, one's body, or parts of one's body." It's common as a full-fledged disorder, or as a one-off type thing, which is what I had. I have never felt anything as bizarre and frightening as that sensation. But now I'm sitting here, writing about it. That's another victory, isn't it? :)

Some people understand OCD and some people don't. Some people think that all it takes is a bit of elbow-grease and then you'll be fine. Just get over it already! So what if you're gay?

They are the ones who don't get it.

The ones who get it realize that it's a mental disorder and cannot be cured. They get that things that cannot be cured are pretty bad. They realize that it can be managed, so it isn't that bad. But they also understand that when it's not being managed, it's very bad.

They get that it isn't a question of "accepting one's sexuality" or some crap like that. They get that it isn't about something real. They get that it is irrational but very very real to the person with OCD. They just get it.

HOCD is a bitch. I hate that it will forever have an impact on my life. I hate that it took my sophomore and junior years of high school away from my life. I hate that it's taken as much of my life as it has. I hate that I'll never be able to make anyone understand how painful it is to deal with at times. I hate that probably, in the future, I run the risk of someone thinking I'm just some insane closeted homophobe. I hate that probably, someday, someone I tell will think I'm overdramatizing my experiences. I hate that I will have to deal with HOCD and OCD for the rest of my life and that I will have to make a conscious effort all the time to manage it. I hate that I had to defer my first semester of college because I was doing so badly with the obsession. I hate OCD. I want it to take a physical form to kick it in the shins and smash it round the face and kick it in the nuts (assuming OCD has male genitalia in physical form).

I can't do that. But I can keep doing everything I can do get better, and damn it, that's what I am going to do. Fuck you, HOCD. Fuck you.

*cue dramatic music*

Feel free to comment, ask questions, whatever. Tell me what you really think. I'm sick of wondering what my friends would think if they knew that I suffered from this obsession. I'm ready to be better and I won't feel better at all if in the back of my mind I'm worrying that my friends will think I'm crazy.

PS - If you wanna learn more about HOCD, you can't do any worse than Googling it or "gay OCD". This piece by Dr Fred Penzel explains more about CBT, which is what I'm going through to defeat this shit.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ooh, I used some strong language there, didn't I? :O Well, it's just indicative of how GAHHHHHH! all this is...

Egret noted my isolation in a comment, and I responded: "What makes it frustrating is that it's a self-imposed isolation. I just sort of shut off from everybody because I feel like if I'm not feeling normal, then it would be hypocritical to *act* normal. But to get back to normal, I *have* to act normal. OCD has its own crazy logic..." - and that's why you see this new layout. I'm going to try to post regularly again, because dang it, that's normal! (Or not normal; it depends on how you look at blogging! ;) )

As a wise woman once said, "Tomorrow is another day." (Scarlett O'Hara, guys!) And as a brilliant man once said, "Rome wasn't burnt in a day." (Peter Cook, nuh-duh.) ;)

Cheery bye, Scarlett (I'll just keep on with the Scarlett thing because I'm just so used to "being" Scarlett online!)


Listening to: Feel So Different - Sinéad O'Connor
Currently amused by: The Rome quote. :D